I’m breathing hard and my legs feel like Jell-O as I make my way from the ice to the locker room. Jordan is behind me with Cole, and Adam is in front of me. This is one of my favorite training days because it’s just a light, fun scrimmage game. The other days are filled with weight training—hours of dead lifts, pull-ups, barbell squats, dumbbell lunges—and conditioning where we do crazy stuff like pulling a tractor-trailer tire around our old high school field or, if we’re feeling particularly aggressive, we pull each other. So on-ice days are a treat. Some are filled with drills, led by our personal off-season trainer, Skip, and some are like this, where we invite old high school teammates to mess around with us. I still get a workout but it’s way more fun than the other days.
As we enter the locker room and start pulling off equipment, Adam’s phone whistles and he digs for it in the front flap of his knapsack. I toss a glove in his general direction and grin. “Is that Tasha begging for another ride on the Miller train?”
He smirks. “I wish. It’s just an app alert. The only girl who has called me since last night is Bri, asking for your phone number. Don’t worry, I didn’t give it to her.”
Jordan perks up at this, a confused look on his sweaty face. “You’re blowing off phone numbers?”
I nod. “I need some time to myself.”
Cole chuckles as he pulls his jersey over his head. “Then why is it every time I see you you’re with Rosie?”
“That’s different. It’s just Rose,” I mutter and catch a weird glance pass from Cole to Jordan.
“What?” I ask, but neither answers. Instead Jordan turns to Adam.
“How many girls has he turned down so far this summer?”
Adam shrugs, still looking at his phone screen. “Six or seven in my presence. It’s okay, though, because most of them think I’m a consolation prize. I am not above being second best.”
“Stay classy, Adam!” Cole quips, untying his skates.
Adam finally looks up, an innocent smile on his round face. “I wasn’t good enough to make the hockey dream happen but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the perks. I may not get the money or the fame, but I’ll take the chicks if he doesn’t want them.”
Then he holds up his phone and the grin on his face slips into a smirk. “And I have the TMZ Sports app on my phone to remind me that there’s a side I was lucky to avoid.”
Adam turns his phone screen toward the rest of us. I can’t make out the writing on the screen but I see the picture of my ex clearly from across the small, concrete room. Jordan reaches out and takes the phone, and after a few seconds scrutinizing the screen, he starts laughing.
“What now?” I ask, even though I don’t want to know.
“Swedish supermodel Nessa Carlsson leaving 1Oak with a male that is definitely not her hot hockey boyfriend. Where’s Luc Richard? Is he still in hiding after tanking yet another season?” He’s laughing so hard now, he’s bent over at the waist. I use the opportunity to swipe the phone from his hand and read it myself.
It’s word for word what Jordan said, but he left out the headline, which stated “When the Hockey Player’s Away the Supermodel Will Play.” I swear in French under my breath. “I wish they’d let it go. We have. And when did she become a supermodel?”
“When she started dating you,” Cole retorts. “You’ve given her more press than any runway show ever could.”
“If you just released a statement saying it’s over, they’d start easing up,” Jordan says, telling me what I already know.
“She won’t have her people do it. She likes the attention it brings when we let people wonder. And my people are so fed up with the Luc and Nessa Show that they won’t deal with it,” I explain, pushing my hockey pants from my legs and grabbing my towel. “They’re furious at the attention my relationship has brought the team.”
“Vegas is a non-hockey market,” Cole points out. “They should be lucky anyone’s talking about them at all.”
He’s right, in a way. The Vegas Vipers have always struggled to find a fan base, just like a lot of teams in warmer states. Vegas residents didn’t grow up with backyard rinks and local junior teams, and with all the other attractions in Vegas—casino shows, boxing matches—tourists aren’t jumping at the chance to spend a night in our chilly arena. We haven’t sold out a game the entire time I’ve been on the team. Of course, the L.A. Kings grew their fan base by winning two Stanley Cups. We haven’t made the playoffs in four years, so that doesn’t help. But when the captain of the team started being photographed with an up-and-coming model, the news felt hockey was finally worth talking about. Before I knew what was happening, or how to avoid it, we’d become the Tony Romo and Jessica Simpson of the NHL. It didn’t help that Nessa loved the attention and tweeted pictures of herself in a Vipers bikini or a bejeweled pink Vipers jersey and nothing else. She also tweeted about the games, using the wrong terminology for every play she remarked on, confusing things like penalty kills and power plays. After almost two years of this, Vipers fans grew to hate her, team management thought she was distracting me and my future in Vegas was tenuous.
“Maybe a trade wouldn’t be such a bad thing,” Jordan tells me as we walk to the showers. “A fresh start, maybe even in a hockey market like Seattle or Brooklyn.”
When we were kids we used to all dream about playing together in the NHL but the closer we all got to making it, the more we knew that would be a long shot. We were all high-round draft picks who would command large contracts, and there were salary caps for each team. No one team could pay all our salaries and be able to afford the rest of the players. Besides, my agent called every day to reassure me the Vipers weren’t giving up on me yet. He told me repeatedly that if I proved myself to them this summer by keeping my nose clean, they wouldn’t trade me. And even if I asked for a trade, something I had thought about doing, my poor play the last couple of years might not get me a lot of interest from teams. I was more likely to end up on another poorly performing team rather than on Jordan’s Winterhawks or Devin’s Barons. So, all things considered, lying low and girlfriendless so the Vipers kept me was the best option this summer.
“I’m not going to push for a trade,” I tell him as we each slip into a private shower stall, divided by tiled half walls. “I’m going to prove to them that I can make hockey my only focus. And next year, I’m going to get this fucking team to the playoffs if it kills me.”
“Okay, buddy.” Jordan nods but I can see the skepticism on his face. I simply choose to ignore it.
“Keep hanging out with Rose,” Cole adds with a smug smile on his face for some reason. “We’ll see how that works out for you.”
I ignore him completely, just like I did his brother.