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“I hope so.” He sighs. “If we get knocked out of the playoffs again, I’m going to lose my shit.”
“Me, too. I can’t handle another year of missing the playoffs. My contract is up next year, so I have more on the line than the rest of us.”
“That wouldn’t stop the organization from trading any of us.” He says the words with a sour look on his face. “You’ll get your game back. Just hang in there, and it will all come back to you. Well, I have to get going. I have a date with this chick I met a few days ago.”
“Since when do you do dates?” I deadpan with a smirk my lips. Liam is just as much a player as Tyler and me. Or at least as much as we were before we met our girls.
He shrugs. “I don’t. I was just being nice and calling it a date.”
I laugh at his comment and slap him on the back. “You better get to it then. I’m off to meet up with my girl now.”
“You and Tyler,” he says, shaking his head, disappointed, “what a bunch of pussies you guys turned into.” He catches my frown and adds, “Don’t think I haven’t overheard your conversations about Sydney. You two are like a bunch of girls gossiping over their boyfriends.”
“ I am not.” I make a fist and punch him hard in the biceps.
He laughs it off, taking a step back from me. “Tyler maybe, but I am not pussy whipped.”
“Whatever you say.” He flashes a set of white teeth as the corners of his mouth turn up into a smile. “I’ll catch you later, man.”
I nod. “Later. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
Liam smirks. “That’s a short list.”
There’s some truth behind his words. If only I could get past my wall, and do the one thing every sane man does in front of his woman. Only time will tell. Sydney promised to wait. She’s been very patient with me. Soon enough, I plan to show her everything, down to the deepest part of my soul. She should know what she’s getting herself into before it’s too late.
Liam walks past me, slinging a gym bag over his shoulder as he exits the room, disappearing into the hallway. Most of the guys are shuffling about, some in towels and other dressed and on their way home. After the night I had with Sydney, I’m jonesing to give her pussy another pounding. Just thinking about fucking Sydney ha
s my dick at half-mast.
On my way out of the locker room, Tyler clamps his hand down on my shoulder to stop me. “Hey, do you have a minute? I want to show you something.”
I come to a halt. “Is it about the tapes? Liam said you guys found something on them.”
Tyler drops his hand back down to his side, a sullen expression scrolling across his face. With one look, he makes me nervous. “What did you find?”
“It’s easier if I show you. Liam didn’t pick up on it, but I know you well enough to know this has to be the reason.” He guides me down the long hall, checking over his shoulder before he removes his cell phone from his pocket.
We stop at the end, leaning our backs against the cinderblock. Tyler sucks in a deep breath as he flips through his phone in silence. A beat passes between us where my stomach knots in anticipation of what he found, while Tyler scrolls through videos with a worried look in his eyes.
“Got it,” he announces, holding the phone out so I can see it. The screen is paused, the images of the players blurry and pixelated. “Do you remember when we played the Capitals at home last season, and I got into it with Parker before he got his ass traded to the Flyers?”
“I guess.” I have no particular memory of the game, only Tyler and Parker taking turns whooping each other’s asses up and down the ice.
“Just watch. You’ll see the same thing as me.” He hits play on the video.
I watch as our guys turn over the puck to Alex Parker. On a breakaway, Alex rushes down the ice with our guys trailing behind him, moving the puck from left to right, as he attempts to dodge our guys. That fucker is fast. I’ll give him that. We lucked out when we acquired him from the Capitals. Nothing on the footage is out of the ordinary. As per the usual, Alex is showing off his puck handling skills and speed.
But then it happens. As Alex gets closer to the net, I sink into position, waiting for him to attack. I’m ready and determined to stop the puck until Alex moves his stick back to take the shot and Tyler comes up from behind and trips him. Alex falls forward and into me, his stick landing down hard on my back. I flinch at the sight of him hitting me.
I’m instantly taken back to the days where my dad would hit me so hard with his belt I couldn’t sleep for days. The pain was unbearable.
“Fuck,” I mumble under my breath.
Resting my head against the wall, I look up at the ceiling, unable to watch anymore. Memories of the past come flooding through my mind, and I cannot stop them. My father was the reason for so many wrongs in my life. When it had come to hockey, he left me alone, let me do my own thing. But I always paid for his bad moods and violent outbursts.
There were times when I would come home from a game, pleased with myself for doing so well, only for my father to get into a fight with Jenny that had required me to intervene. Those nights were the worst. Most of the time, he would yell at Jenny for working extra shifts, all of which were to help pay for my hockey equipment or to put gas in her car to take me to a scrimmage. After everything she had done for me, I wasn’t about to let her take the brunt of the harassment. Not when I was able to take that pain for her.
“Don’t worry. Liam has no idea what I found. I can guarantee no one would ever figure this out. It took me a while to notice the change in your behavior after it had happened. I flipped through to the end of the game and compared it to the game before and after. I knew right away that Parker’s stick was the reason you’ve lost your mojo. All the signs are there. It’s as if you are associating hockey with your dad now.”
