Page 85 of Waiting Game

I live in Liam’s building so I could commute with him to the arena, but I don’t bother. Not when I have my own car and that car’ll be taking me to Brooklyn later on in the day.

Slinging my ass in the back of my ride, I greet the driver, “Hey, Burrows.”

“Good morning, Mr. Korhonen.”

“Less of that, Burrows, my dude. You can call me Korhonen or Cole. Pick your poison.”

We’ve had this same conversation every day since training camp started, and I reason it’ll take a little while longer for him to realize that I don’t need him to be formal.

I’m not Pops.Heis Mr. Korhonen.

Mr. Jackass, too.

Now that I’ve hired the guy to be my driver full-time, it’s even more important he stops with the ‘mister’ shit.

Liam gave me the idea when he told me the Stars hired drivers for the players as an inaugural season perk.

Why do I wanna drive through Manhattan?

Work smarter, not harder is my motto.

As expected, traffic is crazy on the ride over and I’m the last one in the locker room, which sucks because that means suicide drills for a ‘warm-up’ are in my immediate future as a punishment for tardiness.

Once I’m locked and loaded in my equipment, I head onto the ice and find that Lewis is on suicide drills duty with me.

“What are you in for?” I call out as I snow the boards in an abrupt stop.

“I got into a fight?—”

Coach blows the whistle before he can finish and the torture commences.

By the end, we’re both so exhausted that neither of us really gives a fuck about why we’re suffering, we just get on with it.

Because Coach is a grade-A dick, we’re tossed into a scrimmage immediately afterward.

But even with two of his forwards fucked from the drills, we’re game ready against the darks.

Still, it’s a relief when he switches me out for Kerrigan and I plunk my ass on the bench and gratefully grab the bottle Liam tosses at me.

“Who did Lewis fight with?” I ask as I pour half the bottle down my throat.

It has to be bad because Coach hasn’t let up on Lewis or benched him yet.

“Didn’t you read the news?” Liam asks, his eyes on the game.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I choose to wake up and believe that the world is rosy and kind, Liam. What happened?”

My bro cuts me a look. “Remember Raimond?”

“How could I forget?”

Raimond played defense for the Stars before he became my ticket out of Jersey.

“Well, unfortunately for Lewis, they both decided to visit Russu last night.”

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