I listen to his side of the call, and I wonder briefly why I didn’t even think about how long it was taking him to call Uncle Paul.
“Paul, you need to call your—fuck, I don’t even know. Your lawyer? Yeah. Did you see it? Fucking assholes. I went all Hulk on their asses. Yeah, broke a few frames of our wins. No. No, I know. I don’t want them to use me to say they’re some kind of—yes, exactly. Fuck, how the hell should I know if they had a clause in our contracts about using our likenesses, Paul? I’m at the hospital with Lex. We’re waiting to see if he needs surgery or not. I can’t tell you yet. You know damn well why, Paul.” By the end he sounds tired and I feel infinitely worse. “You’ll find out what’s happening soon enough. In the meantime, please get someone who can read through those damn contracts and see if we can make them take all the pictures of us down, yeah?”
I can’t look away when he puts his phone away, and though I still don’t know how to tell him how much I wish things were different, I can at least start a conversation about this shitshow.
“You okay?”
“What?” he snaps at me, with a sudden fury in his eyes that I haven’t seen since I first told him about what playing for the Empire has been really like. “What do you mean, am I okay, areyou? Is your nose still bleeding?”
I like him being all worried over me, so I don’t protest when he puts a finger on my chin and lifts my face up to examine it.
“Da-ad.” The crack in my voice is enough to have his face softening.
“What is it?” he asks softly.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, the words so low that I’m not sure he heard them.
“Lex,” he starts sharply, but I need to get this out.
“If I’d told you sooner,” I say louder. “Then maybe I could’ve found a way to fix this. Maybe I would’ve been able to do what you and Uncle Paul did. I’m sorry that you hate them now.” My voice loses all its power gradually.
“Listen to me, Alexei.” The use of my full name puts me on alert as he shifts to the edge of his chair so he’s as close as possible and grips my hand tight. His gaze is wide open, willing me to see everything there. “The stupid love and loyalty I had for them is the reason why you didn’t feel like you could tell me, so believe me when I tell you that I don’t mind losing them, all right? I don’t care about them, not at all, and I never want to put you in a position again where you think something—anything—is more important than you, okay? SoI’mthe one who’s sorry, son.”
The door opens quietly before I can blubber anything back—which is as good as that was going to go.
Eli steps in, sunlight coming through behind him making him look like the angel he’s always been.
“I’m going to New York,” I blurt, and it comes without me even having to think about it.
I don’t know if Dad and I will continue this conversation anytime soon, I’ll probably need ten to fifteen business days to digest it, and probably that therapy he’s been telling me I should get.
And honestly, Eli’s answering smile is worth interrupting something that’s been such a long time coming.
It’s worth more than knowing I’m going to play for a team whose owner—and management from what I hear—are as bigoted as anyone can be in New York.
I don’t think any of the players are especially nasty, though, at least not from my experience, so maybe it won’t be so bad.
Itcan’tbe, because I’ll be with Eli.
The doctor walks in before he can react beyond that blindingly perfect smile, with the news that I’ll be needing surgery because there’s danger of the bone shifting enough to damage my eye socket and affect my breathing.
I groan at the thought, and groan yet again when he informs me I won’t even be able to train for two weeks, and if—ifeverything in my recovery goes perfectly, then maybe I’ll be back on the ice again in a month.
“They’ll bring you down for surgery in just over an hour,” she finishes, and then takes her leave after Dad’s done asking questions.
“Let’s hope the Demons don’t back out when they hear about it,” I mumble.
“Let me tell Patrick so he can call anyone who needs to know,” Dad says as he stands. But he turns before he leaves. “Call your mother now,” he commands, with that tone that makes me automatically do whatever he says.
It’s a talent.
There’s also maybe the possibility that I might do anything he asks of me for the foreseeable future after the way he just cut off his old team for how they’ve been treating me.
Sure, I knew he was angry at them ever since I went to his house weeks ago and finally told him everything that had been going on, but for some reason I never truly expected him to just decide he’s done with them.
I could hear the fans booing and indiscernible shouts of outrage when I went down, but I couldn’t really tell if it was all aimed at me.
Bleeding on the ice and in pain, I did have a moment where the sharpest pain came from the thought that now I’d also lost the support of the fans.
