Coach's Challenge Read online

  Troy scowled. “They don’t, but that’s not the point. Although maybe it is. Look, Bowie, I said it was a terrible idea, and so it is. I don’t need to back up anything I say with facts.”

  “Maybe not when you’re talking to your players, but I’m your boss,” Gabe reminded him. “Who is giving you good bourbon.”

  “If it wasn’t good, I’d just mix it with some Coke.”

  Gabe put a hand over his heart and pretended to wince, but then grew serious. “Give him a chance. He’s not in bad shape, is he?”

  “No,” Troy mumbled into his drink. “He’s not.”

  There was a long, pregnant pause. Troy lowered the glass and stared at the whiskey stones intently. Troy had no idea where you even got such a thing. He was lucky he had ice in his freezer.

  Gabe cleared his throat.

  “What?” Troy shot him a glare. “He’s in good shape. Yes. I’m agreeing with you.”

  “I know, that’s why I’m speechless.” Gabe grinned at him, and the lines crinkled around his eyes. “You think he’s hot, don’t you.”

  “He’s a hockey player in great shape who is over the age of thirty, and he surfs for fun,” Troy reminded him. “I’m not dead. But he’s also got a bad attitude—”

  “So do you.”

  Troy scowled harder. “And he’s got a reputation for being a bully, which, Bowie, you’ll note is backed up by the several lengthy suspensions he’s earned. So it’s not like I’m making that up. That’s the last thing this team needs.”

  “Then don’t let him be one,” Gabe said, as though that were sensible and obvious. “And I don’t really think he’s a bully. I think he plays hard, and he’s angry about not being the player everyone always made him out to be. He was supposed to have this great career, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he has a chip on his shoulder about it.”

  Even though Troy had thought nearly the exact same thing earlier, he still wanted to argue about it. “Why is that a good reason to sign him, again?”

  “Because the kid wants to quit hockey on his own terms, Cally. I would think you, of all people, would appreciate that. Besides you’ve got a whole team to manage. What’s one more guy?” Gabe’s smile turned into a leer. “You’re totally into that. Don’t lie.”

  “Shut up. God. I am never letting you use my laptop unattended again,” Troy muttered as he slunk down a bit and tried to pretend the flush was from the alcohol and not because his best friend and now boss knew he watched gang-bang porn.

  Gabe laughed. “You want more bourbon?”

  “Nah.” He did, but he also knew he shouldn’t have any if he wanted to drive home. The guest room was nice and all, but he kind of wanted to head home to his laptop. “When’s Monica getting back?”

  “Tomorrow. She’s flying into Charlotte tonight, but decided to get a hotel and drive back in the morning.”

  “Where was she, again? Seattle or something?”

  Gabe rolled his eyes. He’d already told Troy that information three or more times. “Washington. She and some of her writer friends were at a retreat, working on novels.” The pride in his voice was evident. “She said she’s already got a few thousand words on a new project and is really excited about it.”

  Gabe’s pride in his wife’s literary talents was evident, and it made Troy smile. Monica used to work in PR, but she recently started publishing romance novels and had built a successful career out of it. “You didn’t tell her about the gang-bang porn, did you?” he asked, suddenly horrified.

  “She writes romance novels. Sometimes she watches porn for research.” Gabe’s smile turned sly. “You should check out her laptop.”

  “I think we might like different kinds of porn,” Troy said dryly.

  “You’d be surprised.” Gabe tossed back the rest of his drink. “Anyway, just give North a fair shot. If he’s a problem, then do what you’ve got to do. I just think he gets a bad rap, and yeah, I know he’s been suspended. But Cally, you were suspended for playing basically the same way.”

  “Yeah, but not that many times.”

  “Only because you didn’t play as long.” Gabe sighed when he caught sight of Troy’s unguarded wince. “Sorry.”

  “Sorry? Why are you sorry?” Troy stood up. “It’s not your fault I was a coward.”

  “You weren’t a coward,” Gabe said in the tone of voice that said, “We’ve had this conversation a million times and will probably have it a million more.”

  “You were young and scared, and it was a different world. A lot has changed since we played. Most of it for the better. You know half those hits North was suspended for would have been legal back in our day.”

  “Don’t pull that ‘back in our day’ shit on me.” Troy groaned as he carried his glass into the kitchen. “We’re not that old.”

  “Yes, we are.” Gabe followed him and folded his arms across his chest. “And you’ve been fined as a coach a few times, you know. Weren’t you ejected from a game just last season for arguing over a call?”

  “Yes, because it was bullshit.” Troy was still mad about that. “That whole game was one missed call after another, and I—stop laughing, okay? Goddammit.” He rinsed the glass and placed it in the dish-drying rack. “Fine. I’m a hothead coach. He’s a hothead player. But this isn’t a goddamn sitcom, Bowie. It’s our fucking job.”

  “And I have every faith you’ll be able to do it and do it well.” Gabe clapped him on the shoulder. “It’s just for the season, Cally. And if the kid can’t play, then bench him. But try and go a little easier on him, all right?”

  Troy didn’t go easy on anyone, and Gabe of all people should damn well know it. “One last thing. The assistant coach has all the personality of a piece of dryer lint.”

  “I thought having two strong personalities in charge would be a bad idea.”

  That was probably true, but still. “Couldn’t you have found someone with any kind of personality?”

  “He probably had one before St. Savoy siphoned it out of him,” said Gabe. “Stuart assured me that they investigated Quinn and even asked the players at length if he was involved in any of St. Savoy’s schemes.” Gabe opened a cabinet and pulled out a clean glass. Then he went to the pitcher of water on the counter. “Seems like he was a nonentity, for the most part, which makes sense, given what we know of St. Savoy. But if Quinn doesn’t work out, we’ll revisit at the end of the season.”

  Troy sighed, raked a hand through his hair, and accepted the glass of water Gabe handed him without question. He hated how reasonable Gabe was being, because that meant he couldn’t argue with him. “Yeah. I guess. It’s just that I’ve had more technical hockey conversations with NHL ’94 than this guy.”

  “Give him a chance,” Gabe soothed. “That’s all I’m asking.”

  Troy let the matter drop, but he couldn’t help but wonder how much Quinn knew about what went on last year. Being uninvolved didn’t mean Quinn wasn’t aware. It just meant he was silent. There were plenty of good reasons for staying quiet, and Quinn had talked at length about the uncomfortable locker room morale and St. Savoy’s draconian coaching style. He just never noticed the money that changed hands or the blackmail or anything else.

  Or so he said.

  Troy put it out of his mind and got another glass of water. He’d promised to give Quinn a chance, and if it didn’t work out, they’d get a new assistant coach. No harm, no foul.

  But if life had taught him anything, it was that things were never that easy.

  Chapter Three

  SHANE GOT home, threw his gear into the corner of his apartment, and cursed Coach Fucking Callahan in a variety of inventive ways as he went to the kitchen to fix himself something to eat. He really should learn to pack himself a snack or something, especially if he was going to end up with more “extended workouts.” It might keep his temper in check so he didn’t brain his new coach with his hockey stick.

  Callahan was such an asshole. If the team didn’t even know Shane was supposed to
be there yesterday, what the fuck was that whole thing about making him apologize for missing practice and having him show up early? Shane remembered the blank look on Captain Matthews’s face and got angry all over again. If that was how things were going to be, why had Bow wanted him on the team so badly?

  Shane knew he was overreacting because he was hungry and tired, but it still sucked. A lot. The assistant coach was way less of a dick, but seemed to do nothing other than hold an empty dry-erase board and clap supportively. Callahan clearly had that guy cowed too. And Jesus, what was it with this team hiring the biggest jerks in hockey to coach? First St. Savoy, then Callahan. And if one of his coaches had to be hot, why did it have to be the asshole one?

  You wouldn’t have found him hot if he weren’t an asshole, and you know it.

  Scowling, Shane fixed himself a peanut butter sandwich and grabbed some pita chips and a container of hummus. He missed San Diego, and he tried not to think about being on the ice with the Gulls, because that’s really where he wanted to be right then—not glaring daggers at his television. The ECHL had found him a furnished place, and he didn’t have a roommate, thank God, but he missed his rental house in San Diego, missed the warm breeze, and missed not having a coach who hated him. Everything was terrible.

  Shane took a vicious bite of the sandwich and followed it up with half a glass of water. As he ate he found his temper gently receding as the much-needed calories did their job. By the time he’d eaten another sandwich and half the hummus, he felt a lot less angry. It wasn’t as though he never got pissed off in San Diego at the game, his coaches, or his fellow teammates. But usually when that happened, he could grab his surfboard. Of course that was out of the question. Not only was he hours from the coast—and had no idea about surfing in North Carolina waters—his board was still in his room back in San Diego. Or maybe Alani was using it. Who knew?

  Speaking of….

  Shane finished his dinner, grabbed his phone, and hoped that Alani would answer. He knew it was a few hours earlier in San Diego and she might be on the beach. God knew that’s where he’d be, if he weren’t trapped in Cold Mountain. Maybe he should take up skiing.

  “Shane. You’re there!”

  Her voice immediately made him smile and eased some of his lingering tension. “Hey, Ali. Yeah, I’m here. Sorry I didn’t call sooner, I’ve had practice.”

  “Of course.” Her voice was warm. “Dude, I miss you, like, so fucking much, you don’t even know.”

  “Yeah. Me too.” He sighed, put his feet up on the coffee table, and noticed he had a hole in one of his socks. “How’s it hanging?”

  “Good. I’m getting ready for the tournament in Honolulu,” she enthused. “Have a new sponsor I’m meeting with next Wednesday, so things are great. How’s Asheville?”

  Awful and I hate it. “It’s, uh…different. Lots of mountains.”

  “Wow,” Alani said dryly. “That good, huh?”

  Shane didn’t want to wail about his sad life, but he couldn’t help it. “The coach hates me, I can’t go surfing, my teammates are all in their twenties—”

  “Uh, hello?” She cleared her throat. “I’m in my twenties too.”

  “Right, but… I don’t know, Ali. Maybe coming here was a bad idea. I should have retired and lived rent-free in the house your new sponsor will pay for.”

  She snorted. “Your coach does not hate you, Shane. Why would they want you on the team if they hated you?”

  “Because it wasn’t Coach Callahan who wanted me.” He hated how he sounded like he was whining. “It was the GM, who was an old coach of mine when I was with the Ducks. Gabriel Bow.”

  “Well, still. You’re good at hockey,” Ali declared loyally. “Just because the Gulls are morons doesn’t mean you shouldn’t still be playing.”

  “I told you all the shit this team was in, right?” he asked.

  “Like, the whole thing with the guy who got fired for trying to pull a Jeff Gillooly?”

  He smiled despite himself. “Aren’t you too young to be making Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding references?”

  “We watched that ESPN 30-for-30 about it. Remember?”

  “Right. And yeah, that’s what happened, or at least, that’s the gist of it as far as I know.” Shane hadn’t asked anyone for specifics. “But I guess the coach doesn’t want me here since I’m…. Well, I guess he thinks I’m just a goon and bad for morale.”

  “You’ve been there, like, two days.” She sounded worried, which he didn’t want but secretly liked. “Seriously, Shane, if you’re that miserable, you could just retire, right? Come back and be my manager and glare threateningly at the boys who say dumb shit when they hit on me.”

  “What about the girls who say dumb shit when they hit on you?”

  “No glaring at girls, and besides I can handle them.”

  “You can handle the boys too, and you know it,” he reminded her. “And hey, you got mad at me when I tried to step in once before. Remember?”

  “Because I thought you were trying to pull one of those nice-guy bullshit moves,” she said. “I had no idea you were a gay hockey player who recognized one of your own in distress from unwanted hetero attention.”

  Shane grinned outright. “I miss you.”

  “I miss you too. Everyone’s like, where’s your boyfriend?” She sighed. “It literally does not matter how many times I tell them you’re not my boyfriend. They don’t get it.”

  That had been equally as true for Shane. He met Alani at a bar, where she’d been the recipient of, as she put it, “unwanted hetero attention” from an aggressive guy who pissed Shane off. He went over and told the guy to knock it off, because at the time, he had no idea the girl—who barely came up to his shoulder—was a badass professional surfer who’d been dealing with macho assholes since she caught her first wave.

  When Shane got the guy to stumble off, she turned her attention to Shane and said, “I’m not going home with you either. So you can fuck off with him, for all I care.”

  For some reason Shane, who was firmly in the closet, responded with “He’s not my type, but thanks.”

  She gave him a piercing look from her gorgeous dark eyes, tossed her hair over her shoulder, and patted the barstool. “Sit down, and if you’re lying and trying to pick me up, I’ll kick you in the shins.”

  Over the next two years they became inseparable. She taught him how to surf, and he taught her to like hockey. He went to her events when he could, and she was his fiercest and most loyal fan—maybe the only person in America who owned a North jersey who wasn’t related to him. He even went home with her to Hawaii for Christmas one year, though her parents thought he was her boyfriend and she “wasn’t ready to tell them about the lesbian thing yet.”

  That, Shane understood. He’d never told his parents he was gay either. Other than Alani, he’d never told anyone.

  “Speaking of… any hot boys on your team?”

  “Alani,” he groaned. “If I can’t ask you about hooking up with other girl surfers, you can’t ask about me hooking up with hockey players.”

  “You can ask me,” she clarified. “It’s the guys who want to ask me because they think women’s surfing is just a Playboy Channel movie instead of, you know, a professional sport.”

  “I know. But no, there’s… well, there’s a gay player here who’s out to the team. The captain, actually.” That was one piece of information Shane had learned from Gabriel Bow, who told Shane there was a gay player who was out to the team in the locker room, and he hoped he hadn’t misjudged Shane as someone who wouldn’t have a problem with that. Shane briefly considered outing himself to his new GM, decided against it, and simply assured Bow that he didn’t have a problem with it at all.

  “What?”

  He had to hold the phone away from his ear at her shriek. “Jesus, Al.”

  “No, seriously. You’re gay, you play hockey for a coach who is also gay, and there’s a hot gay player and…. Why are you bummed about being
there, again?”

  “Because this is my job, not a movie on the Playgirl Channel?”

  “Oh, fuck off.” She laughed. “But wait, is he like, dating someone?”

  “I have no idea. I haven’t asked. Look, he’s… okay, well, he’s really hot. Blond, strong jaw. You know the type.”

  “I’ve seen such creatures before. Yes.”

  “But way too young for me,” Shane pointed out. “Maybe like, two years older than you.”

  “Everyone always thinks we’re dating, so what’s the problem?” she breezed.

  “Besides the fact that we aren’t? And I’m only going to be here this season, you know. Then I’m coming back to San Diego. Seems like a terrible idea to date someone knowing that, doesn’t it?”

  “Couldn’t they renew your contract another year if you decided you liked it there?” she asked, and he could picture her in the living room, feet propped up and trying to paint her toenails, watch a movie, and talk on the phone at the same time.

  “Maybe? But I’m done after this year,” he said firmly. “I should have just hung it up after the Gulls didn’t renew my contract.”

  “I hate them,” Alani declared. “And I’m going to be a Kings fan now. Wait. Who’s the AHL team for the Kings? That’d be the rivals for the Gulls, right? Because we hate the Kings and all their various subteams?”

  “You don’t have to hate the Gulls,” he told her, but it made him feel good that she said that. “But the Kings’ AHL team is the Reign.”

  “Where are their games? I’ll start going.”

  “Ontario,” he said.

  “Oh. Wait. What? Ontario, as in Canada?”

  “California, actually. Up near Anaheim.”

  “Hmm.” Alani paused. “Let’s be honest. I probably won’t go, but I’ll still boo the Gulls. Even actual gulls. I’ll boo one every time I see one on the beach. How’s that?”

  “I feel very avenged, Al.”

  “Seriously, though. Even if you’re not into this hot blond hockey player who happens to also be gay, maybe you should think about coming out? I mean, if you’re only going to be there a year and the coach is also openly gay, I think it’d be a pretty accepting environment.”