Page 5 of Off-Ice Misconduct
“No, I fucking don’t. God, that asshole. I wish there were a way to bring him back from the dead, so I could kill him myself. Sometimes I hate pneumonia for getting to him first.”
I laughed, but it was disturbing that I didn’t know if I wished the same. It should be easy for me to hate him, for all the things he made me do, but there were too many times I saw the wisdom in his words.
I am glad he’s gone, but I wouldn’t have wanted to kill him myself, even if I was driven to those thoughts now and then.
“You do. It’s only money, Tate.”
He stared as if he was chewing on my words, as if he could taste what they really meant. He shook his head. “It’s not just money to you, Luke.”
The way my heart lifted with hope.
Fuck.
I’d bought into Uncle’s beyond-the-grave parlor tricks whether I liked it or not. Plus, there was something else. The will doesn’t specify that he has to stay married. Technically, he could marry to satisfy the requirements and then divorce, but I can’t seem to bring myself to tell him that. I hate the reason why. I want him to think it’s forever. I’d tell him after, of course, but I want to know dammit—because I know it’s what Uncle would say. He’d scoff that the stakes hadn’t been high enough.
I need to be able to go to Uncle’s grave and tell him “I fucking told you so” with conviction.
He sighed. “I’ll do it.” He held up his hand to stave off my protests. “No, I will. Do this for me, so I can do what I need to do this season, and I’ll find some poor sap to marry me. God, I already feel sorry for them.”
“Me too,” I said, hardly able to believe what I was hearing. I didn’t fight him anymore. He hadn’t done it yet, and it wouldn’t be the first time Tate backed out of a promise he’d made me. “How many guys are on the hockey team?”
In other words, how big is this idiotic task I’m taking on?
“That’s not important. All you have to do is control their leader. They listen to him like he’s a god or something. It’s weird.”
I shook my head. “And you can’t control one hockey brat?” I found that hard to believe. My brother’s as much of a hard-ass as I am.
“On the ice, yeah. Off the ice? He doesn’t give a fuck about what I say. Sure, he pretends to, in that smooth fucking voice of his, but Ace McKinnon does what Ace McKinnon wants.”
There was that name again—McKinnon.
“Did I mention his dad’s besties with the dean? You should probably know that, too. It’s better for you to deal with McKinnon directly.”
“Isn’t hockey a team sport?” I muttered. Having a player with that much significance is wrong.
“With stats like his, he could be his own damn hockey team.”
“Didn’t you already win your conference and the Frozen Four last season?” I distinctly remember him being so happy about that, he celebrated for two weeks straight. When my brother arrived on the scene with the team, it was in the gutter. This is his fourth season with the team, and that lines up withMcKinnon’scollege career. He turned the team around with McKinnon. Made them winners.
It was no wonder McKinnon’s departure had Tate scrambling. It was probably about more than just money, although money is important. It’s the lifeblood of college hockey teams. No funding, no team.
Tatum laughed. “Oh, Luke. You really don’t get sports and the people who play them, do you? I’ll admit, it’s a sickness, but I have to fucking win again this year. I’ll do anything—and I mean anything—to win. I only get McKinnon for one more year, and I want to use him for all he’s worth.”
My brother thinks I don’t understand the competitive nature of sports. I played a sport, but it wasn’t for a title or trophy. I hid as much as I could from him, and on the nights he caught me coming home bruised and bloodied, I did what I had to do. Lied. I didn’t want him to know what I really did for him.
I also understand the people who bet on them, but I’d rather he remains ignorant of that part of me. If he knew, it would take something from him, the same way it did me.
Once I got out, I became a paramedic. I needed to know I could do something good with my hands, stop the bleeding instead of causing it. And I did love it. I loved the problem-solving, the adrenaline rush, being on the edge of a knife.
But the problem was … not everyone deserves saving.
There was a domestic call. A kid hiding in the closet, his mother half-conscious on the floor. My partner looked after her, and I was forced to tend to the man who did it, bandaging his sliced arm. But I remember how close I came to cracking his skull open with the oxygen tank instead.
I quit the next day. Removed myself from society to live in the woods, with the animals, where I belong.
“You said he’s turned down the NHL—that’s suspicious—any idea why a professional team hasn’t snagged him?”
“I know that his dad’s making him go to college first, but that’s about it. Not like I have teatime with the kid.”
