Page 26 of Two for Charging

Luca drained his espresso. She wanted him to ask. He would not give her the satisfaction.

“You ever read your scouting reports?”

“Years ago. Before the draft.”

“Right, well, they all have this line in them. ‘Mazetti is a quiet presence’ or ‘Despite his quiet demeanor, Mazetti’s on-ice creativity and speed get his team chances no other player could create.’ You see what I’m getting at?”

Luca shrugged again. He’d read the same reports. They were accurate.

“It’s a code, Luca. It means ‘This guy is talented, but he’s locker room poison.’”

Wishing he hadn’t finished his drink so he could still do something with his hands, Luca looked away.

“Now, as far as I can tell, plenty of the guys seem to get along with you fine, which is weird because you say just the meanest things.”

“Like today on the plane.”

Lindy smiled encouragingly. “So you noticed.”

“Of course I noticed. I’m not an idiot,” Luca burst out. Then he remembered this was his coach, his real coach who cared about the team’s success. Real coaches didn’t take kindly to criticism. He took a breath. “I do not do it on purpose. And some locker rooms are so toxic one must become ‘poison’ to survive.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Lindy reached out and patted him on the arm, and Luca wanted to be annoyed by it, but instead found himself comforted. “This isn’t me threatening you, by the way. This is me trying to figure out how I can get you comfortable on the team and in the room.”

“Oh.” Luca had no idea how to respond. He hadn’t thought of himself as uncomfortable, but once she mentioned it, it seemed obvious.

“We’ll work on it. For now, I’m glad to hear you see it yourself. I think this team can do great things, Luca, don’t you?”

Realizing she expected a response, Luca smiled weakly. “I suppose.”

“Good talk.” She pushed her chair away from the table. “Now, I have some assistant coaches to hound into getting dinner with me. Anything else we need to talk about before I do?”

Now he had said the words and made the connection, a part of Luca wanted to justify his attitude, to tell her what it had been like on his Juniors team, why he had returned to Italy before the draft, how lonely he’d been. But he’d tried that, once, in Winnipeg, and the coach had told him to have a stiff upper lip. He didn’t need to hear that again. Instead, he said, “My Italian grandmother would have you murdered for drinking coffee with milk after lunchtime.”

She shook her head fondly. “There’s the Luca Mazetti I know.”

It did not sound complimentary.

Perhaps understandably, Luca was out of sorts when he knocked on Breezy’s door.

“Hey,” Breezy said brightly. “What did Lindy want to talk to you about? You doing okay? Want to get dinner?”

“Nothing important,” Luca muttered. “Get your shoes on.”

He ought to apologize about the plane again.

He didn’t.

He also didn’t tell Breezy where they were going until they got there.

On the plane, he’d debated doing the Space Needle or the glass gardens, but they would have had to stand in line, and something about Breezy’s big stature and spun glass artworks felt too comical. Instead, he took Breezy to the covered market at Pike Place and watched him wander from stall to stall, inspecting fresh produce and walls of leather handbags and shop upon shop filled with children’s toys.

“Oh my God, I haven’t seen one of these in ages.” He picked up a fluffy square object purporting to be a stuffed animal with large plastic eyes that stared into Luca’s soul.

“Wee-tah kah-wee-loo!” it yelled after Breezy squeezed it, and Luca nearly jumped out of his own skin.

“What is this demon creature?”

“It’s a Furby,” Breezy said, as if this should have been obvious.