TWO
First Round Play-Offs, Game One
Chicago Rebels at Dallas Steers
A captain’s band meant something. Responsibility, leadership, rock-solid strength. Bren had always thought he had these traits in spades.
Even when he was drinking a bottle of whiskey a day.
Even when his wife was fucking an NFL wide receiver.
Even when his problems started to sneak up on him, affecting his play.
Because even when all that shit was going down, he had his girls, his beautiful daughters for whom he would skate through fire. If someone told him he had to surrender his band to spend more time with them, he’d rip it off without question. If Coach Calhoun said he couldn’t play in the finals and be a good father at the same time, there would be no contest. While Bren was a natural skater, he was a born father.
Fancy sentiments, for sure. They meant sweet fuck all without action.
His girls didn’t like him much right now. Well, Franky liked him fine, but then she was an eternal optimist. Caitriona wanted to believe. He saw it in her eyes, that quick spark of hope that would dull because he’d let her down. Chosen his love of the bottle over his love for her.
At the ripe old age of thirty-one, he had a second chance: the play-offs and his girls. Twelve years in this business and his first time in the postseason. Possibly his last time. He’d stayed in Chicago for Kendra, who liked living there until she didn’t. Now he was damaged goods and no team but the Rebels would have him.
Sitting on the visitors’ bench in the Dallas Steers FedEx Arena, Bren tried to focus on the game. One goal apiece, middle of the third. It might have been his imagination, but this level seemed faster, like moving from junior league to the farm team, from the minors to the NHL. Each new grade put you against bigger guys, faster skaters, blink-and-you-miss-it plays. The Rebels had played Dallas before, so it shouldn’t be different. Yet it was.
Desperation tinged the air. It was a best-of-seven series and it felt like everything was riding on this first game.
“You’re in, Highlander,” Coach shouted to be heard above the crowd noise. But he needn’t have bothered, because Bren would have heard a whisper if it told him it was his turn. This was what he lived for.
Remy came off and touched his arm, like a passing of the baton. They were both centers, so they rarely played on the same line unless Coach wanted to mix things up. No one experimented during the play-offs, so when Bren was on, Remy was off.
“Allons-y,” the Cajun said. Let’s go. All those French-isms used to annoy Bren—Remy used to annoy Bren—but not anymore. Remy was the reason the team had found its way back in the past eight months. The man stepped up when Bren couldn’t, and the chatty charmer had become one of his closest friends.
Bren skated on, assessing everyone’s position, figuring out the dynamic. Every team, game, and play had a different one. This minute, Callaghan was on the right, Petrov on his left. Bren was the traffic cop, making sure every pass got to where it needed to go. Block, intercept, push, retreat—it was all part of his repertoire and the reason people in the know considered him underrated. Solid and steady, never flashy. The wingers scored more, but that was as it should be. He wasn’t one for the spotlight.
Where Bren excelled was in the face-off. He had a 58.6 percent record going into this game, and no way in hell was he letting that stat slip. After two minutes on the ice, they had the chance of a five-on-four power play, their best shot at pulling ahead.
Bren won the face-off and passed to Petrov, who took the puck and stuck with it down the line like it was Velcroed to his blade. Holstadt, one of the Dallas defenders, cross-checked him but didn’t get called for a minor, probably because Petrov managed to get the puck back into Rebels possession.
Back onto Bren’s blade.
In the attacking zone, Bren studied the placement of everyone. Some nights his mind operated with the vision of an overhead drone. God’s view. This was one of those nights. He drew geometric lines in his head between each player, figuring out who would benefit most from his pass. Needing to think three moves ahead, he held the puck for an extra half second before flicking it behind him to Petrov and praying the Russian was paying attention. With a side step to reveal the opening, Bren moved and watched with satisfaction as Vadim slapped the shot and bulged the twine.
The goal-scoring buzzer was the sweetest sound imaginable. Well, almost as sweet as his girls’ giggles.
“Hello, I’m Bren and I’m an alcoholic.”
“Hi, Bren,” a chorus of strangers’ voices sang back at him.
The beauty of AA was that no matter what city you were in or the time of day, there was usually a meeting happening nearby. Dallas was no different. The Rebels had won the first game of the series last night, but that didn’t stop the gnawing ache that threatened to eat Bren from the inside out. The team might be his brothers, but these strangers were his tribe.
Another day, another musty church basement. Damn, he could create a handy-dandy travel guide for church basements across North America.
Seattle: damp, smells of fish, excellent coffee.
Nashville: strains of country trickling in from the bar on the corner. Irony of meeting location noted.
Dallas: plentiful beef jerky and donuts. The same haunted faces as any other AA group.
Standing up and sharing was something Bren hadn’t done much of since the earliest meetings after he exited rehab. Back then, it was a way to prove he was taking the process seriously. Now he was more likely to load up on caffeine, sit back, and listen. Chronically shy as a child, he’d used alcohol as a crutch and a way to connect with his equally reticent father, and without that lubricant, the talking refused to come easy to him. But today, he needed to be heard in an environment where no one judged.
He inhaled a shaky breath. “Last night, I took a step toward something that could amount to a career high if it all goes as planned.” Getting specific wasn’t necessary; sharing in AA was all about emoting. “Basically, I won something and if I keep on winning, it would mean the world to me, my team, a lot of people who care about what I do. For years, I’ve been used to losing. Losing suits the alcoholic. Losing suits me. When I lose, I have an excuse to drink. No one questions drinks downed in self-consolation.”
A few in the group nodded in recognition.
“Things are looking up for me, though. My daughters are back in my life. My career is on an upswing. I’m not dating yet—still inside my year. Not that I’m counting down the days or anything.”
Everyone chuckled at that. AA guidelines recommended a twelve-month break from relationships, and Bren had been using it as some sort of benchmark for when his life truly would be back on track. Follow the rules. You do you.
He’d woken up earlier at the team hotel with his usual morning wood, and instead of tapping into his mental spank bank of images, he’d gone for a run. Been a while since he’d done that. Usually, his time at the gym and on the ice kept him fit, but he’d forgotten the satisfaction of pounding the pavement, Slipknot screaming in his ears, sweat rolling off his body. He’d run a lot after rehab because it was either that, drink, or fuck.
Two of the three were now off the menu.
One year, four months, a week, and three days—that’s how long since he’d been inside a woman. Given that his divorce was finalized nine months ago while he was in rehab, he guessed he should be grateful that he hadn’t added infidelity to his list of sins. The last woman he slept with was his wife, which was miraculous, considering how much of his spare time was spent wasted, bellied up to bars, with women crawling all over him. Some kernel of decency deep inside him had prevented him from going full-grade assholic and cheating on Kendra.
Don’t worry, man, you have a million other sins to atone for.
A saucy grin lighting up sparkling green eyes flashed through his brain. Whenever he thought of sex—and these days, that was nonstop—it was invariably Violet’s face he saw. Violet’s body he imagined beneath his. Violet’s moans he heard in his fevered fantasies.
He shook his head, recalling his current purpose. “So yeah, it’s all good for now. My girls, my job, my band of brothers. I’ve been so used to losing I’d forgotten how good it feels to be on an upward trajectory. And, well, it fucking terrifies me.”
More nods now. The tribe understood fear of all stripes: of failure, but mostly of success, because it left you waiting for the other shoe to drop. If he’d been talking this out with Remy or someone on the team, they’d be interjecting at this point, fobbing him off with the usual platitudes. But not in AA. “No cross talk, no interruptions” was one of the rules.
“No one in my life before I got clean would’ve ever questioned me knocking back one or ten when my team lost. Just as no one questioned it when we won. My life was a perfect setup to cover my alcoholism. It still is. I don’t have a nine-to-five job. I’m on the road constantly in the company of hard-drinking men, most of them younger than me with sky-high tolerance and whip-fast metabolisms. I lose, I drink. I win, I drink.”
“Drank,” someone called out. Against the rules, but Bren didn’t mind, because he needed to hear that. He nodded at the weathered-looking guy in the third row who had spoken.
“Drank.” Bren affirmed the past tense with a half smile. “Every day I struggle to stay sober. It’s been almost eleven months of cultivating new habits. The habit of self-respect and of fatherhood. The habit of drinking Coke without Jack. The habit of teamwork and pride in a job well done. I hope that eventually it’ll include the habit of being a good enough man for a woman. I hope also to acquire the habit of success—and appreciation for it. I live in hope, I suppose.”
He arced his gaze over the group, few of whom knew and none of whom cared that he was a pro athlete in the first round of a Stanley Cup run. Well, the guy in the Dallas Steers jersey sneering at him from the front row might care because his team had gotten their asses handed to them last night. Sorry not sorry, brother. AA cared nothing for wealth, status, the sins that had stained your life to this point. The only requirement for membership was a desire to stop drinking—and a high tolerance for musty church basements.
“Thanks for listening.” Bren took a seat to the soundtrack of thanks, Bren, knocked back a mouthful of godawful coffee, and settled in for the next speaker.