Page 1 of The Captain

ONE

Lincoln

Present

My chair squeaks underneath me as I adjust in front of my desk, my laptop open in front of me with a grade showing my worst nightmare.

I grip the stress ball in my hand tight enough for it to pop.

I knew there was a possibility this could happen—that I would fail my paper, that I would fail myself because I’ve been too tied up with everything else happening around me and refused to do anything for myself that I messed up what could have been a fucking awesome future.

The past year has been a whirlwind of shitstorm after shitstorm, starting with my best friend acting like he was stabbing me in the back.

But that’s not all.

Our season last year had started off with a bang. Our team had gained a brand-new coach who was famous for his skills on the ice with the pros and was bringing his talents to our small school.

It had hyped us all up for an amazing season, and we’d started with a bang until my best friend decided he was going to ask out my sister’s friend, and all hell broke loose.

Then I found out my sister was secretly dating my hockey coach, and, well, it was hell. Hell, because I had acted out, I had told my sister some shitty things and lost the respect of my coach, a man I admired.

After some serious inner reflection—as my mother would call it—and some deep groveling with my sister, I finally made things right and saw that they were truly a happy couple.

But that was the only thing made right.

My grade in my final class last semester was an F, which means I had to take this class all over again, whether I liked it or not.

And if I can’t convince my teacher from that class to help me out, whether that be extra credit or what have you, I will not be playing for the Rose Hill Vapors this fall, and that would absolutely ruin my future.

My phone rings on the desk, and my sister’s picture pops up. Anyone else calling I would have ignored, but not my sister.

“Hey, sis,” I answer, trying to repress the long sigh that wants to escape. I’ve already put my sister through enough, it was time to give her the good, not the bad.

“Hey, baby brother, what are you up to next weekend?” Her voice sounds light and full of the happiness that she usually carries. I was worried I had been a part of taking that away from her earlier this year and that I had absolutely ruined any kind of relationship I had with her.

Thankfully, she forgave me when I profusely and publicly apologized.

“I have no idea.”

We were well into the hot summer months of June, and though I was just getting my grades back, my sister was a fully graduated master’s student, and I couldn’t be happier for her. She deserved all the happiness in the world.

“Well,” she sings through the phone, making me smile. “Would you be available to come to an engagement party for your favorite sister?”

“You’re my only sister,” I tease, even though she’s right—even if we had more siblings, she would absolutely be my favorite.

“Still your favorite.”

I sigh and pretend to be exasperated by the request, but I’m really not. It was only last month as my sister walked across that stage at her graduation that she was proposed to. “Aren’t you tired from your vacation?”

Right after graduation, Coach Mitchum—er, Tanner—had taken my sister on a two-week trip to Florida to get away from the drama they’d been dealing with for the last year.

“Not at all,” my sister replies chirpily. “I’m relaxed, refreshed, and ready to take on the world.”

“Of course you are.”

“Don’t judge, I have goals. The clinic is implementing the new program right away, and I promised to head it up.”

My sister was a physical therapist who specializes in helping veterans get their bearings again. This stemmed from our own dad getting injured while he was enlisted and coming home to be frustrated with the support the system gave him. My sister was insistent on changing how that all worked, and if I know my sister, she was going to succeed with what she was doing.

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