Page 74 of Puck My Stepbrother
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I am.”
Now Dad leaned the table.
“This is obviously bothering you,” he said. “I don’t think you should let this problem fester.”
“I know I shouldn’t, but I really think it’s best to let it go.”
“You know this could still have negative consequences for the wedding, right?”
“I know it might, but I’ll manage it.”
“If you really think you can,” Dad said.
“I’m going to have to.”
And then I stood up and left the room rather than extend the conversation further. Sometimes that’s all you can do. Dad wasn’t wrong, though. It definitely could have negative consequences for the wedding. Worse, I doubted Levi cared. He’d grown so obsessed with me that nothing else seemed to matter.
If I couldn’t tell Dad what the real problem was, I’d fight this battle alone. I had no idea what Levi Dunn would do, but I knew he wasn’t done with me.
28
LEVI
“Do you understand the gravity of what’s happening to you, to this team?” Coach Hardison asked.
He sat across from me, behind his enormous desk, making me feel like I’d been called into an ivory tower. When he leaned forward, I wondered if he meant to intimidate me, but I wouldn’t flinch. I hadn’t feared blowback from Ryan Detenbeck, so I wouldn’t fear it from Coach Hardison, either.
“I do, sir.”
He was the coach, and I was the player. What the hell else could I say?
“Now, let’s review…”
Oh God, not a review. That shit drove me and all the other guys on the team nuts.
“When I put you in the starting lineup, I thought you were ready for it. More than ready. Long overdue, actually. You were hungry. You were determined to go out there and leave your mark on the hockey world. You didn’t take shit from anybody. I thought you’d be able to fill the void that Kayden Preston and Erik De Ruiter left when they were drafted to the pros. But instead of doing that…”
Of course he wouldn’t finish his sentence. What he didn’t say would pack an even bigger punch than the words thatdidleave his mouth. I was a knucklehead jock, but I knew how the world worked. I also knew that being summoned into the coach’s office was the hockey version of being sent to the principal. Soon he’d slap my hand and send me on my way.
In other words, I only needed to grin and bear it until our little meeting had ended.
“Things did start out the way I’d hoped,” he said. “You showed me all the things that made me push you to the top of the depth chart in the first place. Yeah, I know you can be a hothead, but you could really play the game, and that was all that mattered. But in the last six to eight weeks, something’s changed. I don’t know what. I’ve quizzed your teammates to see if they know why. Everyone else seems as baffled as I am.”
Thank God Ryan Detenbeck could keep a secret. Only I wasn’t so sure I wanted it kept secret anymore. I’d wanted to tell the goalie all about what had been going on between Quinn and me, but I hadn’t found a good moment.
Still, Detenbeck had been right about one thing: everything that’d been going on in my life had affected my play. I wasn’t the hockey player I’d been even a month or two ago. Forget about a quick route to the pros like Preston and De Ruiter. If I kept this up, there was no telling what would happen.
“It’s my responsibility to make sure every player on this team performs to the very best of their ability,” he said, “and if someone slacks, I need them to pick it up. It’s called accountability.”
I know what you call it, jackass. It’s the very same thing I normally demand from every one of my teammates.
“And there’s even more accountability for guys like me,” he continued. “If the team fails, I lose my job. If you fail in your job,Levi, you loseyourjob. The NHL will be cutthroat like that. If you want to make it to the pros, you’d best get used to that idea.”
Any other time, I would’ve snapped at Hardison, not giving a shit if he was the coach. No one would talk down to me like that. Even better, I would’ve done anything to prove him wrong and show him what I was made of. The fire that burned deep inside me would’ve intensified until I blew a stack.
“Tell me this all makes sense to you,” he said.
