Page 3 of Save Your Breath
Bleeding was like breathing for me.
“You also don’t seem like you’re taking any of this seriously,” he added. I’d never seen him look so stern. His pale bald head was glistening from a sheen of sweat as he paced the room, his dark brows furrowed together in frustration. Usually, Kilman was a bright smile and an assuring nod as he sent you to an interview you didn’t particularly want to do but had no option to refuse.
Right now, he looked ready to split the other side of my lip.
“I’m sure Mr. Suter is taking this all very seriously,” our General Manager assured Kilman. Richard Bancroft — known affectionately as Dick — reminded me of a mall Santa. He wore a jubilant smile nearly one-hundred percent of the time, his eyes twinkling, belly jiggling with each little laugh he let loose.
Even now, when I knew he was also fed up with my shit, he looked like nothing more than a proud father ready to defend his son at the principal’s office.
“Listen. I understand. Tensions run high when you’re a man with as much testosterone as you have running through those veins of yours,” Dick said with a guffaw, thumping the table across from me with one large hand. “But… this is going to be your last warning to keep the fightsonthe ice.”
“Last warning,” I repeated, monotone as ever, one eyebrow arching into my short hairline as I assessed him along with the rest of the team. Kilman and Bancroft were taking the lead, the other two staying silent, jotting notes down every now and then. One was Kilman’s assistant and the other was head of our social media. I was pretty sure they weren’t actually writing anything of merit, but rather avoiding eye contact with me. “That sounds like a threat.”
“It is,” Kilman said. “You’re lucky Coach McCabe is on vacation and we were able to assure him we had this handled because if he were here, my bet is there wouldn’tbeanother warning. Your ass would be out on the street.”
I scoffed a laugh at that, looking from the little man to my GM. I didn’t mean to be disrespectful (okay, so maybe I did) — but who the fuck did this guy think he was?
I was the lead scorer on our team last season — even more goals than their precious Vince Tanev.
Hell, I was the lead scorer in the fuckingleague.
And we won the Stanley Cup.
This guy was really going to threaten to have me off the team for a little bar fight?
“What Danny here is trying to say is that he has this covered. He and these two stars can handle the media,” he said, with a nod to the silent ones. “And our legal team has already put the pieces into place to get charges dropped.” Dick gave Kilman a subtle warning glare before he turned his gaze on me. “But yes, you heard me right, son.” He flattened his lips like he was disappointed he even had to say this. “If anything like thishappens again, we’ll have no choice but to release you. And as it stands, we’ve decided to suspend you for the first two games of the season.”
My lips curled into a snarl of a smile as I shook my head and kicked back in my chair, crossing my right ankle over my left knee and folding my arms over my chest. It was usually the league who did the suspending, and typically only for bad behavior during a game or during the season. Since it was the offseason, and my little bar fight had happened on my own time, the league would stay out of it.
But apparently, my team decided I needed to be punished to learn my lesson.
As if my prior team hadn’t proven I never would.
“If you want to start the season out on two losses, that’s your call to make,” I said.
“You’ve forced our hand!” Kilman raged, but Dick put a hand on his forearm to stop him from continuing.
“We don’t want any of this — the legal trouble, the media attention, or the suspension. But the league won’t stand for us to just let this slide, offseason or not.” Dick steepled his fingers on the table. “You did knock a man out cold, after all.”
I had to fight to keep from scoffing again. If there was one thing I knew about Richard Bancroft, it was that helovedmedia attention. That was why he’d agreed to let local reporter Maven King follow Vince Tanev with twenty-four-seven access during his rookie season. It was why he set up one of our defensemen, Jaxson Brittain, and Vince’s little sister with a season of interviews after the hockey world found out they were together. It was why he was all but begging our goalie, Will Perry, to allow media coverage of his upcoming wedding after the whole world thought he’d be single forever.
That man wanted whatever would keep his arena full.
But I guessed that didn’t include me laying some asshole out after he threw his fucking Long Island iced tea on me.
Begrudgingly, I could admit I overreacted. I was dancing with a fine-as-hell Boomer’s regular — I think her name was MacKenzie? — when we were both suddenly drenched. And it couldn’t have just been a regular Long Island iced tea, either. No, it had to be a fuckingblueone — like we were kids at a bar sneaking drinks underage.
Security was typically pretty good at keeping anyone the team didn’t want partying with us behind the ropes, but it was a fucking club. Shit happened. Sometimes, an asshole or two got through.
And I was all too eager to handle my own security.
I had a lot of pent-up energy buzzing through me at all times. During the season, I got it out on the ice. In the offseason, I worked it out in the gym. But that wasn’t enough. So yeah, give me an excuse to lay a motherfucker out, and I’m going to take it.
I’d grabbed the guy by his stupid, bedazzled polo and cut his laugh attack with his bros short. One of his friends got away with a single sucker punch before I slugged him so hard in the jaw, he spun like a cartoon before flying back into a table and causing bottles to crash to the floor.
Then, I’d knocked out the offender who’d thrown the drink.
I was escorted out of the bar right after, and as they loved to do, the paparazzi had followed me that night. They were always praying for me to fuck up.
