Page 29 of Gloves Off

“Family stuff.” There. Nice and vague.

“If there’s any way you can reschedule, I’d like you to be there. It’s important to show the new players and staff that we’re all committed, especially experienced players like yourself.”

The thing about Ward is he knows exactly how to get you. He knows I feel a responsibility to this team. Maybe it’s that I admire his hands-on coaching style, that he’s incredible at uniting a group of strangers to work toward a common goal, or maybe that he genuinely seems to want the best for us, but I want to make him proud.

I clear my throat and nod. “I’ll be there.”

“Good man. Thank you.”

The dinner will take an hour or two, and I can slip out early. There will be so many people there, I won’t even have to talk to the doctor.

I think about our wedding, how beautiful she looked as she spat insults at me. How the hairs on my arm rose when I put the ring on her finger. The way my heart beat out of my chest as I kissed her. The second our mouths met, an electric shock ran through me.

I froze up. I never freeze up. I don’t know what happened.

As Ward’s about to leave, he pauses. “You didn’t get a honeymoon.”

Honeymoon? The idea of being stuck alone in a hotel room with the doctor for a week is a nightmare.

A real couple would go on a honeymoon, though.

Worst kiss of my life,she’d said. I remember the way her soft lips felt, and my jaw tightens.

“We’ll do it at Christmas,” I lie. “Before Miller and Hazel’s wedding.”

Fuck.Why’d I say that? I don’t go to weddings. Miller and Hazel are getting married on New Year’s Eve in Silver Falls, a tiny ski town in the interior of British Columbia where her and Pippa’s parents live. I’ve already RSVP’d no.

Three months is a long time from now. A lot could happen. I’ll find an excuse to get out of it.

My mind flicks to the doctor’s extensive shoe collection, and I wonder which pair she’ll wear to the wedding.

Ward nods with a pleased expression. “That’s great. There’s more to life than hockey.”

No, there isn’t. “Okay.”

“This career doesn’t last forever and once it’s gone...” He shakes his head, a wry smile pulling up on his mouth. “Some guys have a tough time after retirement, when they don’t have anything other than hockey.” He gives me a quick wave, a nod, and he’s gone.

Don’t I fucking know it. My retirement looms closer with each day.

CHAPTER 13

ALEXEI

The next morning,I pace in the kitchen, waiting for the doctor to get here.

I’m not used to living with someone, especially someone I can’t stand, but we’ll never see each other. I spend half the season on the road. When I’m in town, I’m at games, training, or working with health professionals, trying to undo years of damage on my body.

My gut drops when I hear the doctor’s car pull up outside. At the front windows, I watch an old sedan park in the driveway.

I frown. Is that rust on the wheel well? The car is old in the barely-running way, not in the vintage, collector car way. My new wife is way too superficial to drive something like that, but I’m not expecting anyone else?—

The doctor gets out of the car. Is this a joke? That car is probably older than I am.

A moment later, there’s a knock at the door.

I open it and lean on the doorframe. She’s in leggings, a windbreaker, and sneakers, and I’ve never seen her dressed so casually. Even dressed for the gym, she looks hot. Annoying. She’s breathing heavily, a little flushed, with strands of auburn hair escaping her ponytail, and my mind goes to dirty, depraved places. I bet this is what the doctor looks like in bed, rumpled and breathless.

Right before her jaw unhinges and she bites her partner’s dick off.

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