Page 1 of Scoring Position

Pregame

STILL STICKYwith sweat from his morning run, Ryan Wright sat at the kitchen table in his parents’ Vancouver home and dug into his bowl of Magic Spoon. His sister Tara would roll her eyes and call him a child for eating knockoff Cocoa Puffs—which she would be wrong about, because eating a high-protein, low-carb cereal that tasted like childhood was absolutely an adult decision—but Tara wasn’t here. Even the nutritionists wouldn’t complain.

Mostly because Ryan didn’t tell the Voyageurs’ trainers about his breakfast choices.

But he had texted his sister when the first boxes of cereal arrived in the mail.You’re an idiot, she texted back.Also, maybe you wouldn’t have to defend your adulthood if you didn’t crash at our parents’ house all summer, every summer.

That was rude and hurtful on top of being incorrect. It was a month, max—the last of his off-season training and a visit with his parents before his return to Montreal for camp. Besides, plenty of hockey players spent large portions of their summers where they grew up.Staying with family isn’t childish, it’s practical. Mom and Dad are so busy, I’d never see them if I didn’t,he’d responded.Don’t be jealous because Mom loves me best.

This was a blatant lie—Tara was the favorite, having split the difference between following in Mom’s footsteps as a doctor and Dad’s as a therapist by getting a master’s in genetic counseling—but Ryan preferred to pretend he didn’t know that. The truth was Vancouver was an overpriced metropolis with a housing crisis, and Ryan wasn’t going to make it worse by buying a house he wouldn’t even live in for most of the year.

And seriously, his parents? Never home. If it wasn’t regular office hours or emergencies, it was out-of-town professional development seminars.

Speaking of… he’d almost forgotten that Tara was supposed to be presenting at a fancy conference this week. Ryan pulled out his phone to text her some vague chirping encouragement… and realized his notifications had blown up while he was out on his run.

His heart sank. That many unread text messages, WhatsApp alerts, and pushes fromtheScorecould only mean one thing—a trade.

Ryan didn’t want to believe it was him… but he knew it was. However much a team appreciated the way he could get the locker room fired up, that wasn’t enough to keep him. Ryan was a middling center on a good day, and there was no loyalty in professional sports.

Even Gretzky had been traded. Ryan just hadn’t expected he’d be eating breakfast alone at his parents’ kitchen table the first time it happened to him.

He tried to set aside the sinking feeling in his stomach and the way his skin had suddenly gone cold. Then he openedtheScoreto view the damage. It would be easier than getting the news from a teammate. Still, a piece of cereal seemed to have lodged in his throat.

Fuel Sends Lundström, Second-Round Pick to Montreal for Ryan Wright

Fuck.

Ryan’s head swam and he sagged in his chair. He’d thought he had at least another year with the Voyageurs—that was when his current contract expired, and his agent seemed to think they were making good progress negotiating an extension.

But that trade? That was like offering up a brand-new Ferrari and a road bike for a three-year-old Toyota Corolla. Montreal would’ve been stupid to pass that up.

Through uncooperative, disbelieving eyes, he skimmed the article, but the content didn’t magically make sense of the headline. Traded to the Fuel for a young, cheap, talented right-handed defenseman and a second-round pick.

Did the Fuel justlikelosing? Tanking for a better draft position didn’t make a lot of sense if they were also givinguppicks.

What did you think was going to happen, Ryan?

He dropped the phone and scrubbed his hands over his face in hopes of silencing that nagging internal voice, but it was no use. He’d been living with Josh’s parting words in his head for the past four and a half years, and he’d probably be hearing them for the rest of his life.

Josh had been headed for Silicon Valley, backed by his trust fund, his bachelor’s degree, and a determination to make his own mark on the world. If the timing had been different, Ryan might have followed. At twenty-one, he’d almost given up on the idea of hockey as a career. And then a scout showed up at his last college game to check out the goaltender on the other team, and Ryan was invited to a tryout in Montreal, and….

And obviously it had been stupid of him to think that just because Joshcoulddo software engineering anywhere in the world, he’d want to do it where Ryan was.

What am I supposed to do, huh? Pack my shit and make new connections every time you get traded?

Ryan ran his hands through his hair and pulled at it until it stung. Getting traded was bad enough. He didn’t need to relive heartbreak on top of it.

He swallowed as he thumbed out of the app and into his texts. Several teammates—formerteammates—had sent unhappy messages filled withFuck!andWhat?!and crying emojis. Bobby’s was a gif of a toddler throwing a tantrum.

Ryan had been traded. To fucking Indianapolis, of all places.

He thought of Montreal, with its crowded streets and tightly packed buildings, and the neighborhood he’d settled into, with the eclectic inhabitants who spilled out onto the streets in any weather and poked their noses into Ryan’s business because he lived in the neighborhood, not because he was a hockey player. He thought of the campus grounds and the coffeehouses nearby that were always crowded with students, and of his apartment near Metro Centre with the metal steps to the front door that conspired with ice to try to kill him every January, and the cozy living room where he liked to cuddle with his hookup on his days off.

Nice knowing you, Mathieu.But hey, at least he’d learned his lesson with Josh. Ryan’s life was not conducive to having a boyfriend. Mathieu would understand.

He was still stunned, staring at his phone and the unanswered texts, trying to process just what had happened, when his agent called.

Maybe she had good news. Maybe this was all some kind of bizarre press-office fuckup. He hit the screen so hard it hurt his thumb.

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