When Tommy was a kid, his family used to go to the lake for part of the summer, a co-owned shack at the shore, bought way back when prices weren’t ridiculous for waterside properties. Tommy’s great-grandmother, one of the first women to go to college in Nova Scotia, had snatched it up with one of her close friends. It had stayed in their families for generations with barely any remodeling—the same green tile and yellow wallpaper and the same sturdy furniture.
When Tommy was eight, he’d been swimming around the floating dock out in the lake, daring the other kids to swim under it from one side to the other. Tommy was one of the best swimmers, what with him going out there every year since he was born, and he’d bragged about being able to swim the length of the deck faster than anybody.
What had actually happened was that Tommy had run out of air in the middle of the platform of wood, stuck underwater, panicking. It had taken an adult noticing how long he’d been gone to rescue him. From the telling of things, he’d been half-unconscious, limp, and had roused already crying.
That moment had stuck with him for a long time—still plagued his nightmares to this day. The panic when he’d realized he was stuck, that he was going to drown, the way it had wiped his mind clean.
The morning after Vicki had been to his apartment, he woke from a dream of that day, gasping for air, disoriented. He pressed a palm against his heaving, waterless chest and let the fear drain from him slowly, leaving only the dirty sediment of anxiety behind.
It was only just past dawn as he lay back down, and he blinked at the golden dust floating in patches where his curtains didn’t quite close.
He was okay. He was dry, and safe, and alive.
It took him a while of just lying there with some strange, lingering worry making him sink into the mattress to realize the dread in his throat wasn’t just due to the dream.
Tommy groaned, pressing a palm to his forehead as last night stuttered through his mind like images from a faulty projector.
Vicki calling him an easy fuck; Tommy desperate to turn the anger and hate he felt into heat; the way he had lured Vicki back to his house under false pretenses and then goaded him into coming on his ass.
And then—fuck. And then he’d almost…
Not that he had wanted Vicki to stay. It had been a moment of weakness, one Vicki had immediately used to make Tommy feel like shit.
And props to Vicki. If his goal was to showcase how much of a fool Tommy was, he sure as fuck was succeeding.
Tommy wasn’t exactly a morning person, but it was usually easy to get out of bed. Now, though, he wallowed in the sheets, staring at the ceiling.
What if Vicki was right? What if everyone who had told Tommy he was too small to play hockey all his life was right? Maybe he wasn’t supposed to be there, to play. Maybe he was supposed to leave the ice for people like Zed, who could skate circles around him.
Maybe he shouldn’t be put under any sort of spotlight, shouldn’t be a role model for anyone. Should just crawl away and—
Tommy shook his head, sitting up. What the actual fuck? He didn’t let people get to him like that, and he wasn’t about to fucking start, especially not for someone like Vicki.
Vicki might be hot, and his dick was amazing, but he wasn’t worth feeling shitty about himself.
He was Tommy Tremblay, damn it, and no fuckboy with a big cock was gonna convince him that he was anything less than that.
Tommy fucking loved the first day of camp. Sure, he’d already hung out with his liney and best friend, Jacki, as well as Mayo, the Russian rookie who had just arrived to ‘The Big Apple’—his actual words, which he had been immediately chirped for. This was Queens not Manhattan, thanks very much. Mayo took everything in stride, though, even his nickname, born from his obscene habit of putting mayonnaise on everything.
Everything.
But the first day they were all together, an old team with new pieces, was always electric for Tommy.
“Schmidty!” Tommy hollered as soon as he was in the locker room, dropping his bag and jumping on his captain’s back. Elias “Schmidty” Schmidt, Swiss god and second line center, stumbled forward.
“Jesus, rookie. Don’t injure me before the season’s even started.”
Tommy gave him a sloppy kiss on the cheek. “Excuse me, I’m not a rookie anymore. I’m a Stanley Cup champion. Get it right, eh?”
Schmidty wiped his cheek. “Damn right you are,” he crowed before bucking him off.
Tommy jumped to the floor before he could brain himself, going around the room and giving out backslaps and enthusiastic hugs, even to Jacki, whom he’d seen the day before.
“Who’s up for back-to-back Cups?” Tommy shouted, reveling in the returning battle cry from his team.
Fuck, he loved these guys. They were his family away from family—the men he went to war with, who he put his body on a line for. Vicki had made him forget that—made him forget who he was.
Not anymore.
Tommy had worked hard to increase his conditioning all summer, putting on muscle that would be forced off his body by the end of the season. Now, though, surrounded by his people on the ice during drills, the air was clear and cool with a fresh start, no lingering injuries weighing them down. Even Coach Monroe seemed to be in good spirits, gleefully putting the rookie hopefuls through their paces.
Mayo was a shoo-in to start this season. He’d been a first-round pick a few drafts ago, had done a couple of years in the KHL, and had torn it up. Tommy might have been biased, but he thought Mayo was headed straight to win the Calder.
Tommy had been one of those rare picks that had gone straight to the big leagues after being drafted, but he empathized with the determination and desperation to finally make it to the NHL, the thing they had all been dreaming about since they were toddlers.
“Edges,” Coach shouted at them. Tommy paid attention to his turns, making sure his blades didn’t go from under him as he tilted his body. He winked at Jacki as he streaked past, maneuvering around a cone. Jacki lifted his gloved hand and flipped him off.
Dima swiped at him with his massive blocker as Tommy shot a puck past him a second after Coach whistled for a break.
“You in a lot of media this year,” the Russian goalie said, tapping Tommy on the helmet with his stick.
“You been looking at our own media, you weirdo?”
Dima took his caged mask off and shrugged. “Send to family. They like.”
Jacki skated up to them as Dima poured some water on his hair and shook it off. “What are we gossiping about?”
“Dima was just telling me about how his family are my biggest fans.”
Dima snorted. “Because of your pretty face, not good hockey.”
“How dare you?” Tommy gasped as Jacki laughed.
Jacki elbowed him. “He’s the face of the franchise all of a sudden.”
“It’s because of what happened last playoffs,” Tommy muttered.
Immediately, the other two men frowned. “Not that again,” Jacki growled loudly.
Dima said something rude sounding in Russian. Tommy grinned, feeling his chest warm. It was foolish that he’d expected any other reaction. He hadn’t realized how much Vicki was fucking his head up until that moment, even with all the shit he’d been thinking about himself.
To doubt his own teammates, who had stood by him and defended him publicly even when it was at its worst…That was just fucked up.
“Thanks, guys,” Tommy said.
“No thanks,” Dima said sternly before a shit-eating grin spread across his face. “Another fan for Tommy.”
Tommy turned toward whatever Dima was looking at—a guy standing by the glass, staring at the three of them. He was pretty good looking, olive skinned and dark eyed. The moment he was caught, the guy lifted a camera up and pointed it somewhere else.
“Wow,” Jacki laughed. “That was smooth. You know him?”
“Uh…I don’t think so? Actually, he’s one of the media guys.”
“No way. The guy with a camera is one of the media guys?” Jacki said sarcastically.
“Okay, just because you’re ugly and no one wants to photograph you.”
Dima put out his arms. “Children…”
Tommy batted his eyelashes. “Yes, Daddy?”
Jacki gagged, skating away as Tommy laughed.
God, it was good to be home.
Tommy knew, of course, that he would get asked about the hit on Zed during the preseason presser. It still sucked to sit there and take their questions, though.
“How do you feel about the criticism still lingering over the injury you caused Zedner during last year’s playoffs?” one of the more useless journalists asked.
“I don’t read my own press, so…” Tommy looked at someone else, hoping to move on from the topic.
The woman from The Athletic spoke up. “Zed has spoken highly of you when asked about the accident. Did you guys spend part of the summer together as some of the pictures on Instagram suggest?”
Tommy smiled. “I think highly of him too. And, yeah. I mean, like you said, it was an accident, but we talked about it at the start of the summer, and we’re good friends now.”
The journalist everyone in the Sea Dogs hated lifted his snotty nose. “One person who doesn’t seem so keen on making amends is Noah Viklund. Do you have an opinion on, uh, him? Or what he’s been saying?”
“I think Viklund is a talented player and an asset to his team. I look forward to playing the Phantoms during our first game of the preseason.”
By the time he got off the stage and back into the locker room—he hated pressers, but even more so when they were the weird formal ones between games—he felt worn the fuck out.
“You good?” Schmidty asked, thumping him on the back with one of his big paws.
“Yeah. Nothing I can’t handle.”
“Sure. But if any of it gets to be too much, you tell me. The team’ll get those goons off your back.”
“Sure thing, Cap.”
Schmidty tapped him on the back again before letting him go.
First day of camp, man—they were always a hoot.
