“Will do, love.”
They left and I closed the door, turning and leaning against it. I was about to give in to the nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach again when my back pocket vibrated.
A text.
From Brody!
B: HEY. I’M DEFINITELY CONFUSED AND PRETTY PISSED. I NEED SOME SPACE TO THINK. I’M HEADING OUT OF TOWN WITH THE TEAM TONIGHT BUT WILL BE BACK IN A FEW DAYS. I’LL CALL YOU. IN THE MEANTIME, I’D APPRECIATE IF YOU DIDN’T HANG OUT AT THE PARK WITH ZACH.
Shit. The park. How did he know about that?
My stomach flipped and I suddenly felt worse than I did two minutes before.
I UNDERSTAND. I LOVE YOU. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH. PLEASE DON’T FORGET THAT.
I waited and waited, staring at my phone.
He never answered.
“What the fuck?” Viper skated up to me as the burgundy jerseys from the Colorado Avalanche all clumped together, high-fiving and celebrating their goal against me.
Without making eye contact with him, I lifted my helmet up and rested it on top of my head. The Colorado fans cheered and banged on the glass, some of them even flipping me off, as I set my stick on the net. It took every drop of strength within me not to flip them off in return. My eyes panned over to Coach Collins who was pacing the bench with his arms folded across the chest of his cheap-ass suit, glaring at me.
Calm down, Collins. It’s one fucking goal.
“You’re playing like shit tonight. Get it together,” Viper snarled at me when he realized I wasn’t going to answer him. Now I wanted to flip him off too. I took a swig from my Gatorade water bottle and pulled my helmet back on.
Four more times the Avalanche players piled in together and congratulated each other.
Four more times Collins glared at me.
After the game, I put my head down and tried to ignore the taunting fans as I skated off the ice.
“Fuck you, Murphy!”
“Don’t look like an MVP to me!”
We’d lost 5-2 and it was my fault. I get the whole “Win as a team, lose as a team” bullshit, but this was all on me. It was my job to block that little black puck from making its way across the line and sounding the alarm, but I failed tonight.
Five times I failed.
I hated that fucking alarm, especially when it came from my goal. That spinning red light and annoying horn signaled failure to me. I heard it more times tonight than all the other games this season combined.
Big deal.
It was one game.
One game that, at the end of the season, wouldn’t matter.
I’m lying.
That game did matter. They all mattered. More times than I could count, a team lost a play-off spot with one game. Sometimes one fucking goal in your whole entire season made the difference between being on the ice for play-offs and sitting at home and watching them on TV.
When I got to the locker room, Collins was already in there, standing by my locker.
“You okay?” he mumbled as I walked up.
“I’m fine,” I lied, not wanting to tell my coach that my world had collapsed in more ways than one over the last few days.
He nodded and scanned the bustling locker room. “Just an off night or what?”
“Yeah,” I snapped, looking him in the eye. “I had a rough night. Sorry.”
“You want to go up for interviews?”
“No. Not tonight.”
He patted me on the shoulder and walked off.
The last thing I needed was a bunch of bloodthirsty sports reporters asking me the same questions over and over, wanting to know why I’d missed so many shots. Who the hell even knew the answer to that?
I pulled my jersey over my head and started the process of taking my pads off. Louie glanced at me out of the corner of his eye before he turned the TV in the locker room on and flipped the channel to the postgame interview. It was no secret I’d played badly tonight. It was also no secret I was pissed off at myself about it. Normally, I was the jokester after the games, but tonight, I didn’t want to talk to anyone.
Well, except for one person, but I wasn’t ready to talk to her just yet.
I sat on the bench and sighed, leaning forward on my elbows and resting my head in my hands. It was bad enough that I could hear the interview; I didn’t want to see it too. The reporters started firing out questions about me right away.
“Coach, are you worried about how Murphy played tonight?”
“No,” he responded. “It is what it is. We’re all human. It’s his first bad game all season. Everyone is entitled to a couple.”
“Coach, coach!” another reporter shouted out. “This is a contract year for Murphy. Is that having an effect on his abilities?”
Collins exhaled loudly into the microphone. “It is a contract year. Is it having an effect on him? Who knows? I can’t answer that. I’m sure it’s stressful to know that your every move is being watched and weighed by the front office, but he’s tough. He can handle it.”
“Coach Collins, sources close to Murphy say that there are some personal relationship things that could be affecting the way he played tonight. Do you know anything about that?”
My head snapped up to the TV.
Fucking vultures.
I could feel every guy in the room staring at the back of my head.
“Listen. You know what? He doesn’t talk to me about things like that and he doesn’t owe it to me either. He’s here to do a job and he does it damn well. Did he have a rough night? Yes. Will he bounce back tomorrow? Yes. Do I think his personal life has anything to do with it? No. Even if it did, it’s none of my—or anyone else’s—business. That’s all for tonight.” He pushed the microphone away from his face and stood up from the table looking as pissed as I’d ever seen him. He lost his cool just as much as the next guy, but almost never on camera and certainly not during an interview.
Collins stormed through the locker room without making eye contact with anyone—especially me.
“That was rough.” Viper sat down next to me, sweat dripping from his temples. “You all right?”
“Fine.” I slammed my skates into my bag.
“You don’t look fine.”
“Okay, I’m not fine.”
“Anything you want to talk about?” he asked carefully.
I sat up and stared straight ahead. “I don’t want any advice,” I warned.
“Done. Lay it on me.”
“He’s back, her ex. For weeks apparently, but she didn’t tell me.” I sighed.
“Interesting.”
“That’s all? Interesting?” I gawked at him.
“You didn’t want my advice.” He shrugged. “So I’m listening.”
“If I were to ask for your advice, what would it be?”
“Easy. Kick his ass. She’s your woman; fight for her.”
“I did. I think I broke his jaw.”
His head whipped around to look at me as he clapped my shoulder, hard. “Nice! Attaboy! So why didn’t she tell you?”
“I don’t know. I’m assuming she didn’t want me to be mad?”
“Wait a second.” He stood and tossed his own skates in his bag. “What the fuck do you mean you don’t know why she lied? Didn’t you ask her?”
“I was mad. I left. Haven’t talked to her since.”