Page 36 of The Wildcat

And holy shit, did they fuck it up last night.

By the end of practice, I’m sore as shit and slow as hell. It doesn’t help that I was already fucking exhausted because Jax’s gone on a damn sleep strike this week. If he’s sleeping on me, he’s perfectly content. The minute I try to put him in his crib, he wakes up screaming. So no, I’m not in the mood to be lectured more once Coach has had his say. Especially not when our team captain, Jace Kingston, decides he wants to tear the whole team a new asshole too.

“We’re a team. If one of us goes down, we all go down. Got it?” His angry voice booms through the locker room just beforeBoone laughs out loud, saying something about Whitters going down.

Holy fuck. Kingston loses his fucking mind.

Yeah. I’m out.

That’s when I leave the shitshow and head to the showers.

I’ll deal with Ares when I get home tonight.

At least he wasn’t in the damn pictures.

Would have been better if he wasn’t involved at all.

I let the hot water beat down on me, soothing my sore muscles before I make my way back to my locker and find Jace waiting for me. At least he looks slightly less pissed than he did a few minutes ago. “You okay, Cap?”

“Fucking idiots,” he groans.

I’m half expecting him to tear into me about keeping a better eye on my brother, but he grabs something from his pocket instead and tosses it to me. “Thought you might want to have this since our first preseason game is next week.”

I look down at the white capital A on a navy-blue patch.Well shit. I run my thumb over the white stitching and swallow down the emotions that come with this.

In our league, there aren’t captains and assistants.

You’re allowed one captain and up to threealternates.

Some teams chose three, others have one.

The my time with the Revolution we’ve had two.

If you want to get technical, a captain is the only player on the ice who can officially question a ref about a call during a game. If he’s on the bench, an alternate can take his place on the ice.

But unofficially, captains and alternates are the leaders of the team. On and off the ice. They set the tone of the team. Some say the season. They’re the guys you want the rookies and new guys to look up to. The guys who can speak for the team in front of the camera and behind closed doors.

The last few years, Kingston has been our captain, with Boone and Jonesy as our alternates. But Jonesy retired after our playoff run last season, and rumor has it, Kingston might be following him out at the end of this season.

“Seriously, man?” I ask him, fucking shook.

I work hard. I’ll never give anyone a reason to question that. But when I’m done, I don’t mentor the younger guys. I go home to my family. I don’t talk to the press. I keep my head down. I don’t hype everyone up in the locker room. I leave that to guys like Kingston and Boone. The ones who like to be loud.

I do my thing but never needed everyone looking at me to do it.

“You deserve it, Wilder. If you’re gonna take my patch when I retire, I’m gonna need you to start getting your feet wet now.” Kingston’s a fucking legend. He’s been playing for this team for close to two decades. He’s got twelve cups under his belt.Twelve. We became one of the consistently best teams in the league on his back.

I close my hand around the white-stitched patch. “What about Boone?”

“Boone’s a great alternate, but he doesn’t want the C. He’s too hotheaded. Kinda like that brother of yours.” The look he gives leaves no doubt exactly what he thinks of the shit Ares, Boone, and the others were involved in last night, same as I do. “They’re both great to have in your corner, but not who you want talking to the press. That was Jonesy’s job. And now it’s yours.”

“Yeah, I get that. So the retirement talk is serious then?”

“I’ve talked with Coach. It’s not a done deal yet. But I’ve been promising my wife I’d consider it more seriously this year. She likes to tell me I’m getting old.” He shrugs. “Wish she was wrong, but my body is telling me otherwise. That surgery after the playoffs last year would have been nothing to recover from evenfive years ago. This time, it took me the whole damn offseason. Not sure I’ve got another one of those in me.”

“Seriously, I’m honored, Cap.”

“You’re going to need to work harder than you ever have, Wilder.” He leans back against my locker, and I have this feeling I’m about to get the compliment in a shit sandwich.

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