MY NERVES WERE PULLED SO tight, I felt like an elastic band, stretched taut and quivering, ready to snap. Dad stood facing the glass window of my office. He played casual observer, but I knew he’d be listening to every word, taking in every nuance of this meeting.
Did Max know how important it was to not broadcast we knew each other?
Even worse, I was about to read him the riot act, ruthlessly citing a list of points that my father laid out for me. Yes, I was angry that Max had left me in a hotel room without saying goodbye, but it didn’t warrant how I was about to speak to him. Max had been good to me, and now I would verbally crush him.
I had argued over every point with Dad, but he had been adamant about how I address Max.
A slow knock sounded at the door. Our eyes met. Max looked wary.
I stood up from behind my desk. “Please take a seat.”
I motioned for him to sit at the chair in front of my desk, but I was also trying to establish the formal nature of this meeting, willing him not to speak like he knew me.
He moved across the room with athletic grace and I wondered how I had missed that he was a professional athlete. I’d grown up with hockey players. I knew how they moved, I knew their body types and Max was 100% a hockey player.
It was laughable that I had thought he was a fireman.
I watched as he lowered himself into the seat. He took a moment to glance at my father, who stood with his back to us.
My father told me to go for the jugular. He wanted me to take Max off guard and to let him know I was in charge.
Those blue eyes returned to my face.
I cleared my throat. “Number 33, do you want to tell me why you’re such an idiot?”
He froze, his eyes widening. “Excuse me?”
“You’re a brilliant hockey player. Arguably the best player in the league, but we paid more for some of our third string players than we paid for you. Do you know why that is?”
He straightened in his chair and his eyes narrowed on my face, but he didn’t answer.
“You either haven’t figured it out, which makes you an idiot, or you know better, but you can’t control yourself, which makes you an even bigger idiot. So, are you the clueless idiot, or the idiot who can’t control himself?” That last line was Dad’s. He had insisted I speak to Max like this.
Max’s jaw tightened, and his nostrils flared, but his only response was to hold my gaze in a cold stare. I could feel myself sweat as I checked my notes.
“Maybe you don’t care about money. Players inferior to your skill set are laughing all the way to the bank. And yet, you almost didn’t get re-signed after Minnesota put you up for trade. Do you care about money?”
His blue eyes were like slits. He remained motionless, but emotion rolled off him in waves. “Yes.”
“How much?”
“Excuse me?”
“The question, number 33, is do you give enough of a fuck to play for this team? That’s the question I want to know. You can make a lot of money on this team if you follow our rules. So, do you give enough of a fuck that you can comply?”
He stared at me but didn’t respond. His emotions crackled between us. There was so much frustration and so much anger being directed towards me.
I opened his file and grabbed a handful of the 9×11 glosses that depicted all the ways someone had caught him in compromising positions. I tossed them over the desk at him, and he leaned forward in a scramble to catch them.
His face darkened as he glanced down at the photos.
I cleared my throat again, but I couldn’t erase the trace of hurt and disappointment in my voice. “I can’t decide if I prefer your mug shot or the picture of you on your hotel balcony in the buff with not one, not two, but three naked women.”
His eyes lifted from the photos to my face. I couldn’t hold his gaze. I needed to hide how those pictures affected me. I fussed with some papers on my desk. “You will spend time with our media team for training and until we deem you ready to deal with the media, you will not talk to any reporters. No off-camera quips, no off-handed comments. You don’t even glance at the cameras. You will stay off social media. Yours and everyone else’s too.”
I reached over the desk and handed him his schedule. “Here is a list of community charities we support. You will volunteer in the community for a minimum of ten hours a month. There is a list of charity events, like the kids skate-a-thon and the Autumn Gala that will be mandatory for you to attend. If you make the team.”
Max studied the paper in his hands. Emotion bunched his neck muscles.
“Do you have anything to say?”
“No.”
I glanced at Dad, wondering if he wanted to add anything, but he remained standing with his back to us. Silence settled in the room, colder than a January night in New York.
“Then you’re dismissed.”
With deliberation, Max stood up, towered over me, to offer me the photos. I glanced up at his face and my eyes widened at the stark expression on his face. He clenched his jaw. His muscles were rigid and his eyes were a turbulent sea of emotion.
I dropped my gaze, unable to face him. This man had been nothing but kind and I had drawn the line in the ice, letting him know that I owned his ass. This meeting had not been fair, and we both knew it.
“Keep the photos. I have wiped your slate clean, but we won’t take kindly to you screwing up. We won’t be as lenient as Minnesota.”
He flinched when I mentioned his old team. He tossed the photos on my desk and then with deliberation, he turned and walked towards the door.
Dad turned his head and raised his eyebrow at me. He wanted me to take my final parting shot. A shot he had come up with and made me memorize. It was a low blow designed to install an emotional reaction in Max. My father wanted to see how much emotional control Max had.
Max almost made it to the door. I cleared my throat. “One more thing, thirty-three.”
His entire body stiffened, but he didn’t turn around nor did he speak.
“If you ever disrespect me again, like you did today you’ll be cut. And a sad, lonely beer league will be the only hockey you ever see again. This is your last chance. Remember that.”
He stood there, still, and for one heart-wrenching moment, I thought he’d turn around and give me a piece of his mind.
Go. Walk away from here.
Without saying a word, he walked out of my office and disappeared out of sight.
