Page 87 of Puck Happens

Novek high-fived me and walked away to his sleek, completely impractical for Maine, Corvette. I was halfway back to my lonely apartment when what he’d said registered.

The guys saw the way Dillon looked at me.

Maybe me leaving wasn’t enough. What if we needed better damage control?

The big oaf might ruin my career even while we were doing the right thing. We needed to make sure we fixed this now.

I pulled into the nearest liquor store.

This called for gin.

* * *

Dillon

My couch was extremely comfortable.And long. Deep, too. Four hockey players could sit on this couch and not touch each other. A guy could stretch out and take a nap on this couch without ever feeling like he was laying on rocks.

I hated this couch.

I kind of hated my apartment right now. It was a beautiful apartment that I’d paid some sophisticated woman a lot of money to decorate. It had high ceilings. An open concept floor plan, so I could see the front door and the kitchen, my massive big screen TV all at once. Behind me there were sliding glass doors that lead to a balcony that was large enough to entertain ten additional people.

But it was cold. Empty.

Did I need a few plants or something? Art on the wall?

I had my framed jerseys from the Olympics and the Stanley Cup win. My peewee jersey from the Calico Cove Renegades.

This is where I lived during the season. At least for home games. The rest of the time it was on the team plane and in hotel rooms. Hotel rooms that all looked alike, smelled alike. Didn’t matter how fancy it was, the bath towels were usually scratchy.

Never once, not one time in the ten years I’d been playing professional hockey, did I think I was lonely.

Loneliness had never occurred to me. Growing up, it had been the four of us in that cramped little house. Mom and Dad. Me and Wendy. When I played club hockey I had teammates. Roommates.

I was surrounded by people all the fucking time.

But now, sitting here on my couch, in my big fancy cold penthouse, I felt it.

Loneliness.

I rubbed a hand over the left side of my chest, like I could soothe away the ache. Only this wasn’t a contusion or a torn muscle or a broken bone. It was something that hit me deeper and I didn’t know what to do with it.

Beside me, my phone started to vibrate. I picked it up with the desperate hope I would see Liv’s name on the screen. But no, she wouldn’t call me. I knew better than that.

It was my sister and I jumped on the distraction like an overtime shoot out.

“Hey Wendy, what’s up?”

“Whoa! What’s the matter with you?”

“What are you talking about? There’s nothing wrong.”

“Dude, you sound like your dog just died, which is not possible because you don’t have a dog.”

“Maybe I should get a dog.”

Wendy barked out a laugh. “Yeah, how are you going to do that? You travel half the year.”

“Did I ever tell you I hate hotel towels?” I closed my eyes and rested my head on the back of my couch. “Like hate them. Hate that they’re always white, too small, very scratchy.”

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