Page 12 of A Loser by Christmas
He looks over my shoulder, and the light spilling through those restaurant windows finds glints of gold in his beard. It’s another reminder of the glow cast by that incubator that fades as soon he backs deeper into the alley. “The detail doesn’t matter. Not if I can’t get released from my contract.” He backs even further into shadow, and I hope my camera’s night-vision catches what I glimpse right before his head dips again like it has once already.
He really is desperate.
“I need to get released. And I need it to happen ASAP. That means actioning a solid plan before I leave London.”
“Which will be when?”
“The week before Christmas when I’ll head home to Cornwall.” I stave off a prickle of worry that my contest entry won’t be ready before my own mid-December deadline, and then tune into him adding, “Then I’ll probably head stateside before the New Year. Maybe a little bit after.” He rubs the back of his neck. “It depends.”
I don’t need to ask on what. He rushes to tell me.
“This recovery time is my one real chance, Valentin. Wheels will start turning in the new year, and I’ll be handcuffed to a commitment. One I would never have agreed to if I’d...” Calum rubs at the back of his neck again. “I need to deke it.” He translates what I guess is hockey-specific lingo. “I have to find a way around it so I can take that better-for-me option.” I guessthat option must involve money—it’s the next thing he mentions. “That’s why I’ll throw cash at getting released. What I don’t have is any more time after this December. It’s all I’ve got. The rest of this month.” He straightens. “And you.”
I search the shadowed face of someone big enough not to be scared lightly. He is. I don’t need more light to see it. I feel it the same way I did around Reece whenever lifeboat sirens sounded. The difference is that Reece’s fears were for other people. I’m not so sure that’s the same for Calum. Besides, fear shouldn’t be a factor for someone who straps blades to his feet and hurls himself into the path of other giants.
To win.
“I can’t lose this chance.” He’s as gritty as I’ve felt each day closer to my contest cutoff. “It’s the last one I’ll get.”
To score an even more lucrative contract somewhere else?
I’m not convinced. Not after videoing parents handing over their life savings to bloodsuckers, desperate for a spot on a boat that could easily sink with their entire families. Calum Trelawney has enough cash to buy a whole flotilla if he wanted. Wanting even more cash shouldn’t make him as frantic as those families, should it?
I can’t see his real motivator. “What have you tried already?”
“To get released?” He scrubs a hand through his hair. “Tried negotiating through my agent, but she got nowhere, apart from getting management to agree to this recovery time here. That was a big deal. A massive concession. A one-off. They wouldn’t budge on anything else.” He chuffs, his breath clouding. “I thought that was it until I remembered what a player on another team did to get released.” Just as quickly, he says, “Forget about him. My club insisted on us signing extra NDAs since then.”
“Why?”
“Because...” He seems to struggle for an answer. “Because no club wants a weak link made public. None of us can talk aboutanything that could help another team’s game-play tactics. The penalties are too costly.” He’s silenced by passing voices. Once they fade, he continues. “But it did remind me of someone else who was dropped out of nowhere. No one knows why. It got locked down tight. All I can think is that the guy did something bad enough to trigger a disrepute clause but not something he could be prosecuted for.”
“So you intend to . . .”
He squares those massive shoulders. “Dent the club’s image. It’s the one way left to make them cut ties with me voluntarily. Only I’d need to let them down big time. And in public. Pull the same kind of integrity trigger so hard that I shame them into letting me walk away. And you’ve?—”
I square my own shoulders. “Got a track record for being a shame-maker?”
He shrugs. “Someone had already tanked Jack’s confidence.”
I bet I know which sleazy event photographer did that initial tanking.
Calum lays some more blame much closer to home. “But that video of yours going viral must have felt like the whole world was laughing at him. The comments were rough.”
I never meant to topple a domino that led to so many subscribers typing things likeha ha, loser.Now I get to hear the consequences.
“It took Jack a long time to recover. To let himself believe we saw the real him.Allof him. Not a snapshot that a manipulative content creator uploaded to make him look stupid.”
We’re alone in this alley. Calum’s older brother might as well share it with us—I can still feel Reece’s disappointment in me, which leaves me feeling weirdly greasy. At least that Lito Dixon reminder brings another option to my mind.
“You need a drug habit. Coke, maybe, or something harder.”
Calum shakes his head. “It’s too late to make a hardcore addiction convincing. I passed testing at camp, and at the start of the season, even before the battery of tests I went through after I was injured.”
I mention what Lito all but confirmed with his party-powder comment. “But what if I videoed you supplying it to other players?”
“No way. I can’t risk getting busted for doing something actually illegal, and then not being able to play again after this is over.”
“Wait. You want to stay in the game?”
