Page 86 of Interference

As soon as the door was closed behind me, I leaned against it and let all my emotions came crashing in. My knees shook. My eyes stung. Lily was right beside me, pressing against my leg, and just feeling her weight and hearing her soft snuffling as she sniffed my hand (probably searching for bacon residue) turned me into a complete mess.

We weren’t going back out on the street.

We weren’t going to have to find food or shelter tonight or any other night.

Lily wasn’t going to the Doberman rescue.

There was no telling what life would look like after the hockey season ended and Anthony helped me find a long-term solution, but we weren’t going back.

I slid down the door as I tried to just find my breath and absorb my new reality. Our new reality.

Lily whined softly and licked my hand. I exhaled and wrapped my arms around her. As she leaned against me, I buried my face in her neck and didn’t try to hold back the tears. I hated crying, but this? This was relief. This was the end of an exhausting, miserable battle. This was… fuck, I couldn’t even put names on all the emotions crashing through me, but my God, it was amazing.

“We don’t have to go back out there, baby.” I petted Lily’s side. She licked me again, and I laughed through my tears. “You get to play with the kitties for a while longer.”

Then I held her tighter to me and fucking sobbed. Just the thought of her and Bear getting the zoomies together or her and Moose sprawled out on the living room floor wrecked me. This poor dog had huddled against me for months as I’d tried to protect her from the elements. Guilt had torn me apart because she’d deserved so much better than that.

Now…

Somehow…

She had so much better.

And by some miracle, so did I.

Chapter 25

Anthony

“Well done, boys!” Coach beamed at us from the middle of the locker room. “Let’s keep that momentum rolling, all right?”

We all cheered. Hell yeah, we needed to keep this rolling. We’d absolutely stomped Miami tonight, snapping their nine-game win streak with an 8-2 blowout and extending our win streak to three. I’d even finally scored my first goal of the season.

I fucking loved nights like this. Nights when the whole team just gelled perfectly, and when I was playing the kind of hockey I knew I could. These nights were addictive, and I hoped the season was full of them.

D’Angelo had the MVP helmet from our last win, and he held it up. “Great game, guys. Beaus, you stood on your head. Third and fourth lines, you were killing it out there. But I think we all know where this is going.” He met my gaze across the room and gestured at me with the helmet. “Blueliner with two assists and a goal tonight. Good work, Aussie.”

I grinned as I got up. He handed me the helmet, gave me a quick hug and back slap, and said over the cheers of our teammates, “You killed it out there, man. Keep it up.”

I nodded sharply. “I will.” He let me go, and I put on the helmet. Ugh, two months into the season, and this thing already stank to high heaven. “Good game, everyone. Let’s see if we can make it four in a row!” That prompted more cheering, and we all continued stripping off jerseys and gear.

I was almost giddy from the night we’d had. The night I’d had. The first dozen or so games of the season, I’d been struggling hard, but I was finally finding my stride. I’d drawn a number of penalties but hadn’t taken any in like five games. I’d notched six points over the last three games, including three tonight, which had earned me second star. Hell, I’d probably been in the running for first star, but Beaus deserved it after forty-seven saves against a team full of snipers.

I was still smiling like a fool when they let in the reporters. Honestly, I didn’t mind talking to them most of the time. They sometimes expected me to have some long, profound answer when all I wanted to say was, “We sucked tonight,” but they weren’t bad. Our team reporter had a good rapport with all of us, and she managed to have interesting questions that required thoughtful answers. I appreciated that.

But as I was peeling off my chest protector, I caught sight of a reporter who made my teeth grind. Cole Tandy. Ugh. Did he have to be in town tonight? Apparently so.

Tandy lived to stir shit up. If he couldn’t find drama, he’d create it with clickbait headlines. There was the time he titled an article something about Chicago’s star goalie rushing to the hospital and missing a game at the last minute, making it sound like he’d had a medical emergency. Turned out the goalie’s wife had gone into labor. Another time, Tandy had ominously reported that negotiations were “at a standstill” between the Bobcats and D’Angelo, and half of Seattle’s fanbase had panicked, thinking we were about to lose our captain. No, the parties involved had just agreed to pause negotiations until the off season so D’Angelo could focus on playing. Two weeks after the playoffs ended, he’d signed a six-year extension that would likely carry him through to retirement.

So I never liked seeing Tandy lurking around the locker room. How he still had press credentials was a mystery to me, though I’d heard rumors that he’d threatened to write an exposé about the League shutting out journalists. Which meant the clubs all had to play nice with him, and so did we, because he wouldn’t hesitate to write a piece about a player getting spicy with him.

I fucking hated that asshole. And I really hated how he kept glancing toward my stall as I answered questions for our team reporter.

Oh God. Was I on his radar tonight? Fuuuck. I’d rather get yelled at by Coach.

Sure enough, as the team reporter moved on to interview Simon, Tandy sidled up to my locker stall, phone up and recording. “Great game, Aussie!” he said with that phony-ass smile that meant he was fishing for something.

I gave him an equally fake smile. “It was a team effort.” A vague, canned answer, but this was the guy who’d take “thanks, I was happy with how I played tonight!” or “I played better than I have the last few games, so I feel pretty good about it” and turn it into a player claiming credit for the entire team’s victory. Slimy motherfucker.

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