Page 2 of The Captain

“I’m not judging.” Though I was slightly jealous, given that my own goals were slowly spiraling down the drain.

“Okay, so you’ll be there? Mom’s house, next Saturday?”

“I’ll be there,” I say, glancing around my own room in the hockey house I lived in, wondering if I was about to be kicked out and have to live in my parents’ house again because I was going to be benched.

We were able to live in our hockey house during the summer as well as the school year because we had training camps all summer long. The hockey season didn’t end for us.

“Great! I’ll let Tanner know.” I say goodbye to my overly optimistic sister and set my phone back on my desk.

I was seriously happy for my sister, I was.

I want all the happy and great things for her, I just can’t seem to get out of my own head.

My dreams and goals of being a professional hockey player were dependent on me succeeding in my worst possible subject, creative and critical writing. A requirement for my journalism degree.

As with most athletes, my backup career would rest on something in sports, like reporting or writing. Since I wasn’t cut out for sports medicine and the training for that, plus actually playing hockey, were not conducive, I went for something a little more manageable.

Or so I thought.

The doorbell rings, and I wait to see if one of the other guys gets it. Most of them are hungover from the party we went to the night before, all except me, because I’ve chosen to privately abstain from drinking for the foreseeable future.

Another thing that was plaguing me was the last time I’d gotten blackout drunk, I did something I would always regret, which spiraled into a whole mess I’d had to untangle.

When the doorbell rings again, I sigh as I stand and make my way downstairs, noting the bodies sleeping on the couch, completely dead to the world.

I swing open the door, my posture relaxed, until I see who it is.

Coach Mitchum, a.k.a. my sister’s fiancé.

“Coach,” I greet him politely, holding in any sarcastic comments. “What can I do for you?”

“We need to chat,” he says, his broad shoulders filling out the doorway. Coach Mitchum is a big dude, and even more menacing when he straps some skates to his feet.

I nod my head inside and lead him into the kitchen.

“Need something to drink?” I offer, bracing my hands on the island between us.

He regards me carefully before speaking. “No, I’m all right, thanks, Ellis.”

I nod, and he sighs, crossing his arms and bracing his feet apart.

“I received my players’ grades this morning.”

I bite down on the inside of my cheek hard enough for it to hurt.

“What the hell happened?” I see a tinge of anger in Coach’s eyes, and I feel myself regret everything that’s happened in the last year—hell, really two years—all over again.

“The tutor didn’t work out.”

Coach sighs and shakes his head. “Linc, I know you and Cassie have your issues—”

“She absolutely hates me.” She has good reason to. “There was no chance of us working together.” My gut clenches at the lie, because, for a minute there, we worked great together.

“So you quit on her? What about the other guy that was helping you?” he asks, his voice rising slightly.

The other guy had only stepped in when I completely fucked everything up, and he was an idiot. “He doesn’t know his ass from his nose.”

Coach had been the one who set up tutoring with Cassie, my sister’s best friend, and the woman who currently hated my guts, making sure that I had the best help possible to pass my classes.

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