Page 33 of Not A Chance

I had a feeling that was the best I was going to get out of Campbell. Like my brothers, he loved his reputation as a prankster, so I doubted my little lesson was going to stick.

I nodded and moved around him to keep walking.

“It’s a pretty nice ass, though. You can’t blame me,” he called out once he was a fair distance behind me.

“Campbell,” I warned, stopping suddenly, and turned back.

“Oh, did you think I was talking about Layne? I meant this right here.” He indicated his own backside, shit-eating grin intact.

Clearly, Campbell had my brothers’ Teflon-type personality, on the surface at least. Nothing stuck for long.

Shaking my head, I pushed thoughts of Campbell aside and increased my pace toward the conference room.

It was time to get my head on straight for this interview. Though I’d done enough interviews over the years, the ones coming off the ice after a loss being my least favorite, I still owed it to the organization to be diligent with my answers.

Words like “veteran” and “legacy” didn’t sit right with me. It wasn’t like I needed any other reminders about how my age and a professional NHL career would soon no longer belong in the same sentence.

I wasn’t sure what wisdom I had to offer future players of the game. Every season was a fresh start because nothing ever stayed the same: a new team dynamic had to be rebuilt, skills refined, and ambitions solidified.

Lost in my thoughts, I didn’t hear the raised voices until I reached the threshold of the conference room, my body reeling from suddenly halting my steps.

“Just what I said. Theo Yao’s personal life and family are off-limits. The same things you asked Andrews and Campbell are fine, but not the last section.”

Indie’s voice projected clearly out into the hall. Her words had me clenching my fists, the tension building in my shoulders again. My agent was always clear in my contracts that I didn’t talk aboutpersonal stuff. So what was this?

In my fourteen-year career, I hadn’t once discussed my mom’s death and the devastation that followed. The memories, good and bad, were locked up securely in a vault within my mind that I rarely accessed. It was simpler that way.

Losing her had created a fissure so deep in the foundation of our family that it became a bruise that never healed. And none of us talked about it with each other.

This moment had the effect of being kicked by a steel-toe boot in that bruise. And Indie was trying to shield me from that. When I could think clearly about it, I would probably feel grateful. But not now.

Caught off guard, my ears started buzzing as the reporter spouted something about his questions being justified until the sound of my pulse beating my ears was all I could hear. My breathing stuttered as I tried to drag in some air. It took until Indie spoke again to wade through the fog of the shock.

“Anything else goes on in the next forty-five minutes and I will personally bring you a legal shitstorm of such magnitude you’d do best to tender your resignation and file for bankruptcy upon leaving this room. And that’s before I mention it to the GM and owner.”

My heart clenched hearing her defending me so vehemently with her words.

Glancing at my watch, I still had ten minutes before I was due in that room. Thoughts of arriving early evaporated from my mind. My gaze scanned the surrounding doors for a place I could use to calm down.

About twenty feet down the hallway was a maintenance closet, the door propped open with a wheeled bucket and mop. Maybe not the most pleasant space to pull myself together, but it would have to do.

Leaving the ongoing debate between Indie and the reporterbehind me, I pushed open the closet door and slipped past the cleaning equipment without messing it up. Hopefully, I could take a few minutes in here without the maintenance staff catching me.

The white-painted concrete walls blurred as I leaned against a shelf filled with bottles of chemicals.

It shouldn’t be hitting me this hard after so many years.

Closing my eyes, I forced air into my lungs. The tightness in my chest resisted the expansion of my lungs.

Get a grip, Yao. You don’t have time to lose your shit right now.

Maybe you should have spent more time listening to that therapist all those years ago instead of thinking you could handle it on your own.

Indie couldn’t see me like this. In fact, she couldn’t know that I overheard her talking to that reporter. The last thing I needed was Emery hearing that something was going on with me from her best friend.

You just keep tucking away more issues you won’t discuss with your family. Where does it end?

I allowed my hands to cover my face for a moment, wishing I didn’t have to face anyone right now, before raking my hands through my hair roughly.

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