Page 26 of Game On

“That’s debatable.”

“Plus, you can be my guinea pig. Help me perfect some of the questions for when I interview the players.”

Matt rubbed his jaw. “All right. When?”

“Wednesday? I’m headed to Nanaimo on Monday, and I’ll be at the office on Tuesday.”

“What’s in Nanaimo?”

Dorian crossed an ankle over his opposite knee. “Stuff.”

“Stuff related to the business idea you still won’t tell me about?”

“Maybe.”

He should tell Matt. And Charlie. But he wanted every t crossed and every i dotted before he did so. When he told them about his subscription box, their reactions were going to be That’s so cool, Dorian! Wow, you’ve thought of everything. Not That sounds like an interesting idea, but have you considered this, this, and this? Where this, this, and this were suggestions on what they thought would be a better use of his time.

Of course, they wouldn’t react that way. Logically, Dorian knew that. They weren’t his parents or his siblings.

But since when did emotion listen to logic?

Matt grunted. “Wednesday’s fine. Do you want Pierce there?”

Dorian thought about that for a second. “Do you want him in your video?”

“You tell me. This is your project.”

“I figure some of the guys with families might want their significant other and/or their kids in their own videos, so I don’t see why not. I’ll leave that up to you and Pierce, though.”

“I’ll talk to Pierce and let you know, but for now... get out of my locker room.”

Matt was fussy about who he let into the locker room the hour before the pre-game warm-up, and extraneous people were not invited, even when that extraneous person was family.

Dorian gave him a grin and a mock salute. “Sure thing, Coach.” And left.

* * *

Jamie’s first game as an Orca wasn’t any different from the hundreds of other games he’d played in his AHL career. His uniform colours were all wrong, but he’d get used to that. Everything from the coaches’ hyper-focus to the mounting anticipation as the day wore on to kicking a ball with his teammates in an empty hallway was the same.

The only difference was that nobody here treated him like he’d spat in their hockey helmet.

He thought he’d get a few more practices with the team before Coach Shore put him in. Not so. Two days after landing in Vancouver and two practices later, Coach Shore had him suit up for the first Orcas versus Colorado game of the season.

Music piped through the speakers in the locker room, though it wasn’t loud enough to interrupt the flow of conversation. Some guys shot the shit while others sat quietly and got game-ready. The players were beginning to put on their serious faces, and that was as varied here as it had been in Charlotte. Some meditated, others sat with their headphones on, a couple of guys played games on their phones, and a few scarfed down a last-minute snack.

Up until a few months ago, Jamie’s pre-game ritual had consisted of nothing more interesting than taping his own stick. After the shakeup with Scott, he’d added mental reminders to himself to have fun. Hockey was supposed to be fun. And if he couldn’t have fun in the locker room with his teammates, he could at least have fun on the ice.

According to team chatter, Colorado easily defeated the Orcas in all four games last season, which had Jamie’s new teammates itching to make them “eat dirt”—actual quote from Toussaint. This started a squabble between Toussaint and McNicoll about whether the expression should be eat ice, considering their sport of choice, which somehow devolved into them dodging towel snaps when Walters got involved. Jamie casually pointed out that eat ice wasn’t as mean-spirited as eat dirt because “who eats dirt? Probably no one except little kids who don’t know better. Who eats ice? Lots of people. Think of how many times you’ve swallowed an ice cube by accident while sipping a soda.”

They stared at him for a second, then turned on him with their towels.

Coach Shore wanted Jamie to stick to some Colorado kid who was the team’s top scorer, so Jamie was looking forward to lots of ice time tonight. Fuck, he hoped his old team was watching, because he was going to kick ass and take names. Let them see what they’d given up by alienating him.

“I want you on Platt-Myrth,” Coach Shore had said. “Chasing after him like he stole your girlfriend and you’re determined to get her back.”

“Boyfriend,” Jamie had corrected. “Maybe not a good analogy, though. If my guy went off with someone else, maybe I don’t want him back.”

Coach hadn’t so much as blinked. “Then pretend he ran off with your dog.”

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