Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 81281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
It’s true that I’m not a social guy but it doesn’t mean I hang out in my pod all the time. The trip to San Diego from Portland is only a couple hours, so I set up at one of the tables in the lounge area, choosing a captain’s chair near the window. One of the trainers sits opposite me, quietly flipping through his phone. The other players are scattered around in groups, laughing and joking with one another. I’m easily able to tune it all out and focus on a new book I just started.
Every once in a while, my eyes lift and I scan the area. I tell myself it’s just peripheral curiosity until I’m able to sink into the book, but it is a bit irritating that every time I look up, I manage to clock exactly where Livia Cross is. She’s been in the lounge almost the entire flight, alternating between staff and players. She’s the newest to the team and she’s trying to acclimate, I guess. Any time I’ve sensed she might look my way, I avert my eyes and hunch further over my book so it looks like I don’t want to be bothered.
I sneak another quick glance and see she’s currently at one of the tables with our backup goalie, Macon Dawes, and the goalie coach, Jordan Michaels. They’re all three bent over a diagram on the table, and I assume it’s goalie oriented. I observe the way they seem to fawn over Livia. They look focused, intensely intrigued, and maybe smiling a bit too brightly at her.
Men are not complicated creatures. Introduce an attractive, warm, genuinely fascinating woman into a contained space and they will orient toward her the way plants reach for the sun.
Movement to my right catches my attention and I look up just as Van Turner drops into the seat next to me. While I go out of my way to avoid bonds with teammates and generally distrust coaches, Van is someone I’ve managed to form a bit of a relationship with. I can’t say exactly why I’m comfortable with him, but I think it’s because he’s had a rough life and understands trauma. His father was a notorious serial killer back on the East Coast and while Van doesn’t talk about it, everyone knows the details because his father published a tell-all book before he died in prison.
Yeah… I read it, just like everyone else.
I took almost all of it with a grain of salt, because none of it was approved by Van. His dad was an obvious psychopath and narcissist, and I firmly believe he wrote that book to spite his own son. Van has never said a word about any of it—not to me, not to anyone on this staff that I’ve seen—and that kind of silence I understand on a cellular level. You don’t owe anyone the story of your worst moments in life. You carry it or you don’t, but either way, it belongs to you.
It’s because Van has been through his own hell, the kind that follows you into eternity, that I give him a pass. Not trust exactly, but grace. There’s a difference, and with me, it’s about as close as anyone gets.
Van’s got a coffee from the galley and a tablet that he angles toward me. “Watched the San Diego tape last night,” he says, all hockey business without preamble. “Their top line is running a weak side overload I want to talk through.”
I put my book aside and I’m all ears. This is why Van doesn’t threaten my space. He doesn’t try to be anything more than someone who wants to talk business. He doesn’t waste time checking in on how I’m doing but rather launches straight to it because he has come to understand that for me, the game is the only door that opens reliably.
I lean over to look at the tablet with interest and watch a clip that he has queued up.
“Their center,” I say, pointing at the video. “He telegraphs the weak side pass. Watch his shoulders before the puck moves.”
Van nods, makes a note. “I caught that too. Question is whether we shade our coverage or trust the read.”
“I’d trust the read.”
“Agreed.” He scrolls to the next clip. We go through four or five more sequences, the conversation finding its own rhythm. Van asks a question, I answer. I point out an option, he builds on it. The tablet passes back and forth between us, and not once does he mention the fact that my bad penalty the other night cost us the game.
It’s the closest thing I have to easy with this team, although I still hold the greatest part of me in reserve. That’s a lock I’ve never loosened the entire time I’ve been in this league.