Page 5 of Until He Scores

I couldn’t have known at the time I would become a famous hockey player or have enough money in my bank account to flyLily-Mae, her fiancé Rick, and Lily-Mae’s sister out to my first game ever as aThunderbirdbut making that bet then crashing in her guest bedroom that night, would reshape my whole life.

Now, if I could forget about Pope and move on like he had, I’d be better off. Regrettably, the next time we saw each other, old feelings would creep back in, and I’d be left wondering, if we were ever finished with each other, or if there was a whole new story waiting to be written about us.

That was later, however and this was now.

“For what it’s worth,” Lily-Mae said, stopping at the door to her room while I waited at the door to her guest room. “Pope was a fool to never see how much you cared about him. It’s his loss. Not yours.”

I pressed my forehead to the doorjamb and groaned. “He didn’t even know the truth. Plus, he’s not gay. Talk about unrequited love. I was so stupid. So cringeworthy. He isn’t thinking about me anymore. He’s moved on, and now, I’m going to do the same.”

Lily-Mae sighed. “No, you weren’t. You’ll see. One of these days he’s going to come crawling back. When he does, I want to be there to see it happen.”

From her lips to the Fates ears.

Though I was a thousand percent sure, it would never happen.

Chapter 2

Thierry

Present Day...

“After a crushing injury to number 58, Thierry Thomas retired from theNashville Thunderbirds,” Zach Rivers stated. “Now, he’s returning to the ice this season under a different capacity—defensive coach.”

“I don’t care what the doctors say. TheMurfreesboroMountaineersdesperately need a coach like Thierry, but they deserved a player like him, more so. If starting his coaching career as aMountaineer—theThunderbirdsAHL counterpart—means he’ll come back stronger than ever to theThunderbirds, so be it,” Pat Rodgers said as I flicked the radio off and got out of my truck.

Home Sweet Home.

I stared at my parents’ house and a wave of nostalgia hit me square in the chest. It’d been a long while since I’d spent any significant time at home. TheNashville Thunderbirdscalled me the second I had my diploma in hand from UT, all those years ago, and my official draft was number six in the first round.

I hadn’t looked back since.

Today, I was home.

Damn, I couldn’t believe how much I missed this place.

About the only instances I had time to see my folks were during the holidays. A few hours Christmas morning, then by noon I’d been on a plane to play outside in a winter classic game. My springs and summers were spent with my physio trainers or gearing up for the Men’s National Team. I wasn’t a young buck anymore and if I wanted to keep my name in the starting lineup, before the accident, well, I had to compete.

Competing meant getting up before sunrise to train. I ran five miles a day. Workout for another two then hit the ice with the team. No one could ever say I wasn’t ice ready.

“Sucks about your knee, old man...”Jeremy Riser’s words cut through my thoughts like a hot knife through butter. For the last few years, I knew he’d be the one to replace me. Seeing him take over as he had after my knee replacement surgery... Devastated didn’t really fit. The prospect of getting older or forced to medically retire hadn’t even been a thought in my mind until that night. These days, with this stupid knee, I couldn’t stop thinking about my mortality in a sport I loved more than anything.

Being a coach wasn’t the same, either. I still had that dog in me. I desperately wanted to be on the ice with my team. My body, nonetheless, said otherwise.

Over the years, I’d learned a thing or two about the league and the players. Those who the league considered the chosen ones. Those who fit the gold standard for the NHL had higher pedestals to fall from. I was one of them. Between the relationship scandal from last year, (I’d caught my partner of three years cheating with some D-list celebrity while on location for a movie), and the injury to my knee during a freak accident on the ice, well, people, mostly sport analysts and podcasters, were betting on my fall from golden-boy grace.

Too bad I was too old for that shit.

I’d much rather launch myself from the dais they placed me on, than allow them to push me off. Still, the fallout from my breakup with Derrick Whitlock, romantic lead, had lasted a few months longer than I thought it would. Coupled with my injury those pundits had fodder for my career and private life to last what seemed like a lifetime. There was speculation, by the gossip hounds, about me being unfaithful, too.

Which left me speechless.

Obviously, it was a bunch of he said/he said bullshit because Derrick couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Tied in with the timing of my injury and retirement, and those fucking influencers he clung to like plastic wrap, they thought they knew everything about me. One TikToker’s videos speculated I’d either had a drug addiction from my injury or was a controlling narcissist. Some called me a washed-up old man at thirty-five.

Derrick’s fans clearly.

I never understood how some of these people could interchange a healthy competitive ego and yearning, with me being a controlling, abusive dickhead to Derrick. I didn’t have a mean streak in me. Nor did I think I was some pretty boy hockey player who could get all the dick wanted with a snap of my finger. The comparisons always made me sick to my stomach. Wasn’t as bad as the shit Wennberg and Dunn went through two years ago with that obsessed fan, though.

That sickening situation made me shiver in revolt.

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