Page 76 of Love Lessons
He hesitates. “I got an inkling. I shouldn’t say, though. Management would kill me.”
“Doulie, I’m losing my mind, here.”
He chuckles. “You know that getting traded wouldn’t be the end of your life, right? This is hockey, not a mafia flick.”
“Says the man who played his whole career for one team.”
“Yeah, fair. Okay, I think Ivo is one of them. I saw his agent walk into the building for a meeting. I didn’t see Ivo, though, so the meeting could have been something else. Like a contract negotiation.”
“Oh, wow.” I let out a great gust of air. “So if it was Ivo getting traded, then—”
“It wouldn’t make much sense to trade both of you,” he says, which was my first thought, too.
“Too disruptive to have that much turnover,” I add. The Finnish kid and I play the same position, and it would be awkward to ship out both of us at once.
“No calls from the GM, right? No calls from your agent?”
“Right. Nothing.”
“Then don’t let the rumors make you crazy. And for fuck’s sake—never read the comments on those gossip pieces. They’ll just make you ragey.”
“Oh God, I know.” Armchair hockey fans will be speculating like crazy right now. They’ll have the whole team traded twice over by cocktail hour. “I’m probably at the top of the fans’ list for a trade.”
“The fans don’t matter,” O’Doul reminds me. “They haven’t skated a mile in your shoes. They don’t know you. They can’t squat five hundred pounds. They don’t get hit in the face for a living. They. Don’t.Matter.”
“Right,” I say quietly. This is exactly the pep talk I needed. “What the hell am I going to do without you next season?Fuck.”
O’Doul chuckles. “I’m flattered, kid. But change is just part of the equation. It won’t kill you.”
The way I feel nauseated right now? I’m not sure he’s right.
“But now that I have you, let’s talk about the captaincy again. Who’s getting it? What do you think?”
“Uh…” This is literally the last thing on my mind. “I thought Castro, but you said no. So the next obvious choice is Trevi. He’s a high scorer. The refs like him. He’s got an honest face. Already a leader. Looks good on a brochure.”
O’Doul laughs. “I know. He’s the whole package. But there’s another conflict of interest. He’s married to the coach’s daughter.”
“Nobody thinks Leo is a snitch,” I point out. “He’s such a stand-up guy. Evenyoulike him now.”
O’Doul laughs, because he remembers their rocky start, too. The captain was not a big fan of Trevi’s when he was a rookie.
That feels like a million years ago, though.
“I know, man. Leo is a great guy, and he’s a natural leader. But we need somebody who doesn’t have a link to management. A solid guy who doesn’t have a temper. A hard worker with seniority in the organization.”
“We got plenty of those,” I say, weary of this conversation. “You’ll figure it out.”
He sighs. “Okay, if you don’t want to help.”
I snicker. “No guilt, man. If you haven’t decided by the time I get back, I’ll put names in a hat, and you can pick one.”
“It’s a deal. Now go have fun and don’t worry about this trade. It’s probably not going to happen to you. And if it does, you’ll deal.”
“Thanks,” I say gruffly. We hang up, and I feel better.
A little.
For the first time since I can remember, my excitement for the upcoming season is tempered with nerves. That’s not like me. But I can’t seem to shake it.
