Page 64 of Sweet Thing

“What did you say?”

“Just a fun new nickname. Can’t choose your own, y’know.” He pressed a button on the treadmill. “Narquist.”

Narquist. Narc. Got it.

My part in Sven’s ban from the league wasn’t a secret. Seventeen years ago, the draft was approaching, and I was about to be named, when I got a call from the Commissioner’s office.

Are you betting on professional hockey games?

My world imploded.No. Not me, sir. It must be some mistake.

I knew what they were thinking: like father, like son.

Sven Nyquist had been suspended once, six years before, when he was caught gambling. Another infraction and he’d be out of the league altogether.

I assumed it was an admin error or someone with a beef against my dad. He’d made a lot of enemies over the years and his lack of remorse around being caught for gambling had only made him more.

I immediately called him. “Dad, I just heard from the Commissioner’s office.”

Sven made a noise in his throat. “What does that asshole want?”

Close to forty, my dad was on his last legs in the NHL, holding on for dear life after a series of bad investments had threatened the security of his retirement. He drank too much and barely put in the effort anymore, but he had two years left on his contract with the Detroit Motors, and that team was in the second round of the playoffs. Sven had won the Cup once in his first year out and had flirted with a Finals run a couple times since. This was his last year. His final shot at going out in a blaze of glory.

“He says there’s an investigation into me. For wagering.”

My father remained silent, and that’s when I knew.

“What did you do?”

Another cough preceded too long of a pause. “Me? Nothing.”

“You did something. You—Dad, what did you do?”

“It’s nothing. It’ll blow over.”

“I’m about to be drafted.” It had been my dream from the first day I set foot on the ice. Every beating, every harsh word, every tortured moment as Sven Nyquist’s son, I could forgive it all if I made it to the pros. Hockey was the scaffolding for the relationship with my father, the only thing we had in common. I’d been so ashamed when he was suspended before, but we got through it.

Now, this.

“Dad, did you place a bet on a game?”

He chuckled. “Well,Ididn’t.”

Fuck. I hung up.

During the investigation, I wasn’t allowed to take my spot in the draft. By then they’d figured out my father had placed bets in my name, and I was innocent, but the powers that be insistedthe optics weren’t good and I should wait until it all blew over. Sven was kicked out of the league one game before the Motors won the Eastern Conference. My father never made it to the Finals that year, or any year after. Banned for life.

The next year I signed a contract with Boston. But my father’s stink followed me around for years.

He never forgave me for not taking the fall for him. He claimed that if I’d pretended those bets were mine, I would have gotten “a slap on the wrist.” My career would recover. Instead, he had to suffer the ignominy of a ban in his twilight years, slinking off into the sunset in shame instead of full throttle in victory. Detroit won the Cup that year but he wasn’t allowed to receive a championship ring.

I never spoke to him again. Seventeen years of silence. Not even when he got emphysema or cancer; he co-existed with one disease and was fighting the other when he snorted a line of coke, slapped pedal to the metal, and crashed into a tree.

These days, there was always some dick who thought it amusing to remind me of my roots. Of the fact I “sold” Sven out because I wouldn’t take the rap for him. Sins of the father and all that shit.

Rowan MacFarlane had been gunning for my spot as Kershaw’s partner since he arrived. He was hoping I’d blow up at him and give him an opening, but no way in hell was I surrendering my spot in Theo’s last season. We were the dream team on defense, and I intended it to stay that way.

“You have something to say to me, MacFarlane, say it.”

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