Page 120 of The Hat Trick

He answers on the fifth ring in a groggy, clearly strung-out tone of voice, “Hello?”

“How much did you get for it?” I ask sharply.

“Huh?”

“How much. Did you get. For the tip?”

“Brent?”

“Fuck you Brandon, just tell me how much!”

“Jesus, three hundred bucks.”

My laughter is devoid of any humor. “Three hundred dollars? That’s fucking it? What did you say?”

He shuffles around a bit and groans before he answers, “I just told them to look into you and some chick named Chandler.”

“That’s it? You didn’t say anything else?”

“No, it’s not like you told me shit,” he slurs.

“You’re such a waste of air. All you had to do was get help and I would’ve given you way more than three hundredfuckingdollars. But you decided to use me for a piss ass paycheck. Go fuck yourself Brandon and never talk to me again. Don’t try to get to me through our siblings or anyone. I’m done.”

I hang up before he can retort. Of course, I knew it was him, but that means there was a way for these sleazy journalists to find out the rest. Maybe they just guessed based on the pictures. We weren’t as careful as we should have been, and maybe it’s because we didn’t want to be. We weren’t ashamed of her, of our situation. It’s just no one understands. And now we all have nothing. Chandler is hurt and there’s not a goddamn thing I can do about it. I know she’s going to have to come to us.

I doubt she ever will.

Maybe it’s for the best anyway. She doesn’t have to learn about my past and that my fucked-up brother was the reason her life just imploded. Maybe it’s best we all move on. Continue with life how it was before her.

I’ll focus on hockey, just like it’s always been. No one gets hurt that way and I can avoid the feelings I get in my chest when I think about her broken face looking at me asking for time.

I know one thing is that I’ll never get over her. I love her too much, which is why I know it’s best to let her go.

* * *

“Collee,this isn’t nap time, get back out there,” Coach yells after I took a little too much time on the bench in between drills.

I hop back onto the ice, trying my best to shut my brain off, but this has been a common theme for the last week since things ended with Chandler. I can’t seem to get my head on straight, but I’m also not the only one.

The article and all traces of it were pulled from the internet thanks to the Dragons’ PR team, but that hasn’t stopped our general manager from wanting to meet with all three of us and find out what exactly happened. That’s supposed to happen later today since we just got back from a couple away games. We have two more home games before a week and a half long road trip. Which I am not looking forward to. Especially because I’ve been playing like shit.

We also don’t know who ended up selling us out other than my shit stain of a brother. They got those pictures and found out about McQuaid and Dumont somehow. I hope that is something our GM is looking into other than wanting to just meet with the three of us and tear us apart for the predicament we’ve put our team in.

I’m waiting for my turn to go on drills and my teammate, Mann skates up to me. “You good? You are never this spacey.”

“I’m fine. Just tired.” I wave him off.

Obviously, the other guys on the team know about the article. Shit, I’m sure the whole NHL knows about it. None of them have confronted me, though. And as far I know they haven’t confronted McQuaid or Dumont either. But you’d have to be blind to see that we aren’t all acting differently.

“We are your teammates. I know you don’t like talking about shit, but we want to help if we can,” he says, and I can appreciate how genuine he sounds.

I don’t get a chance to respond because it’s our turn to run our drills and I do my best to get lost in the activity, escaping to the one thing that has gotten me through every other difficult time in my life. Hockey.

I’m dripping sweat by the end of practice and almost too tired to think about anything else. Which is exactly how I want it to be all the time. There have been days I haven’t felt like I’m tired enough after practice and end up going to the gym until I can barely move.

As I’m grabbing my bag and heading out to my car, Dumont comes up to me. There’s no one else walking out right now so he brings up our meeting later.

“You think we are going to get in trouble with the GM?” he asks.

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