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Chapter 8

Stefan lucked out with respect to the drills.

Everything else was a clusterfuck.

The team wasn’t coming together. At all.

Their former captain, Gordaine, had been a great hockey player, despite his complete failure at possessing any of the morals a normal human being might have. But Mike Stewart was a cancer to the team, eating away at every single bond Stefan had managed to erect.

It would have been annoying, or maybe just a little sad—the way Stewart so effectively tore people apart—if not for the impact it was having on Stefan’s, and every other person on the Gold’s payroll, livelihood.

If the Gold were sold, chances were the team and staff would be dismantled, parceled off to other teams or maybe just let go altogether.

Which was the nature of hockey, he supposed. Players were traded all the time. Families were moved or separated. But ninety-five percent of the team and coaching staff were good, hardworking people.

He didn’t want the Gold reduced to pieces under his watch.

Yet Mike was almost certainly ensuring that would happen.

He’d been bumped to third-line defense when Bernard had joined the coaching staff this season and seemed to think it was his personal duty to show everyone how unhappy he was with the decision.

If the drill called for no contact, Mike used his stick, elbows, and fists instead of his shoulders and body. If it called for light contact . . . you’d better watch it. Your ass was getting laid out.

After the third time Mike drilled their rookie, Blue Robertson, into the boards, Stefan had had enough.

It was unnecessary, and someone was going to get hurt.

He skated over and got into Mike’s face, yelling at him to back off. Surprisingly, Mike nodded, muttered an apology, and got back into line.

Alternate universe. Clearly Stefan had just stumbled into one.

He turned to Blue. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” the nineteen-year-old snapped. “I can handle myself. I don’t—” He broke off, peeled himself up from the ice. “Mind your own fucking business.”

Stefan watched Blue skate away and tried to figure out where in the hell that conversation had gone wrong.

When he turned and saw Mike with a smirk on his ugly mug, Stefan knew.

The cancer was spreading.


Usually Stefan stayed late and did off-ice conditioning—stairs, squats, wind sprints, that sort of thing.

It was comfort and training all in one short forty-five-minute workout, doing the exercises he’d learned as a kid when he and his mom hadn’t had any extra money for a professional off-ice coach. And it probably said strange things about him that one of his happiest childhood memories was running through the routine with his mom.

But then again his mother had always been his rock. Add in hockey? No question why it had become so important.

Typically a few of the guys joined Stefan for the workout, but today he undressed, hung his gear, and showered as quickly as possible.

“Stairs?” Max asked, mid-sock removal.

Stefan shook his head. “Not today.”

“Everything okay?”

That was the proverbial question, wasn’t it? Part of the reason he was so concerned about the Gold disbanding.

His mom’s doctors were in San Francisco.

“Everything’s good,” he forced himself to answer in a neutral voice. “Just have a meeting.”

“This about the restaurant?”

Stefan’s lips twitched. “You know there’s no way I’m investing in your restaurant, right?”

“The food will be incredible.”

“Half of restaurants fail in the first year.”

“Pff. Minor detail,” Max said as he straightened and stripped out of his jock. He stood there for a long moment, dick flopping, completely naked, then his eyes flashed over Stefan’s shoulder.

To where Brit sat, unbuckling her pads.

Max’s eyes widened, and he sank to the bench, covering his groin with a black-and-gold hockey sock.

“Nothing I haven’t seen before,” Brit said, in a voice slightly louder than stage whisper. Her gaze was focused on her pads as she fussed with one of the straps. “Don’t let your balls smell on my account.”

Max’s cheeks went a little pink, but he pushed off the bench, dropped the sock, and hit the showers. He snagged a towel along the way—probably the first time in history he’d done so. Max was one of those guys who didn’t mind being naked.

“Air drying,” he always said, “is the way to go.”

Stefan thought it more likely that Max’s mouth was moving so fast his brain didn’t have a chance to remember pesky things like public nudity.

Still, he glanced toward Brit. “Shh-wetty balls?”

Her lips twitched. “You quoting SNL on me?”

“Those were the better days.”

Stefan had meant the show, but a wave of nostalgia rolled over him, softened his words until they had taken on a completely different meaning.

One he really didn’t want to discuss with anyone.

Son of a bitch.

He bent, tied his shoe. He just wanted to get out of there as quickly as—

“Everything okay?”

Brit’s question was gentle, way more so than anything he’d heard come out of her mouth in the last couple of hours.

Dammit.

“I’m good.”

“You su—”

“I’m sure.” He shouldered his small workout bag, pushed his wallet into his pocket. The equipment guys would take care of the rest. “You’ve got enough to deal with. Why don’t you worry about yourself?”

Stefan hadn’t meant to sound like a dick.

He had anyway.

Brit’s expression locked shut, all the softness disappearing as her face went completely smooth. She held his eyes for another second, scalding russet depths that seemed to pierce right through him.

Then she turned back to her equipment without another word.

It was a dismissal, plain and simple. One he’d facilitated, but damned if he didn’t hate it.

Not the time, Barie. Not. The. Time.

“See you tomorrow,” he told her.

Brit nodded.

With a sigh, and feeling like he’d just blown a Golden—no pun intended—opportunity to bond with Brit, Stefan turned and left the room.

He couldn’t worry about hurt feelings, about dickwad defensemen, or investing in a Gold-themed restaurant that was probably going to sink and sink fast.

His mom needed him.

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