Page 45 of My Lucky Charm

“Yeah, no thanks to me,” I told him. “And they’re going to point that out.”

“Take the high road, Hawke,” he said.

High road. Whatever.

Sitting here, facing this crowd of reporters who have never played the game, the high road feels like the other side of the world.

“Burke, it was widely reported that you were largely responsible for bringing Grayson Hawke to the Comets,” a small guy in a white button-down asks. “How do you feel about that decision now?”

A smarter man would remind himself there are cameras trained on him. That any muscle twitch is going to be replayed over and over on the internet. But not me. I glare at the reporter, waiting for Burke’s well-rehearsed answer.

Burke’s gotten this public relations thing down pat. He’s gone from bad boy to golden boy practically overnight. I could ask him for pointers if I cared enough about how these people saw me. But I really don’t.

“You mean because Hawke and I aren’t clicking the way we need to yet, or . . . ?” Burke asks.

“Uh, yeah,” the reporter says. “Sure. Clicking together, let’s go with that.”

And then Dallas leans back in the chair, smirking. “I know what you’re trying to do, Bernstein.”

“What? I’m just. . .” the guy starts backpedaling.

Dallas cuts him off. “It’s fine. It’s a fair question. It’s going to take a bit to work things out, out there on the ice. We expected that. We just haven’t found our groove. I believe the man sitting next to me is exactly what was missing from our team. There’s no way we can win without him.”

I’m uncomfortable with the compliment. It’s not what he rehearsed in the locker room. Still, I remain stone faced.

“What about you, Gray?” The reporter looks at me. “Is it a groove thing?”

Click, click. Cameras on me.

“A groove thing?” I repeat back to him.

“You’ve been vocal about not wanting this trade.”

I pause, and then ask, “Is there a question?” doing nothing to hide my disdain.

“Do you feel like you’re letting your new team down?” he asks.

Click. Click, click.

I feel heat rise up the back of my neck. “You obviously have an opinion about this, so why don’t you tell me—am I letting my new team down?”

The reporter looks at the guy next to him, then back at me. “I think the numbers would bear that out, yeah. Productivity down, penalty minutes up, power play kills down, all compared to this time last year.”

I make a motion as if to say there’s your answer.

“So, what, just not a good fit? Are things going to work here in Chicago?” another reporter asks.

“You have no clue, do you?” I snap at him.

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s easy for someone like you to sit there and make assumptions. You’ve never played this game? Have you?”

“I don’t think—”

“No, you don’t think,” I say. “You’re all useless. Nobody cares what you have to say. So, why don’t you just—”

“Thanks, everyone, that’s all the questions we’ll take for tonight,” Burke says, cutting me off. He pushes my microphone away and stands. “Let’s go.”

---