Wild ride, p.3
Wild Ride, page 3
Now all she could see were the flaws. A surplus of pounds, too much junk in the trunk, a non-existent thigh gap. And don’t get her started on how her eyes were too close together, or cheeks too round, or her chin came to a point.
Now, whenever she rushed by this mirror, the ghost of her previous self flashed in the corner of her eye. Good enough for a one-and-done, but what had she been thinking trying to stretch that goodwill to ten years?
That no-photo dating app wasn’t just to set an example for her daughter. If she could make an impact with her personality first, looks wouldn’t matter.
Probably not true, but a newly-single woman could hope.
3
Pittsburgh defenseman Kyle Hughes will attend an NHL player safety hearing this Sunday. Hughes is facing discipline for slashing against Chicago Rebels forward Dex O’Malley. The incident occurred at 19:50 of the third period near the Rebels bench in Chicago’s 3-1 home win against Pittsburgh last week. Hughes received a major penalty for slashing on the play. O’Malley was able to finish the game. The hearing was delayed because of an after-game incident between O’Malley and Hughes, which resulted in injury to Hughes and O’Malley’s arrest and charge with assault.
— NHL Player Safety
Dex tried not to roll his eyes on seeing the name on his caller ID. Kit Mallinson was a great agent and all-around good guy, but Dex had given him a lot more trouble than the average client and Kit was taking the tough love thing to the max.
“What’s up?” He stifled a yawn. His next-door neighbor Georgia had one of her epic parties last night, and while he hadn’t attended—trying to be good, trying to be good—the thump thump of the party’s bass had kept him up.
“Just checking in on my man! Ready for a little rep renovation?”
“Sure, I can spend a few hours petting puppies.”
“A few hours for a few days for a few weeks. Just enough to impress on any judge that you’re not the bad boy everyone thinks you are.”
Dex jerked to full awareness at this update. “A few weeks? Where am I going to find time for that? I have practice, away games, a very full schedule. I can’t fit in that much time with a bunch of animals.”
“Yes, you can. And you will.” Kit’s voice had turned serious. “Do you have any idea of the strings I had to pull to get this for you? The Rebels didn’t have to go along with it. They could have benched you and let you ride out your contract. Which may I remind you is up at the end of the season. As it stands they’re probably going to trade you as soon as it’s expedient.”
Dex slumped on the sofa. What did he care about being traded? He was used to moving around, being the team’s new guy. No big deal.
“So I go to another team.”
“And who wants a troublemaker who makes headlines for anything but how well he plays? Because you might think your play will supersede all that, but it won’t. Orgs want guys who are 100% devoted to their game, solid, team and family-oriented guys, not people who are a distraction. If the Rebels put you on waivers, then good luck trying to find a team to pick you up. You’ll be lucky if you get a spot on the Bumfuck Titans or whatever AHL team cares to have you. Your brand is cheapened, Dex. Sex tapes, the Tara business, and now punching a colleague—”
“He wasn’t a colleague,” Dex said morosely, desperate to get a word in and end the lecture. “Just someone I don’t get along with.”
“Right. Meanwhile you’re losing fans by the truckload. That’s why we need you to be spending all your spare time with cute fucking animals. Jesus, Tara couldn’t rein you in, so these kittens better do the trick. I want you to head down to that shelter today, do your duty, and stay in the good graces of the people who run the place until Sophie, Fitz, and I decide you’re done. Got it?”
“Got it,” Dex mumbled. Damn, everyone was so serious.
Kit hung up before Dex could get the jump on him. Usually, he was able to laugh off the disapproval of his elders, but he wasn’t quite feeling it this time. What Kit had said rankled.
He had a good relationship with the press and his fans. The sports media enjoyed his antics because it yielded plenty of clicks and the fans got a kick out of his class clownery. It didn’t stop him from playing lights-out hockey. The team should recognize that and anything else shouldn’t matter.
Into his second year as a Rebel, he was playing well. Still second- or third-line, so it could be better, but every team needed second, third, and fourth-line players. It wasn’t that he was unambitious, but he preferred to stay in his lane. No one expected more from him, and he’d rather be of use wherever he went. If that was to another team, then so be it.
Except he liked Chicago. He hadn’t expected to, given that this was where he’d been born and raised. His early memories of it were fuzzy and fractured. After all that shit went down, he’d hoped his aunt in Dallas would pick up the slack. But she had too many kids of her own to worry about him, and so began the Dexter Roadshow to all points in Chicagoland.
Most families found it hard to deal with his energy. He chewed up the goodwill of six of them over the course of sixteen months before landing back in the group home. And there he would’ve stayed except for a curious stroke of luck.
He was discovered.
A chance encounter with a hockey Hall of Famer, a placement with a family of hockey nerds, and eventually the career of his dreams. A career that could be cut short at any moment.
Which reminded him he really needed to answer that text from Anton. His old coach had checked in this morning (and yesterday morning). Dex opened the thread and reviewed the last message.
Anton
You good?
Dex
Never better.
The phone rang because Dex had just sent proof of life.
“Hey.”
“Don’t ‘hey’ me. Why haven’t you been answering my calls?”
Because I’m embarrassed. “Didn’t want to bother you.”
“Bother me?” Anton spluttered, which sent Dex’s mind back to those days when the guy would have a conniption every ten minutes over some antic his hockey protégé engaged in. “Why would hearing from you ever be a bother? Tell me what’s happening.”
Dex filled him in. “Don’t know why they want to go to all this effort if they’re just going to dump me anyway.”
“Maybe they see your potential. It’s happened before.”
When Dex was twelve. The first time he held a hockey stick, years later than most of the hockey-playing kids his age, something magical had happened. He’d gone from some down on his luck street kid to someone with a future. On a day out from the group home, a man had called him over after seeing Dex gliding around on a crappy rink with a bunch of other charity cases.
“Where’d you learn to play hockey?”
Dex had snorted, deep into his little punk phase. “Never played before.”
“You’re telling me this is the first time you’ve hit a puck?”
Fuck-you shrug. “Why, is it hard?”
The guy had looked like he’d wanted to clip him one. Of course, at the time Dex had no clue this man was a big deal in hockey. In sports. In life.
“Where are your parents?”
“Dead.” Half-true, or he assumed it was. He had no idea who his father was, and his mom may as well have been six feet under for all the use she was to him.
“Poor little orphan, huh?” The sneer was mixed with a grudging respect. “And you’ve never played hockey?”
Dex’s friend Scottie had wanted to meet his favorite player on the Chicago Rebels, Bren St. James, and Dex would never say no to any opp to get out of the home for a day. He’d skated once before when he stayed with the Mulligans, his second to last foster family. He’d liked how free he felt, gliding along the surface. How natural the motion had come to him. But today was the first time he’d picked up a stick and hit a puck. He’d skimmed by a couple of guys easily, hit the rubber disc as hard as he could, and sent it like a rocket into the back of the net.
Then he did it again.
Each time it hit its target like it couldn’t possibly go anywhere else. Like that was Dex’s purpose. All this rage inside him seemed to find an outlet at last.
“You need to join a league, kid. Who’s in charge of you?”
Dex looked around for Frank, the group leader, who, with his pot belly and general lack of coordination, should really not be on skates. “That guy.”
When Dex had skated back to Scottie, he’d received the funniest look. “I can’t believe you talked to him!”
“Who?”
“Clifford Chase! He owns the Chicago Rebels!”
As if Dex cared. Just some big shot who liked bossing people around.
Not expecting anything to come of it, he was surprised when two weeks later, Anton Ballard showed up at the home with instructions from the great Clifford Chase to train him up. From that moment on, Dex knew this was his ticket out.
So whenever Anton called after one of Dex’s fuck-ups, he had a hard time justifying the why of his fuck-uppery. That he might be broken was something he’d considered but in typical “avoid self-reflection at all costs” fashion, he’d dismissed it.
“They’ve got a lot of good players here. Hard to rise above.”
“Bullshit. So you’re gonna bail on them before they bail on you?”
“I’m sorry if you’re disappointed.”
“Are you?” He could feel Anton’s disgust all the way from the east coast. “Because it sounds like you’re just enjoying that pity party for one.”
“Maybe it’s time to move on.”
“Thought you liked Chicago.”
He and Kit must be in cahoots.
“It’s no better or worse than anywhere else. Nashville was a better party town.”
“Now you’re just trying to piss me off.” Correct, sir! “Quit making excuses and start knuckling down, or you’re going to find yourself out of a job and a place to call home. If I wasn’t in Vermont, I’d come over there and tell you in person exactly what I think.”
Anton used to live in Chicago but got a coaching gig out of state a couple of years ago just before Dex had been acquired by the Rebels. Maybe, if he was around, Dex wouldn’t be so off the rails, if only because Anton was the one guy Dex hated to disappoint.
And why did the mention of losing “a place to call home” upset him more than the thought of finding himself out of a job?
When he didn’t say anything, Anton continued, more conciliatory this time. More like the man who was as close to a father as Dex had ever had. “The Rebels are a good org, son. I think you can make an impact there, but you have to want to do that.”
“I do. It was going well for a while and then … I don’t know.” He could barely articulate why he couldn’t get his act together.
Anton coughed slightly. “I know the thing with Tara didn’t work out, but I’m not even sure you cared all that much.”
His ego cared. His heart? Nah. For a while he’d thought that Tara was one of the success signifiers he craved. The trophy wife, the sign of a winner. Breaking off their engagement had left him feeling somewhat hollow, like he couldn’t even get the pro-athlete-meets-hot-WAG equation right. (The most basic of the sports world equations.) But he also preferred where he and Tara had landed, as friends.
“She’s happy as Larry with Fitz. They’re a super couple, kid and everything.” He tried not to sound bitter. He didn’t want kids, but that feeling of belonging … maybe. When he’d found out he was going to be traded to the Rebels eighteen months ago, he’d been so excited. There was something destined about it, Clifford Chase’s team, the place where it all started.
But Dex was still Dex, and not even a change of location could change the person you’ve always been.
“I’ve got to go. I’m having breakfast with the guys before practice.”
“That’s the ticket!” Anton sounded more animated at the mention of food, or maybe the notion Dex was making friends. “I’ll check in with you later.”
Of course he would.
Twenty minutes later, Dex walked into the Sunny Side Up Diner in downtown Riverbrook and looked around. Bast Durand waved him over, and Dex took a seat beside never-shuts-up D-man Theo Kershaw, opposite quiet-spoken forward Hudson Grey and center Dylan Bankowski, a recent trade from Nashville, Dex’s old team.
“Gentlemen, how goes it?”
Kershaw grinned. “We should be asking you, Oh-Em-Gee! Heard you’re going to be knee deep in dog shit for a while.”
“That’s the plan. Not sure people won’t see how transparent that is, though.”
“People love puppies, man,” Bast said. “And people love athletes covered in puppies and kittens. A few photos, a nice character reference from whoever’s in charge, and you’ll be golden.”
It sounded as easy as the amazing cherry pie they served up at the diner.
“Tara said Kennedy works there.” Kennedy was married to Reid Durand, Bast’s brother, also a Rebel.
Bast stirred his coffee. “She used to volunteer, but her concierge business has taken off and with the baby on the way, she doesn’t have much time. Trying to get an in before you go?”
Right, another Rebel pregnancy. This team was constantly pumping them out.
“Just curious if I’d see a friendly face.”
“Other than the puppies?” Banks gruffed out. “I think you’re going to be fine.”
“Yep,” Dex agreed because he wanted to move on. “I’ll head over after practice and turn on the charm.”
“You’ll have them eating out of your hand,” Kershaw said while perusing the menu. “Literally.”
The conversation shifted to the home game tomorrow against their old rivals, the Detroit Motors. After they put their menu orders in—the French toast here was out of this world—Dex considered that now was as good a time as any to get something off his chest.
“So, I wanted to run something by you guys.”
His teammates looked up, curious.
“Are you guys pissed at me?”
Rolling his shoulders, Kershaw settled back in the booth. “What makes you think that?”
“A little bird told me there’s a poker game at Hunt’s place once a week, and I’m guessing my invite got lost in the mail.”
“And you think we’re pissed at you? Nah, we kind of assumed it was too boring for you.”
Shit. They were pissed at him.
“No, not at all.” He raised his gaze to Banks, who was checking his phone. It looked like he was reading the Chicago Tattler website, which was strange, but then Banks was an odd duck. There was no good reason why he should already be deep in the Rebels’ fleshy bosom, yet Dex had a weird feeling the guy had managed to weasel his way in. “Are you on this invite list?”
“Yep. But I might be off it since I took a grand off everyone last week.”
Kershaw snorted. “Beginner’s luck, Psycho.”
“Psycho?” Banks squinted at his teammate.
“From the movie. Norman Banks. Mommy issues. Fun times in the shower. That’s one of my best.”
“It’s Norman Bates, asshole, not Banks.”
Kershaw screwed up his mouth. “You sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“Because Psycho is a really good nickname and I’d hate to have to re-think it.”
Banks got even squintier. “Well, I’m feeling like a psycho right now.”
That cheered Kershaw. “Nailed it. I’m the king of the nicknames.”
Even that misattributed one was better than Dex’s. He didn’t mind Sexy Dexy but Kershaw usually bandied about “Oh-Em-Gee” because of his caught-on-camera sexual escapade. Most of the videos had an OMG sticker over his crotch, completely unnecessary because his dick was hidden by a big puff of blonde hair. Forever click bait.
He turned the conversation back to poker night. “I’m up for a card game. Anytime.”
Bast looked skeptical. “But you did say that we’re all boring as shit because we’ve settled down to make babies. Though I’m not up for breeding yet, at least not while Pepper is finishing up school. As for Grey here—what’s your deal, Hud? You and Jude gonna get into the child rearing business soon?”
Hudson blushed, which was par for the course with him. Per Tara, he and his firefighter boyfriend were cuter than all the puppies and kittens Dex expected to be puddled in later.
Now that he thought of it, he got all his team gossip from Tara instead of the guys themselves.
“It’s been mentioned but I want to be sure I’m not traded soon.” Hudson gave a quick shrug, affable as ever. Like anyone would trade him after this past killer season, not to mention everyone adored him. He was practically the team’s mascot. “Our dog Crosby is all the baby we need for now.”
Appearing satisfied with that answer, Bast turned back to Dex. “So yeah, us boring homebodies are okay with pizza and beer and poker. Guessing clubs are more your bag.”
Sure, but he liked hanging with the guys as well.
“So I have a big mouth. I’m full of shit most of the time. You know that.”
Healthy suspicion greeted that until finally Theo chuckled and spoke for the group. “Oh, we do, Oh-Em-Gee. We do. And now we know you’re interested, then we’ll get you on the text chain.”
“There’s a text chain?” Fuck, how much had he been missing?
They razzed him a bit more, and by the time the food had arrived, he was feeling on a surer footing with them. Anton and Tara were right: he needed to make more effort. These were his ice-brothers, and he had to put in what he expected to get out.
4
Rory
Part Golden Retriever
