Page 87 of Slash & Burn

Jill popped to her feet, her head whipping around the room as if looking for all the stuff she had to pack before laughing at herself and picking up the only thing she’d brought with her—her purse. “I’m ready now, hot shot,” she smirked, making me feel a little bit better for abandoning her.

Almost as soon as I got on the road in Portland I got the call from Coach. He was pleased to hear I was already on my way south, but he cut the call off before he gave me any more information. I had a hard time imagining Daly doing something egregious enough to get him kicked off the team, but that was the vibe I had as I walked into our offices in Boston.

All I’d been able to find online was that Daly was in police custody following an incident that had happened at 1:00 a.m.. Little else was being shared, but I got the sense by Coach’s scowl that he knew more.

“Daly’s gone,” he announced gruffly the minute the door to the conference room closed behind him. The handful of players sitting around the table mumbled and shook their heads while the ones on the screen, each in their own tiny square from places all over the world erupted in questions.

“This information doesn’t leave this room,” Coach barked, silencing everyone. “He was intoxicated and hit a pedestrian crossing the street in Brookline.”

My gut dropped out.How the hell?Daly wasn’t an angel, but imagining him being that reckless, that negligent—it sucked all the air from the room.

“He’ll be brought up on charges before the day is over, but management and I are in agreement. He’s out.”

“Coach,” Cooper interrupted carefully. Blaise didn’t say a word, but held Coop’s gaze long enough that he went on. “Did the person make it?”

Blaise dropped his eyes to the conference room table. “It doesn’t look good.”

Fuck.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

We’d all made stupid fucking choices at one point in our lives. There wasn’t a soul at that table that hadn’t chanced it at least once. But knowing that Daly could have killed someone was hard to wrap my head around.

“We’ve got a counselor,” Blaise said, waving his hand at the door. “Talk to them if you need to. This shit is going to get real before it goes away.” Scratching his hand through his hair he looked around the room. “He was one of us, but he fucked up. So, now we’ve got to bring it in. We can’t let the noise from this get into our heads or into that locker room. You hear me?”

Blaise wasn’t an unfeeling guy, and we could all see him trying to work out how to navigate something none of us was prepared for. There was nothing we could do for Daly now, but it still felt like shit to just cut and run on him.

“Training camp is less than a month away, but we’ve obviously got some work to do to fill that gap. I’m bringing up a couple of guys from Providence starting this week.” He leveled a hard glare at me and I sat up a little straighter. “If we could get some ice time with them, that would be good.”

I nodded, my stomach twisting because this meant my summer was over early. I had one more event to do with Jill, but I’d need to be back here in Boston full time now if we were going to break in a fresh wing from the feeder team.

“Let’s focus on what we can control,” Blaise said, taking his time to look each of us in the eye. “Starting today we regroup. Stay true to the basics and build on what we’ve got. Got it?”

Heads nodded in the room and mumbled agreements filtered through the computer screen.

“All right. More to come.” He gave one final nod to the fellas online before clicking to end the call. AJ and Cooper and I started to head for the door when Blaise stopped me.

“A minute, Holloway?”

Cooper looked between me and Coach like someone had just stolen his favorite crayon, while AJ didn’t react at all. After they’d both left Blaise sat down in one of the chairs and leaned back with a deep sigh.

“You ready?”

He didn’t know about my head being fucked up, but it wouldn’t have mattered; whether my shoulder or my mind, the answer was the same. “Yes, sir.”

“The guys from Providence are decent. I was already looking at one before all this. Danny Michum. I think he’ll do well, so focus on him. But give the others a chance. We’ll sort out the final direction in camp.”

“Okay.”

Blaise swiveled back and forth in the chair, a heaviness to his expression that wasn’t his normal kind of pissed off. “If you need more time, Grady, tell me,” he said, his eyes landing on mine as he let out another sigh. “I need you to be honest right now, cause we don’t have a lot of room to fuck around here.”

“My strength is back,” I said, gripping the chair in front of me. “Range of motion is eighty-five percent, but it’ll be one hundred by the time we get to camp. And everything else is good. I never let off on conditioning, and I’ll get on the ice every day between now and then to be ready.”

He nodded, his scrutiny unrelenting. “And everything else? You’re feeling good?”

Blaise was as ignorant to my nightmares and panic attacks as everyone else in my life, save Jill. He had to be talking about captain. “You mean leading the team? Cause I can do that right now.”

There was a flicker of something in his eye as he huffed out a half-laugh. “I don’t doubt it.” It felt like I’d sufficiently passed his test, so I straightened, preparing to head out when he said, “It’s gonna be harder now.” With his pause, he rose to his feet. “The fucking Daly thing, it’s going to boil over. The press, the victim’s family.” He shook his head. “You better be ready.”

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