Puck Daddy

“Darcy, where are you going?”

She smiles deviously. “To get a cake from the machine, like Junior.”

I chuckle. “For later, right?” She responds with only a devilish grin, and it only makes me laugh harder.

I feel good about going to Arizona. I’m still nervous about the whole thing, but now I see it as a challenge. One I have every intention of succeeding in for the next few weeks.

Chapter Seventeen

Tristan

The next few days are going to be more stressful than I thought, I can see that now. The team’s acting as if we’ve already won the Stanley fucking Cup. But we can’t be complacent. Not only because we have a long way to go, but because the journey’s just begun, and with the number of games we’ve got ahead of us, we need to keep up the momentum. Now, tomorrow, and right up until the bitter end. That’s the only way that cup will be ours.

I nudge Jack, sitting beside me, his gaze fixed out the window of the bus. “Hey, man. Thanks for getting Sandy to get in touch with Faith. I appreciate it.”

He clenches a fist and punches me in the shoulder lightly as we begin to collect our shit and disembark the bus, heading into the airport. He hates flying, too, so I don’t doubt he’s thankful for a distraction. It’s part of the job, but sometimes it just does my fucking head in. All I want to do is play hockey, not having to trust my life to a tin can that soars through the air.

“Don’t sweat it, man. I know it must be tough for you. That’s what friends are for, right?”

I nod my head, taken aback by his affirmation that we’re friends. Not that I don’t want to be, but because, after Blake hooked up with my ex-wife, I’ve had a tough time remembering that not everyone is like him. Blake and I went to school together. We went to the same college. We did everything together. It never occurred to me that when I introduced him to Hayley, his attraction to her would trump the years of friendship we’d accumulated. The worst part was that the affair had gone on for years, and I’d been completely blind to it.

After that, my kids and my parents were the only people I wanted to associate with. And the only people I wanted to put my trust in. It’s easy with the kids, compared to trusting someone else.

Jack laughs at my expression. “You don’t have to act as if the world’s always on your shoulders. You can delegate, you know. And let people help you. You can be the captain of a team without harboring the stress of it all yourself.”

I arch a speculative brow. “Is that how I’ve been behaving?” I grab my bag from the overhead compartment, and we head inside.

I thought I socialized enough, acted as if I was part of the team, on and off the ice. I’d never thought of myself as a loner.

“When we won the first game, you acted like you were doing us a favor by celebrating with us all.” He chuckles when he says it, but there’s admonishment in there, too.

I raise my eyebrow higher. “I did? Shit.” I let out a slow breath. “I guess I’d just rejoined the team after being passed around like the kid in the schoolyard no one wants to have to acknowledge. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

He nods his head, running his fingers through his dirty blonde hair. “Yeah, but you were picked up by Arizona. And not only that, but they made you captain. Do you know how much that pissed off Kevin? Shit, he’d been with the team for how long? They sold him and got you instead, man.”

We’re at the check-in, and as the coach hands over our passports, I think about how far I’ve come in such a short amount of

time. One moment I’m cutting myself off from the teammates who obviously want me to be a bigger part of things, the next I’ve got a woman like Faith underneath me, making me forget why I ever distrusted anyone in the first place.

Damn it, it took every ounce of energy I had to drag my ass out of that bed this morning. Not because I was tired, but because I didn’t want to have to leave Faith in my bed without me.

“I guess that counts for something, huh?” I chuckle, trying to focus on the conversation. “I just thought he wasn’t performing that well.”

Jack shakes his head. “The team wanted you back, Wright. It had fuck all to do with Kevin and his performance.” He looks around to make sure none of the other teammates are listening to our conversation. “You’ve got it, man. You just need to fix your attitude at times. I’m not saying I blame you. What you’ve been through is rough. I don’t know how you managed to get through it, to be honest. But you did, and you just need to put that shit behind you and move on.”

His words sound harsh, but that doesn’t mean he’s not right. “It’s fucking hard, Jack. Especially when you find out your best friend was fucking your wife.”

Jack opens and closes his mouth, before finally choosing how to respond. “I thought you knew, to be honest. That maybe you just put up with it. Some guys do. I thought maybe you were one of them.”

I can’t believe he would think such a thing. “What? Who the hell would put up with that kind of shit?”

Jack nods in the direction of the coach. “Him, for a start. His wife’s been banging his brother for years. Not sure why he puts up with it, but he does.” He tilts his head toward the gate. “Anyway, let’s get going.” Jack pats me on the back again, then ambles off to get his luggage checked.

I realize then that I’ve been living in a fucking bubble. Before, it was all about the game. I didn’t pay enough attention to Hayley—that was her excuse at the time—and everyone else seems to have known about the affair. Well, Jack did, at least, but he’d never spoken about it before today.

I should be pissed at him for not mentioning it sooner, but I’m not. The only thing I’m thinking is, how many others knew about it, too?

I shrug. Because it doesn’t matter.