Page 2 of On the Power Play

Jack was numb as he swiped out of his internet browser and checked his text messages. Eighty-seven. He hadn’t had that many text messages since . . . well, since the accident.

He ran a hand over his face as his gut clenched, then started at the bottom.

Thanks, Mom. Love you

It was electric

Talk more at practice

The more replies he sent, the faster his heart raced. The excitement that came with playing hockey on the big stage had lifted him into the clouds, but when he woke up the next morning, he’d be standing on the ground. Specifically, laminate hardwood floors.

Tomorrow, he’d wake up and eat eggs with his sister Clara and her husband Oscar.

Tomorrow, he’d turn on his computer and work from home, playing the middleman between designers and the executive team and hunting down new retail channels.

Tomorrow, he’d go back to being Jack Harrison, twenty-nine, with a +10 in his last AHL season. Which nobody would care about because tomorrow he wouldn’t be a player in the NHL.

Jack exhaled and moved on to the next text message.

Maybe he didn’t need to go to bed just yet.

Chapter One

Delia exhaled in relief as the final chords of her guitar quivered in the air. The crowd in front of her—directly in front of her, since the stage was only six inches off the main floor of the makeshift theatre—erupted as the strings still buzzed against her fingertips. Not with the fervour you'd see at a Mother Mother or Drake concert or something, but with more energy than she'd ever anticipated after an acoustic set.

She'd spent the past three years playing dive bars, open mic nights, and house parties before signing last summer with IndieLake Records. Since then, her professional life had gotten a full-on glow-up. She'd played shows across the country with full bands, larger venues and stadiums, and yet these simple evenings with just her and her guitar were still her favourite.

Delia closed her eyes and let the applause wash over her, then slipped the strap over her head and gripped her guitar as she gave one final wave, blew a kiss, and made her way backstage.

"Great set, babe." Her best friend and manager, Mary, gave her a side hug. Delia collapsed against her. Every time she walked from the spotlight into the darkness between the curtains, it was like a switch inside her body flipped. She was done. She could throw on a sweatshirt, flop onto a couch in the green room, and introvert for as long as she wanted.

Mary knew the drill. She wiped Delia's shoulder sweat from her palm onto her pants as they walked to the stairs.

Delia plucked out her earpieces. "Enthusiastic crowd tonight."

Mary grinned, and it looked almost sinister in the shadows as they descended to the green room. "I knew this was a good idea. Tony wanted to book the Guilded Ballroom again, but I told him we needed a break from turn-of-the-century soundboards."

Delia nodded, her head still thrumming from the lights and the music pumping into her ears. It was quiet as they entered the room. Which was the cue for her internal thoughts to swell to the surface like sirens from the sea.

You missed this lyric on C'est un Fait.

Your voice cracked on the bridge for Shiny People.

Was that guy on the front row licking his lips purposefully whenever you looked at him?

Playing live was an existential trip. She lost track of time. Felt disconnected from her body, or sometimes slammed into it so fully, she couldn't process anything outside of her breath. Her lips brushing the microphone. Her fingers on the guitar strings. Then, that reality warp was followed by an intense and almost debilitating deep dive into an anxious abyss.

Not that she was a stranger to that sensation. Her mind spun a thousand times a second on a regular Tuesday.

Delia had discovered in preschool that music was the trick to pulling all the wheels onto the tracks, and she’d played everything she could get her tiny hands on. Cutlery on pots. Her dad’s old harmonica in its leather sleeve. A plastic toy piano her mom had spotted at a garage sale. She’d gotten her first guitar at age ten and had never looked back.

Signing with IndieLake was supposed to be the end of that journey. The tippy-top of her climb. She’d made it.

If only someone would’ve told her that getting a record deal meant you were automatically enrolled in a battle-to-the-death, king-of-the-hill competition. If death were the top of the music charts and the battle was misting her vocal cords and sitting in front of a microphone pop filter.

Still. The pressure to produce songs and shows that people loved seemed to gradually leech that old magic. Homeostasis required a regular supply of caffeine and a daily dose of ADHD medication.

Except when she wanted to create. Then she took neither.

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