Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 54091 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 270(@200wpm)___ 216(@250wpm)___ 180(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54091 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 270(@200wpm)___ 216(@250wpm)___ 180(@300wpm)
“He’s not playing tonight. He’s injured.”
Suki gives me a concerned look. “What happened?”
“He doesn’t know for sure yet. He has to get tests done when they get back. Something to do with his knee.”
“That’s terrible. For him and the team.”
I don’t tell her what Leo said—that he’s almost certainly going to be out for a while. It would get back to Carter.
I feel protective of Leo already. Even though there are lots of questions I don’t know the answers to, I know I’ll never share his secrets with anyone. Whether we stay lovers or just end up as friends, I never want to be his enemy again.
Chapter Nineteen
Leo
* * *
It’s been the worst week I’ve had in a long time. I’m still traveling with my team, but I’m not part of it.
I go to meetings and meals with my teammates, but I’m on the outside. They’re the ones bleeding and fighting for the wins. I’m just a spectator.
Melina examined my knee a few days ago and confirmed it’s a torn meniscus. We both knew already, but it still sucked to hear her say it. I’m wearing a knee brace and it’s feeling a lot better just from not playing hockey. I don’t know if that means anything or not, though.
“How’s the knee?”
Our team owner, Hudson McClain, approaches me in the tunnel outside the Winnipeg visiting locker room. He comes with us on road trips occasionally, and he never misses a home game. Some teams have shitty owners, but we’re fortunate. Hudson is a big fan of the game, but he never tries to micromanage his staff and coaches.
“It’s better than it was,” I say.
Hudson is in his late forties. He made his fortune in real estate starting in his twenties. He played hockey in high school, so he actually knows the game.
“You’re standing out here wondering if we would’ve won if you’d played tonight,” he says.
He read my mind. I don’t deny it.
“Don’t do that, Leo. Injuries are physical and mental. Murray talked about that in one of his sessions, remember?”
I nod. “I do. I remember a lot from that one.”
Hudson hired a mindset coach to work with us a couple years ago. He comes in from time to time and gives presentations to the team and coaching staff, and he also works with us one on one when we need it. I’ve never done any one-on-one sessions because I worried he’d be able to tell I have anxiety.
I’ve got more of a fuck-it mentality at this point. I work harder than any player on this team. That’s not arrogance; it’s a fact. I’m early to practices and I stay late. I work with a trainer year round to stay in peak physical shape. I treat every game like a championship is on the line.
All this time, it was my own feelings of inadequacy that drove all that. I felt expendable—like if I wasn’t giving everything I could physically and mentally give, I’d be replaced. I’m tired of feeling that way all the time.
“Rest and rehab,” Hudson says. “You’ll be better for it when you come back.”
“Thanks. How’s Maya?”
He smiles at the mention of his teenage daughter. “Still testing my sanity on a daily basis. She tried to leave the house earlier in a shirt that was the size of a dishrag. Not on my watch.”
I smile. “Did you make her change?”
“Hell yes, I did. I don’t give a fuck what the style is. She wants to wear baggy pants with holes in them and shirts that are three sizes too small.”
“How old is she now?”
“Fourteen going on thirty. One of her friends got her septum pierced, so Maya keeps asking me if she can too. Over my rotting dead corpse.”
I shake my head. “Carter’s getting there with Olivia. Kind of makes me hope I have boys when the time comes.”
“I can’t even imagine. A kid who just wears a regular T-shirt and regular pants? My blood pressure would drop thirty points.”
The locker room door opens and Carter steps out and looks in both directions, his gaze landing on me.
“You’re supposed to go to the will-call window.”
“Will call? You mean where people pick up their game tickets? I have no idea where that is.”
“Figure it out, dumbass.”
“Why am I going there?”
He shrugs. “No clue.”
Hudson furrows his brow. “Do you want me to send someone else? That’s a lot of walking with your knee.”
“No, I’ll be okay. I just can’t imagine why I have to go to the will-call window. This better be good.”
“Let me get someone to drive you on a cart.”
That would be a hell of a lot easier. “You sure?”
“You don’t even know where you’re going. Come on, let’s get you some help.”
A few minutes later, I’m bracing myself in a vehicle that looks like a golf cart with no roof, a Winnipeg staffer flooring it down the concrete-floored tunnel.