Page 15 of Blood on the Rocks

Chapter 8

Because she didn’t getany work done the previous day, Seraphina sat in the dining room in the house she shared with her sister, financial books and her grandfather’s planner scattered across the dining table. Since Katella was at Sea Side Ice Palace throwing an event meeting with the Gulls Girls, Seraphina thought it was the perfect opportunity to get some things done without the possibility of any distractions. She had her hair pulled from her face in a loose, messy bun, sweatpants, and a baggy t-shirt. Her face was free of makeup, as it usually was, and there was a barely-touched glass of ice water sweating off to the side. If she was being honest, she couldn’t remember the last time she ate today. But if she was hungry, she didn’t have an appetite for anything in particular. Currently, she had the end of the pen between her teeth, her brow scrunched – which no doubt would leave permanent wrinkles due to the fact she had been doing a lot of furrowing lately – her fingers dug into her hair.

“Why couldn’t you have just kept a journal, Papa?” she murmured once again to no one in particular. “It really would have made my life so much easier.”

There were so many questions she didn’t have answers to, such as whether her grandfather really did want to sell the team. Her gut told her that there was no way he did or else he would have mandated that it be sold in his will. However, she remembered that he wanted to spend more time with both she and Katella, especially since Seraphina had just graduated and would therefore have more free time to do so. He even talked about the three of them heading over to Europe for the summer, but things came up on both Katella and Papa’s part that prevented them from doing so. He talked about doing something during the winter, but even Seraphina, who didn’t know anything about hockey, knew that despite the holidays that made up December didn’t mean hockey was on holiday as well.

But did wanting to spend more time with the two of them mean that Papa was going to sell?

Logically, it made sense. But... Papa didn’t need the money and he loved hockey and he loved his team. And Papa loved to work. It gave him a sense of purpose, something to do. He always told her that he knew people his age, some younger, some older, that would kill to have something to do at their age. Especially something they loved.

However, Seraphina also knew that there were aspects of her grandfather that even she did not know about. He never talked about the disputes she was certain he had with both Ryan and Alan. He never told her about his fears if he had them. He never told her about any problems he had regarding the team. He never told her when he was stressed or worried or upset. In that way, he was the sisters’ strength, the rock they could lean on no matter what, but he never allowed them to be his rock. In that way, he seemed to prefer his solitude. Which meant that there were things he thought about, decisions he made, that Seraphina didn’t know about.

Which meant there was a chance – however slight it might be – that he was considering stepping down as the owner of the Gulls. Did that mean he was going to sell the team? No. But maybe he wouldn’t devote as much time to it as he had been.

Another question that had been running through her mind was whether Papa wanted to trade Brandon Thorpe or not. This one wasn’t as clear cut as the previous one (and that question wasn’t as easy to decipher as Seraphina originally thought) and it was more difficult for her to reason through the possible answers because she was afraid she might be biased.

Seraphina liked Brandon Thorpe. Yes, he was arrogant and self-righteous, but he was good and with his skill as a goaltender, he had reason to be. He was straight forward and honest, controlled and cool. And very, very good looking. At least to Seraphina.

It was difficult for her to set her observations aside and look at this question as rationally as she could. She knew her grandfather well and she knew how he viewed people like Brandon Thorpe. Papa didn’t want to sign guys who were simply good; he wanted to sign and play guys who wanted nothing more than to play, who played because they had to, they wanted nothing to, because they enjoyed the game, because they had passion for it. He wanted to sign guys who loved not only the game but their teammates and viewed the team as a surrogate family. He wanted bright, determined players on his team, who never put their individuality above what was best for the team. It was loyalty. That was the most important trait Papa looked for in a potential player.

Seraphina believed that Thorpe had it when Papa first signed him. He had to have, or Papa wouldn’t have even considered him. But something happened. Thorpe didn’t just get good, he got better until he was practically the best, and as such, he wanted compensation for being the best, regardless of the loyalty he might or might still have for his team. Which forced Papa to figure out if Thorpe was worth keeping. Yes, he was good, but would his big-headed presence compromise the ethics Papa had built the team upon?

She rolled her shoulders back, feeling an ache begin in the middle of her back.

Seraphina wanted to say that it didn’t matter how good Thorpe was; if Thorpe was going to demand more money, Papa wouldn’t sign the player. But there had to be more to it; there always was. If Papa looked for loyalty in his players than that meant Papa also had a strong loyalty for them. He wouldn’t just get rid of Thorpe without at least talking to him about it, maybe think of some sort of compromise. Hell, Papa had even come to her and asked her about it without, of course, naming names. Seraphina’s gut told her that he had yet to actually make a decision regarding the matter, especially after finding out from Thorpe that he had yet to talk to her grandfather about it directly.

“Man...” She released her hair so she could rub the bridge of her nose with her fingers. “Time to stop thinking about things you don’t know. You’ll just keep going around and around.”

Seraphina sat up straight and reached for her grandfather’s most recent financial book and decided to look through it. Again. Bringing it closer to her, she sighed, wanting nothing more than to call it a night and go to bed. But she had to this.

There had to be something there.

She looked at the estimated budget for this season, yawning as she took the number in. It still amazed her how much money went in to financing a hockey team. And the budget didn’t just include the team, coaches, and staff salaries, it included merchandise and event budgets. It was in line with the previous season, which meant Thorpe’s demand really was last minute. That, or Papa really was planning on trading him.

Seraphina flipped the page where a list of the player names and the salary they would receiving for this season. She paused and grabbed last season’s book, wanting to make comparisons between the two years. Maybe that would give her something to go on.

Each salary was similar in comparison to the previous year. Some received the exact same dollar amount, while others had they salary broken into multiple years. For example, Kyle Underwood was signed for three years last season, receiving four million for those years. As such, he was paid a set amount each year that added up to four million. Nobody received an excessive raise or a demotion. Everything seemed pretty solid.

And then she got to Thorpe’s name.

The salary was the same from the previous season, but next to the number, in the margins of the page, was Papa’s familiar handwriting. Worth it? Bench him?

Wait a minute...

Was Papa even planning on trading him in the first place? It sounded like he was thinking about not trading Thorpe, but maintaining his current salary and benching him. Like a compromise. As though to tell Thorpe that Papa didn’t want to trade him but he also wasn’t going to pay a larger sum to Thorpe. Instead, he wanted to keep Thorpe and his salary, but bench him for some games rather than have him play for the majority of the season.

Which, to Seraphina, revealed just how much her grandfather must have wanted to keep Thorpe. While Papa was willing to compromise, this particular deal he seemed to want to make with Thorpe was more than what Papa usually sacrificed for other people.

So why did everyone think he wanted to sell Thorpe? If Papa was still making that decision or trying to work out a compromise, he had yet to announce anything. And one thing she was absolutely certain about was that Papa would have said something, whether it was to her, to Katella, to Henry, to Simon, or to the media. But he said nothing. Which meant he hadn’t made a decision. And yet, people thought that he was intent on selling the goaltender.

Seraphina would need to know why that was. Perhaps she should talk to Henry or Simon. Maybe Papa did go to them, or one of them, to talk about Thorpe. They might know better about what he should do over her; she was just an ignorant young granddaughter while Henry was the Gulls’ head coach and Simon was the financial director.

But that wouldn’t explain the words he wrote. Unless he had made a decision and just forgot to erase the pencil marks out. That also made sense. Seraphina continued to look through the current financial book, hoping to find any more hints about what he was thinking. But besides notes about where the money was going, ideas about events, notes about the players themselves such as Alec – FAMILY, something Seraphina assumed was important to Alec Schumacher but otherwise had no idea about the purpose of these little notes, there was nothing. Nothing about selling the team or trading Thorpe.

If anything, the notes and the plans Papa made proved that he wasn’t going to sell the team. Why would Papa plan everything out, salaries, events, new ideas for merchandise, if he was just going to turn around and sell the team? It didn’t make any sense.

Then again, these technically weren‘t the official books. “Oh yeah,” she murmured, an epiphany lighting a bulb over her head. Simon Spade had the official books. Perhaps Papa was planning on selling the team and-or trading Thorpe but just hadn’t transferred the numbers to his own books. She knew these books were for his notes rather than official statements, and Papa was notorious for getting too busy to update his own notes. Normally he did so when he had time. This summer had been a whirlwind, Seraphina remembered. He probably didn’t have the time to update his books.

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