“Yeah. You know, when I lit the fire on the bridge as I left town? I got rid of that, too.”
“It wasn’t so much a fire as a Molotov cocktail thrown at your family, okay?”
Henry’s words are like a punch to the gut, but he’s right. When I left the Renegades, I left fast. The offer had come in from the Blades at a time when I wasn’t being played as often as I thought I should have been. I had a case of “I’m the star-itis” and it was bad. I should have, could have, and would have…all the things. I’d barely consulted Travis, which he wasn’t that happy about. Instead, I just said yes and left it for him to coordinate.
“As much as I hate hearing that, you’re right.” Sighing, I press the phone tight against my ear. “I’m sorry, Henry. I really am. I made a huge mistake.”
“You sure did. And while I’m okay with things now because we’ve talked, you know you have a little bit of an apology tour to do, right?”
“Yeah.” It makes me sick to my stomach, but I know it. As I’m digesting the thought, a tone sounds in my ear. Pulling the phone away to look at my screen, it’s Henry requesting a video call.
“Are you doing that on purpose?” I ask, bewildered.
“Just accept the video call so we can speak man-to-man, December,” he orders.
I do as I’m told, and Henry’s face fills the screen. He lifts his coffee mug and grins as he pulls the camera back, and a few of my old teammates are suddenly in the frame.
“Figured if you want to get started, now is the perfect time,” Henry half-purrs, half-chokes as he laughs.
The guys he’s with are the ones I left high and dry. I never even told them I was unhappy, I just bailed. There’s Dixon, who is the best goalie I’ve ever met, and Campbell and Sawyer, who are cousins that play left and right wing—and because they grewup together, they play like they share a body and a brain. It’s magical. Standing in the way back is Ollie, another defenseman who works side by side with Henry on the ice.
“Hey, fellas,” I say, trying not to be weird and bite my lip, but this whole thing makes me nervous. “I want you guys to know my plan was to reach out to you all individually and talk.”
Ollie pushes his way to the front, crosses his arms, and cocks his head to one side. “Oh, really? How come I didn’t get a message?”
“Yeah,” Dixon echoes, his head coming into frame. There’s a juggling of the phone and I think he’s taken it from Henry. “Where was my text that we needed to talk?”
I’m struggling for words when Ollie’s face breaks into a huge grin and Dixon smacks his arm.
“You know we forgive you,” Dixon musters. “If a team dangled that much money in front of me to jump ship, I might do the same thing.”
“Bite your tongue,” someone growls—that someone being Sawyer, who gets a look of approval from Campbell standing right beside him. Like conjoined twins, these two. “None of us get to do that. Ever.”
He then looks directly at the camera and it feels like he’s looking right into my soul. “You hear that, December? If you come back, don’t pull this kind of thing again or we will hurt you.”
“That’s pretty cut and dry.” Shaking my head, I run my fingers through my hair. There’s a bead of perspiration on my upper lip that stems fully from the duress this call is giving me, but I need to take accountability. “I thought you would all be a little harsher than this, to be honest.”
“Well, you’re not here yet.” Henry laughs. “The payback will come on the ice. Also, Leon is gonna be a little disappointed he’snot playing center anymore, so we’ll let him deal with you on his terms.”
Leon Tully. As the Southern women like to say: bless his heart. He wanted that position so badly and I all but threw it at him. Now here I am coming back to take it from his grasp. He’s probably going to kill me, but I’ll deal with it.
“That’s fine. I’ll talk to Leon.” I take a deep breath and square my shoulders. “And Coach?”
“Ohhh,” all the guys say at once, Ollie and Dixon both making faces. The cousins step away, but the other three stay in frame and shake their heads.
“You’re going to need to do some serious butt-kissing there,” Ollie says, nodding his head.
“So many smooches,” Dixon agrees. “He was furious for months after you left.”
“So furious,” Ollie continues. “He had a picture of you on the wall in his office and he’d go by and flick it.” Ollie holds his fingers in the air and mimes flicking something. “Like that. Flick, flick, flickity-flick.”
“I got flicked?” Cringing, I know what that means. A flick is reserved for when he’s really mad, because our coach? He’s literally the nicest guy out there. “Coach Masters was mad enough he flicked me? Huh.”
Ben Masters, nice guy. Used to be a coach for a high school hockey team that was known for their winning under his leadership, because he rolled in and made them a family. He took that high school team to great heights, and then somehow got hired by the Renegades. He brought that family feel to our gang and everything changed. We all changed when he became our coach—and I like to think I changed for the better, but the way I left makes me realize I still have a lot to learn.
And thus, clean up.
“Are you going to talk to him soon?” Henry asks.
