Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 116597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 583(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 583(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
I couldn’t help my goofy grin at the compliment, especially considering Aleks had given me a harder time than anyone else on the team. He was one of our newer players, a transfer from Seattle, and he had a reputation around the league — and the gossip magazines — for getting into trouble. He was absolutely deadly on the ice, though, which made it impossible not to want him on your team — even if he did end up in the penalty box more than on the bench.
He’d been downright mean to me last season — but that was before he and Mia got together. He’d turned as soft as a bunny then.
Okay maybe not that soft, but at least he wasn’t riding my ass all the time now.
I had earned a fraction of his respect, proving to him that I could show up for him and the rest of the team the way the veteran center before me had.
The Ospreys paid a lot of money for my contract. With that deal, they said they believed in me, that they saw my potential to fill the shoes of the player retiring ahead of me.
It was an honor.
It was also an insane amount of pressure that felt like it could crush me at any minute if I stopped long enough to think about it all too hard.
“Yeah, you were on fire that first period, Fabri,” Jaxson piped in. “That no-look pass to Suter was slick.”
Jaxson Brittain was a defenseman and a close friend, one of the few who had given me pep talks and told me I could achieve what I wanted well before anyone else took the time. And it wasn’t because he’d felt bad for me. I knew he genuinely wanted me to stay in The Show. He wanted me to play for the Ospreys and not be sent down to the AHL.
Unfortunately, that had been the case for me for a few years — but I got the hang of things in that last season. When I found out a veteran center was retiring and opening a space that needed to be filled, I saw my opportunity.
And I knew I couldn’t blow it.
That was when I signed up to work with the team’s sports psychologist, when I’d found a therapist, when I’d said enough is enough.
I was far from where I wanted to be, but I’d made progress.
If only that progress transferred to my sex life.
Before my mind could veer off into Livia Young territory, Daddy P clapped me on the shoulder. “Sure, you played alright in the first, but don’t think we’re going to let you live down that dangle.”
It was Vince Tanev’s turn to pipe in, his warm laugh rumbling through the locker room. “Oh, Carter went full highlight mode with that turnover. Did ESPN call and beg for blooper reel gold, or was it just that the Zamboni crew needed a little help sweeping the ice?”
The guys laughed, and I joined in — even if my chest stung a little. They weren’t coming down on me. It was all playful, all love, and I didn’t want anyone to think I couldn’t take a little razzing.
But there was a little truth beneath those jokes, and it was so fucking hard sometimes for me not to take them personally, not to take those remarks home with me and let them beat me to a pulp.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I said. “Keep talking, Tanny Boy, and I’ll pay the camera crew for footage of that failed attempt at a bar down shot you made in the third and put it on repeat in the team gym.”
“Right next to the video of you fanning the puck when you had a wide-open net, right?” Aleks chimed in. “You need a GPS for that puck, bud?”
“Someone get the man an AirTag,” Jaxson added.
Everyone laughed again, and I tongued my cheek against a smile before chasing them all into the ice baths with a snap of my towel.
Ten minutes later, I was in a meditative state — ice water up to my chin, eyes shut, brain muffling out the noise of the guys still chattering around me. Beneath those closed eyelids, a reel of everything I’d done right and wrong flashed on replay. I tried to do what our sports psychologist advised, taking what I could from each mistake before leaving them in the past, and making a moment to applaud myself for the achievements.
That last part was harder than the first.
Even when I did do something worth being proud of, I had to fight against my old coach’s voice inside my head adding a negative spin.
Sure, you scored — but you could have scored twice if you wouldn’t have missed that open net.
You won the draw. Big fucking deal. Never mind that you lost the puck in turnover a fucking youth player could have avoided.