Page 4 of From A to Us

Roman was the director of player engagement now, but back in his captaincy, he’d fostered an inclusive and respectful environment based on communication and trust that still existed today. He had programs in place to promote the team culture, but it had been as he and Sandro Zanetti—one of the veteran players he’d tapped on the shoulder to help expand those programs—had begun work on a new wellness initiative that they’d discovered gaps in their programming.

Nolan had studied the hell out of their programs, and as an expert in employee engagement initiatives, he could say with certainty that they were good. Great, even.

Yet they didn’t work for everyone, a fact that Zanetti had noticed last season when a couple of rookies—including Eli—had struggled with the demands of NHL life. Nolan had been hired to figure out why the team culture didn’t work for everyone and where the weaknesses were so that Roman and Zanetti could plug those gaps and make the culture more inclusive.

Team Captain Kyle Dabbs nodded at Nolan as he sat. “Hey, man. What are you doing here?”

Almost as if they’d choreographed it, every player’s head turned as one in Nolan’s direction like some kind of horror movie remake. They’d been chirping each other when they’d entered the room, so no one had noticed Nolan, the odd man out in this crowd.

“I’ll get to that,” Roman said as Eli broke into a wide grin. Though there was also a tilt to his head that spoke of confusion. Nolan smiled back, warmth spreading through him. He and Eli had texted off and on in the past ten months, and he was looking forward to spending time with him, both as a sociologist-shaped fern and as a friend.

Eli wore gray Trailblazers sweatpants and a long-sleeved blue T-shirt that outlined his biceps in a way that made them look oddly artificial. His blond hair was a mess around his head, short strands falling over his forehead—it appeared to still be damp from his post-morning-skate shower—and he sat with his arms crossed over his chest and his legs kicked out, wholly at ease.

“Who’s going first?” Roman asked, holding a bowl with folded scraps of paper over the table.

This was one of the team-building activities Nolan had read about in the documentation Roman had provided, and it had also been in one of the episodes of a recent Trailblazers docuseries. At the start of every meeting, five people chose a name out of the bowl and they had to say something nice about that person. It was frankly a little juvenile, but in this crowd, Nolan could see why it would work.

“I’ll bite.” Eli rose, reached into the bowl, and extracted a piece of paper. “Matty Coates.” He looked over at the team’s goalie, who sat at the end of the table with his hands threaded over his ball-capped head. Light-skinned, dark-haired, and taller than most of the players at six-three, his shoulders took up that entire side of the room. “You, my friend,” Eli said, resuming his seat, “kicked ass against Washington on Tuesday. Shutout, thy name is Matty Coates.”

A rousing chorus of “Fuck yeah!” echoed around the room.

Matty Coates shook his head. “I don’t know if I can do that again. The Undergrounds struggled last season, but they’ve got their shit together this year. If they keep playing like that, another shutout probably isn’t in the books.” He retrieved a paper from the bowl when Roman reached his side. “DeShawn James. Your slapshot’s improved a hell of a lot since last season.”

“I hope so,” DeShawn muttered. He was the other rookie who’d struggled last season. “I spent the latter half of the summer working with Coach Friedle. And he only yelled at me a few times.”

That earned a round of laughter as well as a deadpan “I never yell” from Friedle.

DeShawn chose a name from the bowl, and once he and the next two players had taken their turns, all five scraps of paper were returned and the bowl disappeared somewhere as if by magic. Planting a foot against the wall behind him, Nolan pushed himself away from it to get a better view behind Roman, but it truly was as if the bowl had disappeared into thin air. Did he have a secret compartment in those jeans?

“Now that that’s done,” Roman said. “I know you all want to get out of here, so I appreciate you staying after practice on a game day because I wanted to introduce you to our new hire sooner rather than later. I’m sure most of you have met Nolan Madolora at some point?”

“Nolan’s working for the organization?” Eli asked, and from his tone, Nolan couldn’t tell if he was pleased at the idea or not.

“Temporarily,” Roman said as Nolan went to stand next to him at the head of the table. “We’ve hired Nolan to consult on the organization’s culture.”

“What does that mean?” D-man Michael Hughes asked, his dark-eyed gaze full of scrutiny.

“It means,” Nolan jumped in, “that your culture is one that other teams strive to replicate. But it’s not perfect. There are weaknesses that mean some of you don’t feel as included as you should, and some of you just don’t know how to acclimate to the culture. So I’m here to pressure test it and figure out why that’s happening and how to strengthen existing programs to eliminate those weaknesses.”

“Right,” Deeley said, nodding. He was a young guy—a couple of years younger than Eli—who’d been called up from the Trailblazers’ farm team a couple of seasons earlier. “But how do we know—and no offense, Nolan—how do we know you won’t take what we say straight back to Coach Madolora? He is your dad. Isn’t you working here—especially in this kind of role—a conflict of interest?”

“Sure is,” Roman said, almost happily, because he was a contradictory asshole as far as Nolan could tell. “But HR didn’t tell me not to hire him.”

“And besides,” Nolan jumped in, having anticipated this line of questioning. He’d just had the same discussion with the office staff upstairs. “I don’t work for my dad. I work for this guy.” He jerked a thumb at Roman. “But more than that, I’m not here to . . . I don’t know . . . tattle on anyone. I’ll sign NDAs with every single one of you to prove that if I have to. I’m here to stress test your team culture and investigate why your programs don’t work for all of you, and then report my findings and possible solutions to Roman, without naming names. Because it’s not about you as individuals; it’s about the type of person you are. Your personality. And why some types of people integrate better than others.”

Sitting next to Michael Hughes, Sandro Zanetti gave a lazy thumbs-up. As the player working with Roman on the engagement programs, he’d known about Nolan’s role from the beginning. Hell, he’d even sat in on Nolan’s interview.

“Welcome to the team,” Zanetti said.

“Oh, I’m not . . . I’m not technically part of this team,” Nolan said, because he’d never been part of any team. Not fully.

He’d never been part of his parents’ team—they’d divorced when he was a kid, and he’d grown up with his dad since his mom was an airline pilot, and her schedule meant she was away for half the month. Up until Nolan was fifteen, Dad had coached at the local and college level, and Nolan had joined him at the arena before and after school and on away-game trips until he was old enough to stay home on his own. He’d bounced from city to city with Dad, tagging along as Dad got new coaching gigs, constantly the new kid everyone gave the side-eye to. Especially Dad’s hockey players. Nolan had only played hockey for a year—he much preferred solo sports—so the players hadn’t known how to relate to him.

Not that Nolan had known how to relate to them either.

And school? With each new city, he’d tried to find his clique, but it hadn’t been until he’d met his best friend at summer camp that he’d felt like he’d found a true friend.

University? He’d thought for sure he’d find his people, but the ones he’d met had been the friendly-with-while-sitting-next-to-in-a-lecture-hall type, not the hang-out-with-outside-of-class type.