Page 7 of Rookie Move
And hey, he comforted himself, scanning the guys in this room,at least if Karl succeeds at tossing your ass by the end of the day, you’ll never have to wear a purple tie.
“Gentlemen,” Becca said, clapping her hands. A couple of conversations stopped, heads turning in their direction. “This is Leo Trevi, a forward, and Mr. Kattenberger’s newest trade.”
There was a murmured chorus of “yo” and “welcome.”
“Hey, man.” A player waved from the sofa, and Leo recognized him as the team’s current captain, PatrickO’Doul. At thirty-two years old, he’d been scoring for this team long before Nate bought it and brought it to Brooklyn. They’d had a difficult couple of seasons, but it wasn’t O’Doul’s fault.
“Hey,” Leo said. “Glad to be here.” He wanted to be a member of this team so fucking bad. But walking into this room wasn’t a moment of victory—it was more like the preparation for battle. Knowing that didn’t make Leo feel like the friendliest guy in the world.
“He doesn’t have a locker yet,” Becca said. “Will you do any rearranging? Or shall we give him the, um, open spot?”
O’Doul transferred a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other, gazing up at Leo with his hands at the back of his head. Maybe he affected an easy disposition, but Leo could still see him sizing up the new guy, looking for weakness. “Put ’im in the open spot,” he said finally.
Until that moment, Leo hadn’t properly appreciated the fact that getting a crack at the NHL was like being the recipient of a donor organ—someone else had to suffer to give him his big break. Hopefully he wouldn’t be offering up a lung to some other soul before the day was out.
“The publicist will arrive shortly to brief everyone on the press conference,” Becca said. “Until then, make yourself at home.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
“So where you from?” O’Doul asked lazily.
“Here. Grew up in Huntington on the North Shore. Been watching this team forever. When I was five is the first time my dad got season tickets to the...”
O’Doul held up a hand to silence him. “Don’t say it. Kattenberger doesn’t allow anyone to speak the old franchise name.”
“Sorry?”
“Inside this building, you can only call us the Bruisers.” O’Doul winked. “See? I can say it easily now. Took me a year to break the habit. I mean—Kattenberger is a bit of a whack job on this particular point. It’s like a Voldemortthing. The Team That Shall Not Be Named. But since the boss man paid his left nut for the franchise and changed the name, he can do it his way. If you want to avoid his wrath, you never say that old name.”
“Um, thanks?”
The captain had an evil grin. “I know it’s weird. I still have all the old pennants in a box somewhere. If Kattenberger knew, he’d probably send one of his ninja minions to my apartment to have ’em incinerated. Where else you play hockey?”
“Drafted by Detroit. Sent down to Muskegon’s AHL team for two seasons. Harkness College before that.”
O’Doul’s expression chilled. “Aw, an Ivy League boy. That’s cute.”
Somebody has a chip on his shoulder. Looking for a change of topic, Leo nodded at O’Doul’s purple rep stripes. “Did the owner choose the new color, too?”
O’Doul tugged on his tie. “You betcha. Him and a bunch of million dollar marketing gurus. We call it indigo, ’cause that sounds better than purple.”
Leo laughed. “Thanks for the tip.”
“Stick with me, kid. Might want to grab yourself a bottle of water. If you’re the new guy, they might make you say a few words at the press conference. Publicist will let you know. Though maybe they won’t get around to it, because the whole coach thing is a pretty big story.”
Ugh. “No kidding.”
“The last guy got fired—what—a year and a half ago, now? Kattenberger had to do it. The guy was a good coach, but you don’t trash-talk the new owner like that. Then an interim coach got cancer. So now it’s on to Worthington. He’s another Long Island guy. Could be worse, right?”
No, actually. It couldnotbe worse, even if the coach was his dead aunt Maria Theresa. “Where did you say that water was?”
He pointed to the corner. “Espresso machine is over there, too, if that’s your thing.”
“Thanks.” Leo made his way over to the corner, stopping every few feet as the guys reached out to shake his hand.
“Thanks,” he said a half dozen times. “Great to be here.” But he probably wasn’t all that convincing. Wait until they watched a snarling Coach Karl ship his ass back to Michigan. That would be a fun moment. They’d all be wondering what the hell he did to piss off Coach.
Leo would be wondering, too.
