Kane (Face-Off 2)

Ten minutes later, a young boy in a black Honda Accord pulls up next to me. I get in the back seat, exchange pleasantries, and he drives in almost silence until we get close to Club Rave. He keeps looking at me in the mirror, his face lighting up in acknowledgment when he realizes who I am.

“Are you?” His voice trembles for a second before he continues, “Are you Tyler Kane? You sure look an awful lot like him.”

I nod. “Yes, I am.”

He slaps his hand down on the steering wheel in excitement. “No fucking way! My friends are going to be so jealous when I tell them you were in my car. Wow! This has to be the best day of my life. They’ll never believe me.”

My fans are what make losing not so bad. Every pro athlete, no matter how successful, had at least one player they l

ooked up to as a kid. Mine was Gretzky, of course, because who wouldn’t want to be like him? And the fact I play the same position only made me want to aspire to be like him even more.

“They will believe you if you give them proof,” I tell him.

Confusion scrolls across his face. “Like what?”

I have nothing of value to give him, not unless he wants me to sign a condom or the crumpled hundred-dollar bill I have in my wallet. But I would need a pen to give him an autograph. “How about a picture?”

As he pulls into the parking lot at Club Rave, his eyes grow as wide as his smile. “Yeah, that would be awesome. Can I share it on Facebook?”

“Sure. Share it wherever you want.”

We both get out of the car and shut the doors behind us. He stands next to me, and I move closer, staring at the camera on his phone as he snaps a few pictures.

“Man, this is so awesome. You made my day, my week, my month.” He runs a hand through his shaggy brown hair and scans his phone for a second before he glances back up at me. “You have no idea.”

I had the same fan moment once when I was younger with a retired player from the Flyers. It was the best day of my life, or at least it felt that way until the Flyers selected me in the first round of the NHL draft after high school.

“My pleasure.” I take out my wallet and hand him a one hundred dollar bill, saving the condom for later. “Have a good day.”

He thanks me several times before I walk toward my car that sits all by itself in the vacant lot, lucky the police hadn’t towed it in the middle of the night.

“Go Flyers,” he says once I reach my car door.

I turn around, my hand held up in the air and balled into a fist. “Go Flyers!”

He smiles and gets into his car, reminding me that the fans are the best part of the game.

Now, it’s time to go home so I can shower and shave and look somewhat presentable for Coach’s basketball skills clinic this afternoon. The event means too much to both Coach and Parker for me to fuck this up. And I have to meet the reporter, the one who I’m hoping is just as sexy in person because I could use another distraction for the night.

Chapter Three

KENNEDY

Sydney hovers over me as I add the final touch to our latest blog post and hit publish, her sweet perfume filling my nostrils as she flips her long, black curls over her shoulder. She showed up at my apartment this morning, dressed in the tight skirt and top she wore last night, to bring me breakfast on her way home from some random dude’s house. Instead of preparing for my big interviews this afternoon, we ended up working on our weekly feature together.

Tilting her head back, she laughs so loud it pierces my eardrum. “This is a good one, K. It might even be one of your best articles. What do you think? Should I read this one live for our Facebook fans?”

I shrug against my chair. “Up to you. We could get a lot of hits, but you know I’m not getting in front of the camera.”

Her eyes and mouth widen at the same time. “Ooh, how about this…what if we did a reenactment of what happened to our follower?”

“That would look more like a porno than anything. Plus, who would do the reenacting? I’m broke, remember? I can’t go shelling out money to hire actors.”

She lifts the coffee mug on the desk in front of me and chugs the rest of the liquid before slamming it back down with a thud. “No, silly. We would get one of our local followers to do it.”

I swivel in my chair, and Sydney takes a few steps back and into the living room. My apartment is so small that my office and living room occupy the same space, but I have a fabulous bedroom closet.

“Yeah, right,” I shoot back. “Try finding a man who will get on camera and pretend he has a baby dick. Good luck with that.”