Page 17 of Power Play

As soon as I sent the text, I frowned. Did that make it seem like I was looking forward to seeing her? Excited even?

Because I wasn’t. That’s not what our arrangement was about. I wanted revenge. Pure and simple. Not for what her father did. Fuck that. That’s what prison was for.

No, I wanted payback for what she did. For making me think I’d found something I’d spent my life looking for, only to turn it into a lie.

She broke my fucking heart that night. So, if she wanted to pay me off a few hundred dollars every week to exorcise her soul of guilt, then I would pop the popcorn and turn the screws.

I wanted her to feel what she did to me.

If a tiny part of me looked forward to Sundays, that was nobody’s business but mine.

I didn’t wait for a reply. I put my phone away and my teammate Harrison walked by with a three-hundred-dollar bottle of Clase Azul in his hand.

“Let’s fucking go,” he said, clapping a hand on my shoulder.

Harrison and I had come up together. Teammates in a gold medal winning US junior team. I’d known him since we were billeted with the same family during an OHL scouting camp in Toronto.

He was sharp, competitive and an instigator. Scrappy. Like the whole world was on his shit list.

“We did it,” he said with a smile, revealing the gap in his teeth. He’d lost that tooth in the semi-finals at the Worlds seven years ago. I’d found it on the ice and given it back to him, but he said the gap made him look crazier.

We had such dreams back then. And tonight they all came true.

Without saying a word, we hugged it out, clapping each other on the back. Both of us, I knew, fighting tears.

“Holy shit,” I breathed. “We did it.”

The flight homefrom Denver the next morning was full of sad hungover puppies. Harrison had his head buried in a bucket for most of the flight. Rousseaux did nothing but complain about the smell of Harrison’s bucket.

“How come you’re not hungover?” Staski asked. He wore sunglasses and the pale pasty complexion of a man who’d had too much vodka.

“I never stopped drinking,” I said, sipping the Bloody Mary I’d ordered the second we got on the flight.

Crowds of fans were lined up on the tarmac waiting for our plane to land. As a team we all walked the rope line, happy to sign autographs and share some of the excitement with our best fans.

From there we were bussed to a fancy seafood place near the harbor to celebrate with the mayor. We all wore suits and smiled for the press.

Hours later and Harrison was passed out in a leather booth in the back of the restaurant. Rousseaux had just limped out the door with his arm around his wife.

It felt like only the bachelors remained standing, which was usually the case. Me, Staski and Henrik. Yep, all the lucky single bastards.

“Hey,” Staski said, his silver teeth gleaming in the low light of the bar. “Let’s go have real fun.”

From Staski, that could literally mean anything. I once went out with him and ended up on a fishing boat in the Atlantic Ocean. I knew I should go home to bed, but I still had this… energy. I felt like I could run a million miles. Climb a mountain. It seemed like a shame to end this night. To end this feeling.

“Real fun?”

“Strippers!” Henrik cried and I shook my head. Been there and done that. It had ended in nothing but trouble, when a stripper I’d barely smiled at decided I was her future, and claimed I was the father of her child.

None of that had been cool. It took some time for me to realize Gayle had been desperate and not maniacal, but it still left its scar.

“No,” Staski said. “Let’s go surprise some fans.”

Henrik looked disappointed. He’d get over it.

“This sounds interesting,” I said. “Where?”

“The End Zone.”

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