She led him past a big open room which was set up for a press conference—with a table at one end and rows of folding chairs lined up all the way to the back of the room. Beyond that, she opened another door to reveal a large lounge area, with sofas and a pool table. It was a gorgeous, comfortable room, and it was full of hockey players wearing suits and purple ties—the team color for the Brooklyn Bruisers.
Several heads turned in his direction, and Leo was confronted with the reality that this should have been a really exciting moment for him—meeting his new NHL teammates. But Coach Karl had robbed him of that joy. In order to become a true member of this team, it would be an uphill battle against all of Karl’s objections.
He didn’t know if it was possible, but he’d die trying.
And hey, he comforted himself, scanning the guys in this room, at least if Karl succeeds at tossing your ass by the end of the day, you’ll never have to wear a purple tie.
“Gentlemen,” Becca said, clapping her hands. A couple of conversations stopped, heads turning in their direction. “This is Leo Trevi, a forward, and Mr. Kattenberger’s newest trade.”
There was a murmured chorus of “yo” and “welcome.”
“Hey, man.” A player waved from the sofa, and Leo recognized him as the team’s current captain, Patrick O’Doul. At thirty-two years old, he’d been scoring for this team long before Nate bought it and brought it to Brooklyn. They’d had a difficult couple of seasons, but it wasn’t O’Doul’s fault.
“Hey,” Leo said. “Glad to be here.” He wanted to be a member of this team so fucking bad. But walking into this room wasn’t a moment of victory—it was more like the preparation for battle. Knowing that didn’t make Leo feel like the friendliest guy in the world.
“He doesn’t have a locker yet,” Becca said. “Will you do any rearranging? Or shall we give him the, um, open spot?”
O’Doul transferred a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other, gazing up at Leo with his hands at the back of his head. Maybe he affected an easy disposition, but Leo could still see him sizing up the new guy, looking for weakness. “Put ’im in the open spot,” he said finally.
Until that moment, Leo hadn’t properly appreciated the fact that getting a crack at the NHL was like being the recipient of a donor organ—someone else had to suffer to give him his big break. Hopefully he wouldn’t be offering up a lung to some other soul before the day was out.
“The publicist will arrive shortly to brief everyone on the press conference,” Becca said. “Until then, make yourself at home.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
“So where you from?” O’Doul asked lazily.
“Here. Grew up in Huntington on the North Shore. Been watching this team forever. When I was five is the first time my dad got season tickets to the . . .”
O’Doul held up a hand to silence him. “Don’t say it. Kattenberger doesn’t allow anyone to speak the old franchise name.”
“Sorry?”
“Inside this building, you can only call us the Bruisers.” O’Doul winked. “See? I can say it easily now. Took me a year to break the habit. I mean—Kattenberger is a bit of a whack job on this particular point. It’s like a Voldemort thing. The Team That Shall Not Be Named. But since the boss man paid his left nut for the franchise and changed the name, he can do it his way. If you want to avoid his wrath, you never say that old name.”
“Um, thanks?”
The captain had an evil grin. “I know it’s weird. I still have all the old pennants in a box somewhere. If Kattenberger knew, he’d probably send one of his ninja minions to my apartment to have ’em incinerated. Where else you play hockey?”
“Drafted by Detroit. Sent down to Muskegon’s AHL team for two seasons. Harkness College before that.”
O’Doul’s expression chilled. “Aw, an Ivy League boy. That’s cute.”
Somebody has a chip on his shoulder. Looking for a change of topic, Leo nodded at O’Doul’s purple rep stripes. “Did the owner choose the new color, too?”
O’Doul tugged on his tie. “You betcha. Him and a bunch of million dollar marketing gurus. We call it indigo, ’cause that sounds better than purple.”
Leo laughed. “Thanks for the tip.”
“Stick with me, kid. Might want to grab yourself a bottle of water. If you’re the new guy, they might make you say a few words at the press conference. Publicist will let you know. Though maybe they won’t get around to it, because the whole coach thing is a pretty big story.”
Ugh. “No kidding.”
“The last guy got fired—what—a year and a half ago, now? Kattenberger had to do it. The guy was a good coach, but you don’t trash-talk the new owner like that. Then an interim coach got cancer. So now it’s on to Worthington. He’s another Long Island guy. Could be worse, right?”
No, actually. It could not be worse, even if the coach was his dead aunt Maria Theresa. “Where did you say that water was?”
He pointed to the corner. “Espresso machine is over there, too, if that’s your thing.”
“Thanks.” Leo made his way over to the corner, stopping every few feet as the guys reached out to shake his hand.
“Thanks,” he said a half dozen times. “Great to be here.” But he probably wasn’t all that convincing. Wait until they watched a snarling Coach Karl ship his ass back to Michigan. That would be a fun moment. They’d all be wondering what the hell he did to piss off Coach.
Leo would be wondering, too.
Once upon a time, he and Coach Worthington were tight. Karl had been a college coach then, but he’d done some development work with Leo’s high school team. The man had taught him a lot, and had always had time for Leo.
At the same time, Leo was dating his daughter, Georgia. There are some dads who hate their little girl’s boyfriend on principle. But Coach Karl hadn’t seemed like that sort of dad. And anyway, Leo had treated Georgia like a queen until the day she’d broken his heart. When Leo looked back on high school, loving Georgia was actually the one thing in his life he knew he’d done right. Maybe he wasn’t as good a big brother to his siblings as he should have been. And maybe he was a pain in the ass to his teachers. But Leo had been really good to Georgia Worthington, from the moment he asked her to the homecoming dance their sophomore year until the day of high school graduation, when she cut him loose.
It wasn’t quite as simple as puppy love running its course, though. A few months before graduation, something terrible had happened to Georgia, and Leo wasn’t around to stop it. The last part of their senior year, they’d both suffered. And sometime during those dark days, Coach Worthington stopped approving of Leo. At the time, Leo had been too worried about Georgia to wonder much about her father’s change of heart. His disapproval meant nothing to Leo—there’d been only Georgia and her pain. He’d stuck by her side, loyal to the very end.