Page 23 of Rebound
“Don’t you think dating him comes with a lot of complications? He’s my ex’s ex-teammate and my brother’s current teammate.”
“He’s also the guy who’s been texting you for months and the one you can’t stop thinking about,” Jules says. “Stop thinking about what it means to other men who you like and want to date.”
She’s not wrong. It’s hard not to worry when one of those men is my brother, though. He’s not a fan of Roman’s and he’s said this on more than one occasion.
There’s no point worrying about a hypothetical situation that will probably never come true. Surely, one or both of us will get tired of texting back and forth or realize we’re better off as friends. The best thing to do right now is forget all about it.
And stop looking at photos of the man I’m trying not to think about.
SEVEN
ROMAN
We won the game against the Toronto Knights, and I have one day’s reprieve before I have to see the team again during practice. Coach Cross calls me to his office afterwards and I sit in front of his desk like a child called into the principal’s office.
“Do you think what happened at the game was normal behaviour for a team, Maddox? Is that how a team reacts when one of their own scores a goal?”
Oh, it’s going to be a sanctimonious speech. My favorite. He’s talking about the team’s lukewarm celebration with me on the ice.
“I thought the whole point of a hockey game is to win.” I shrug. “We won.”
Coach’s brown eyes narrow in anger, and I get the feeling that if he could, he would lean over the table and hit me square in the jaw.
“Let me spell it out clearly so you can get it through your thick skull. Your team doesn’t like you, and if I can’t trust you to play well with them, you’re not going to play at all. I don’t care what your contract says. I don’t have to let you play.”
I straighten in the chair and shove my hands into the pockets of my jacket. “Shouldn’t you be having this talk with the team?”
Coach sighs, sitting back against his chair. He rests one hand on the armrest while the other remains by his side.
“Why will they celebrate with you or support you when you’ve spent the last eight months treating them like they don’t matter? This is a team, Roman, and as far as I’m concerned, all of you are equal. If you want your teammates to respect you and support you, give them that in return.”
I’ve had other coaches give me the same spiel at one time or another throughout the seasons. This is the only time I feel like I need to do something about it. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why that is.
Lavinia is here, and I’ve gotten used to seeing her at home games. In my delusional dreams, I can even pretend she comes to see me, and not her twin brother. This proximity to her is too much, and at the same time, I can’t leave.
“What will you have me do?” I ask.
If he’s surprised by my acquiescence, Coach doesn’t show it. Instead, he shrugs.
“Try harder with them, off the ice. Make friends. Show them you want to be a real part of the team. The Titans are close, Roman. They’re friends, a family. If you want to be a part of that, you have to try a little harder.”
A family. I don’t know how to be a part of a family. I left mine at eighteen, and the only time I see my parents now is at NHL parties and awards, and even that’s too much.
Coach must see the reluctance on my face because he reaches for his computer and types something on it. He turns it in my direction and hits play on the video loaded on the screen. It’s the Titans sports correspondent, talking about the goal I took and comparing my career stats to my father’s.
“That was a really impressive goal, Maddox. If you play with the team, you can have the same career as your father’s, maybe better.”
I laugh, and there’s no hiding the bitterness. Of course, he thinks I want to be like my father. It’s a point of pride for Andrew Callahan to be playing for his father’s former team. Me, not so much. We might be the same age and might have gone to the same training camps, that doesn’t mean I want the same things Drew does.
“Coach, I know you have two Titans legacies on your team, but that doesn’t mean we both want to follow our father’s careers. Now, if we’re done here, I have somewhere I need to be.”
I don’t wait for him to dismiss me. I stand up and leave his office, quickly walking through the change room and out the back door. I drop my gear in the back of my car—because I have a car now—and pull out of my parking spot.
I live in the building my agent picked out for me in Back Bay before I moved here. From what he told me, other Titans have lived in the building throughout their tenure or currently live here.
I know my fellow winger, Reese Miller and the defensemen, Holden Archer and Ford Everett all live in the building. Even being neighbors, I have never run into them.
Shit. Am I really going to lose my spot on the team because I can’t be friendly with them? I didn’t lie to Vin when I told her that I can’t be loyal to someone because it’s expected. Hockey fans think I’m loyal to my father when nothing could be farther from the truth.
