Page 5 of The Trade Deadline
“No,” Lars said immediately. He felt raw, only able to see what he’d lost. There was no way he could stay out west. If he was going to start over, he was going to do it properly. “Eastern Conference.”
“Oh.” Max briefly sounded thrown but went with it amicably enough. “I haven’t done as much scouting out that way, honestly. You and most of my guys are here, but I’ll be happy to look into it.” A pause before a very tentative, “You know, I could probably get you top dollar with Cincinnati.”
Lars stopped midstep. “Absolutely the fuck not,” he growled. Cincinnati was his older brother’s team, and if he wasn’t playing under theTre Kronor, he sure as fuck wasn’t playing with Anders. If there were another team in Ohio, he’d refuse that, too. North America was too big of a continent for him to end up in the same state as Anders Nilsson.
“Okay, no problem.” Max sounded a little disappointed, but he knew better than to push. “I’ll work my magic and get back to you with some offers in a couple days. Maybe sooner, if there’s a juicy one.”
He wondered how many zeros on the end of his salary it would take for Max to consider it “juicy.”
“Great,” he said, then before Max could hang up, he quietly asked, “What about Andy?”
“Who?”
“The trainer. Did they…did they fire him?”
“I didn’t ask,” Max said with a carefully neutral tone. Lars knew that tone well. It’d gotten him a few extra mil from Portland and a great sponsorship deal with CCM.
Right. He should’ve thought about consequencesbeforeletting his hands wander. And if they were perfectly fine making Lars uncomfortable to force him out, they’d have no qualms about doing the same or worse to Andy.
“I’ll see what I can find out,” Max said with a resigned sigh. “I could pull some strings and make sure he gets something lined up if he needs it.”
A huge weight lifted from his chest. One less thing to worry about, at least. “You’re the best, Max.”
“I know. Now sit tight and try not to cause any more trouble. And maybe start to pack.”
“Right,” Lars said, knowing Max had already hung up. He dropped his hand and stared in a daze. Shoulders slumped, he took in the condo he’d been so proud to buy when he was nineteen. He hadn’t expected to abandon it at twenty-five.
What a fantastic start to his seventh season.
* * *
Early the next morning—6 a.m. his time, painfully early for a Saturday during the off season—Lars put on some coffee, hyped himself up, then pulled up the contacts on his phone.
His grandma picked up after the second ring, sounding incredibly pleased. “Lasse?”
“Mormor.” He wasn’t happy about making this call, but he was always glad to hear her voice. “How are you?” he asked in Swedish. He hated being on a team without other Swedes, leaving his native language to go unused like a childhood relic.
You’re not on the Prowlers anymore,he reminded himself.Maybe your new teamwillhave someone you can talk to.
He wasn’t going to hold his breath on that one.
She made a noise that conveyed both “very well, obviously” and “life is always a challenge at my age.” “My day is always better when I hear from you, Lillen.”
Lars rolled his eyes. He’d beenlillen,“little one,” since he could remember, and the nickname hadn’t changed even when he hit six feet at fifteen. Of course, he secretly enjoyed the nickname, which only his grandma was allowed to call him. Or not so secretly, since she used it often.
“Good! Then I don’t have to share my news with you, since I’ve already made your day.” He could practically hear her scowl over the phone and laughed. “I’ll be moving closer to you.” Probably. She currently lived in Ohio with his brother’s family, and anywhere in the Eastern Conference was bound to be closer than Oregon was.
This was greeted with a silence he couldn’t decipher before she slowly asked, “You’re changing teams?”
Part of why he’d had to psych himself up was he wanted to frame this as completely positive to his grandma. She and his grandpa had raised him, and he didn’t want to worry her with the drama he was escaping. Even if he was pissed off about it, he would make it a Good Thing if it killed him.
“Yeah. I wanted to be closer to you. I only get to see you twice a year.”
“How much closer? This is a big continent. A few hours closer and you’re still too far to visit. I won’t go on a plane again, you know this, Lillen.”
He knew all too well how much his grandma hated flying. It’d been enough of an ordeal to get her to move to the States to begin with, since doing so had pretty much guaranteed she’d never return to Sweden. Having your daughter die in a plane crash did that to people.
“I don’t know where yet. My agent’s still working on it, but it’ll be somewhere out east.”
