No pets. Ever.
I’M GOING TO GO OUT ON A LIMB AND SAY WE DIDN’T MAKE THE best first impression.
I could be wrong. Maybe Chad Jensen enjoys blood and gore during his practices. Maybe he’s the kind of coach who craves a Lord of the Flies ice battle to separate the men from the boys.
But the murder in his eyes tells me no, he’s not that kind of coach.
His expression grows turbulent, more impatient, while we all scramble for a seat. Jensen only gave us five minutes to change out of our practice gear, so everyone in group one looks harried and disheveled, tucking in shirts and smoothing out hair as we file into the media room.
There are twice the number of guys in this room than there were on the ice. The second practice group was already assembled here, viewing game film with one of the assistant coaches. Everyone in group two watches the newcomers with wary expressions.
Three rows of seats home in on the huge screen that serves as the room’s focal point. I won’t lie, these digs are a lot nicer than the ones at Eastwood. The padded chairs even swivel.
Coach Jensen stands in the center of the room, while three stone-faced assistants lean against the wall by the door.
“Did you get that out of your system?” he inquires coldly.
Nobody utters a word.
From the corner of my eye, I see Rand Hawley rubbing the corner of his jaw. He took a nasty hit from Colson’s lackey. Still, he should’ve known better than to let Trager push his buttons like that.
Having played against Briar these last couple of years, I’m familiar with everyone on their roster. I know most of their stats, and I know who to watch out for. Trager’s always been one to keep an eye on. He has the reputation as a blustering goon and is exceptional at drawing out penalties.
He’s not my biggest competitor, though. That would be… I sneak a peek at the blond junior in the front row.
Case Colson.
Really, he’s the only dude in this room I need to care about. A beauty of a player. He’s Briar’s MVP, which means he’ll undoubtedly be on the first line.
My line.
Well, unless Jensen fucks me over and puts me on the second line.
I don’t know what’s worse. Not playing first line…or playing on the same one as Colson. Suddenly I’m supposed to trust a Briar player to have my back? Yeah, right.
“You sure we’re good here?” Coach says, still glancing around. “Nobody else wants to pull out their dick and compare sizes? Wave them around to see who the biggest man here is?”
More silence.
Jensen crosses his arms. He’s a tall imposing figure with dark eyes and salt-and-pepper hair, still broad-shouldered and fit considering he must be in his sixties. He looks at least ten years younger.
Hands down, this man is the best coach in college hockey. That’s probably why it stings so much, the memory that he turned me down when I wanted to come to Briar.
I had been fending off recruiters since sophomore year of high school. Even ones from Briar, my first-choice school. But come graduation, when it was time to make a choice, there wasn’t a Briar scholarship on the table. I still remember the morning I swallowed my pride and asked for a phone call with Jensen. Hell, I even would’ve made the trip from Phoenix to Boston to talk to him in person. But he made it clear on the phone that after “careful consideration” he’d determined I wasn’t a good fit for his program.
Well, joke’s on him, ain’t it?
Not only am I here now, but I’m the best player in this room. A first-round draft pick, for fuck’s sake.
“Good. Now that the pissing contest is over, let me make myself clear. You ever disrespect my ice like that during practice, and you won’t be representing this school as a member of my hockey team.”
Rand, who has no filter and no idea how to read a room, decides to defend himself. “With all due respect, Coach,” he says darkly, “Eastwood didn’t start shit. That was all Briar.”
“You are Briar!” Jensen rumbles.
That shuts up my teammate.
“You don’t get that. You’re one team now. There is no Eastwood. You are all members of the Briar men’s hockey team.”
Several guys shift in their seats, visibly uneasy.
“Look, this situation is not ideal, all right? This merger happened at the last minute. It didn’t offer a lot of time for you to transfer to other colleges or find your place in other programs. You got fucked over,” he says simply.
For a brief second, his eyes land on mine before skipping away, focusing on somebody else.
“And I promise you, I will do my best to get you on another team if you don’t make this roster.”
The generous offer startles me. Jensen has the rep for being an unfeeling hard-ass, but maybe he has a softer side.
“With that said, the fact remains that I’ve got almost sixty guys, and less than half of you will be on the final roster. Those are not good numbers.” His tone is grim. “A lot of you are not going to make this team.”
The silence becomes deafening. Hearing him say that, so matter-of-factly, is not a good feeling. Even for me. I’m highly confident Jensen can’t screw me out of a roster slot, but even I feel a twinge of trepidation.
“So, this is how the week will play out. Because we all got screwed here, we received permission from the NCAA to run a one-week training camp to get our numbers down. At the end of this week, I’ll release the final roster, as well as the list of who’ll be starting in the first game. Then Coach Maran, Coach Peretti, and I will sit down and finalize the lines. Any questions so far?”
No hands go up.
“With that said, I’d like you to nominate two interim captains for the duration of training camp. Then, once the roster is set, you can either revote or stick with the two you select today.”
Two?
My head lifts in surprise. I look over at Shane Lindley, my teammate and best friend. He looks intrigued as well, dark eyes gleaming. Technically, Eastwood came into this merger captainless. Ours fled after the announcement and transferred to Quinnipiac. So much for a captain going down with his ship. Briar’s current captain is the French-Canadian, David Demaine.
“I believe for the sake of team unity, cocaptains is the best way to go. I want you guys to pick one player from the existing Briar roster and one from Eastwood.”
“Thought you said we were one and the same,” someone in the back row mutters sarcastically.
Coach’s razor-sharp hearing is on point. “You are,” he snaps at the griper. “But I’m also not naive enough to think that me saying those words makes it so. I’m not a fucking fairy godmother who waves a wand and then life is perfect, all right? I think the best way to bridge this gap is to have two captains, at least over the course of this week, working together to remind everyone we’re all one team—”
“I nominate Colson,” a swollen-lipped Trager pipes up, his tone flat.
Jensen’s jaw tightens at the interruption.
“I nominate Ryder,” my teammate Nazzy calls out.
I smother a sigh.
Okay, this is not getting off to a good start.
It’s obvious what’s happening. They picked the two best players to be captain. Not necessarily the two players who should be captain. First, we’re both juniors. Most of the seniors in this room probably deserve the nod far more than we do.
And second, I’m not goddamn captain material. Are they crazy? My personality isn’t suited for leadership. I’m not here to hold hands and love everybody.
I’m the man who wants to be left the fuck alone.
Case Colson appears equally annoyed to be included in this farce. But as I look around, a sea of determined faces greets me. My Eastwood teammates have war in their eyes, several of them nodding decisively. Briar’s players convey identical fortitude.
Coach sees the same thing I do on their faces. The battle lines have been drawn.
He blows out a breath. “So that’s it? That’s who you all want? Colson and Ryder?”
A chorus of agreement ripples through the room. This is a statement, right here. Each side wants the other to know that their player, their superstar, is in charge.
“Fucking hell,” I mutter under my breath.
Shane chuckles. On my other side, Beckett Dunne snorts. I’d like to say my best friends have the whole angel/devil thing going on, where one is a dick and the other sits on my shoulder spewing kindness and compassion. I’d like to say that.
But they’re both just assholes who take great amusement out of my misery.
“Ryder, are you good with this?” Jensen’s sharp gaze finds mine.
I’m not good with it at all.
“Yeah, sure,” I lie. “All good.”
“Colson?” Jensen prompts.
Case glances at last season’s captain. Demaine gives him a quick nod.
“If that’s what the team wants,” Colson mutters.
“Fine.” Jensen walks over to the podium to jot something in a notebook.
God fucking help me.
And yet despite this unwanted title being foisted upon me, I can’t deny I do feel relief knowing Jensen won’t try to get rid of me this time.
Coach leaves his notes and walks toward the whiteboard beneath the multimedia screen, black-felt marker in hand.
“Okay, now that that’s decided, there are a few more things we need to go over before training camp gets underway. Number one: What happened out there just now with group one? Un-fuckingacceptable. You hear me?”
Jensen stares directly at Jordan Trager and Rand Hawley. Then he frowns, because neither of them shows an iota of penitence. Only petulance.
“We don’t fight each other at this school,” he says. “Do so again at your own peril.”
He turns to scribble something on the whiteboard.
No Fighting
“Number two, and this is very important, so I hope you’re fucking listening. I will not clean up my language for you assholes. If your delicate sensibilities can’t handle a few f-bombs, then you have no business playing hockey.”
He writes something else.
Fuck You
Shane snickers quietly.
“Number three: Every year or so, some dumbass gets the cockamamie idea that the team needs a pet. A living mascot in the form of a goat or a pig or some other godforsaken farm animal. I will no longer tolerate such ideas. Don’t present them to me—your request will be denied. There was an unfortunate incident in the past, and neither I personally, nor the university itself, will place ourselves in that position again. We have been pet-free for twenty years and will remain that way for eternity. Understood?”
When nobody answers, he glares.
“Understood?”
“Yessir,” everyone says.
He turns toward the board.
No Pets. Ever.
“What do you think the unfortunate incident was?” Beckett leans closer to whisper in my ear.
I shrug. Fuck if I know.
“Maybe it was a chicken and they accidentally ate it,” Shane suggests.
Beck blanches. “That’s dark.”
“All right, that’s it.” Jensen claps his hands. “Group one, you fucking blew it, so you can go home. I’ll see you at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow. Group two, meet me on the ice in fifteen minutes.”
The room comes to life as everyone stands and shuffles along the rows toward the aisle. Jensen calls out before I reach the door. “Ryder.”
I glance over my shoulder. “Sir?”
“A minute, please.”
Swallowing my apprehension, I walk toward him. “What’s up, Coach?”
He’s quiet for moment, just studying me. It’s unnerving and I resist the urge to fidget with my hands. I’m rarely intimidated by people, but something about this man makes my palms sweat. Maybe it’s because I know he never wanted me here.
I fucking hate knowing that.
“Is this captain thing going to be a problem?” he finally asks.
I shrug. “I guess we’re going to find out.”
“That’s not the answer I want to hear, son.” He repeats himself. “Is it going to be a problem?”
“No, sir,” I answer dutifully. “It won’t be a problem.”
“Good. Because I can’t have my team at war. You need to step up and be a leader, understand?”
My self-restraint escapes me for a moment. “Are you going to give Colson the same talk?”
“No, because he doesn’t need it.”
“And I do? You don’t even know me.”
Christ, shut the hell up, I chide myself. Challenging my new coach isn’t going to get me anywhere good.
“I know team unity isn’t your strongest suit. I know leadership doesn’t come naturally to you. We both know your former teammates selected you for your skill and not your leadership—and a choice like that only ends in disaster. With that said, I don’t typically interfere with who a team picks as their captain, and I’m not going to interfere now. But I am watching you, Ryder. I’m watching carefully.”
I manage to keep my palms flat to my sides when they want to curl into fists. “Thanks for the heads-up. May I go now?”
He gives a brisk nod.
I stalk out and release a heavy breath in the hallway. This entire situation is fucked. I have no idea how it’s all going to play out, but judging by this morning’s events, it won’t be pretty.
It takes a few moments to orient myself and figure out how to leave the building. Briar’s hockey facilities are larger than Eastwood’s, and some of the corridors feel like a maze. Eventually I emerge into the lobby, a cavernous space with pennants hanging from the rafters and framed jerseys lining the walls. Through the wall of glass at the entrance, I spot several of my friends loitering outside.
“So that was a fun morning,” Shane remarks when I join them.
“A blast,” I agree.
The sun beats down on my face, so I slide my sunglasses over my eyes. When I first moved to the East Coast from Arizona after high school, I assumed Septembers in New England were chilly. I didn’t expect the summer temperatures to linger on, sometimes well into the fall.
“Hopefully group two fares better than we did,” Mason Hawley says with a wry smile. Mason is Rand’s younger brother and, most of the time, Rand’s keeper.
“Doubt it,” Shane says. “There’s no unclustering this fuck.”
As if to prove his point, a bunch of Briar guys exit the arena and all their expressions cloud over when they spot us. They halt at the top of the steps, exchanging guarded looks. Then Case Colson murmurs something to Will Larsen, and the group strides forward.
Colson and I lock gazes. Only for a moment, before he breaks eye contact and marches past us. The group descends the front steps without acknowledging us.
“Such a warm reception,” Beckett drawls at their retreating backs. His Australian accent always becomes more pronounced when he’s being sarcastic. Beck’s family moved to the States when he was ten. America basically beat the accent out of him, but it’s always there, dancing just beneath the surface of his voice.
“Seriously, I feel so wanted here,” Shane pipes up. “All these Briar rainbows and unicorns are making me fucking giddy.”
“This fucking blows,” Rand mutters, still watching the Briar guys. He straightens his shoulders and turns to me. “We need an emergency meeting. I’m sending a group text. Can we do it at your place?”
“The second group is still at practice,” Shane points out.
Rand’s already pulling out his phone. “I’ll tell them to be there at noon.”
Without waiting for approval, he sends out the SOS. And that’s how a couple hours later, the living room of our townhouse is crammed with twenty-plus bodies.
Shane, Beckett, and I moved into this place last week. Our house in Eastwood was larger, but the pickings are slim for off-campus housing in Hastings, the small town closest to the Briar campus. Whereas I had my own bathroom before, now I share one with Beckett, who uses way too many products in his hair and clutters up all the counter space. For a fuckboy, he’s actually kind of a chick.
Speaking of fuckboys, Shane is a newly anointed one, and instead of paying attention to Rand, he’s texting with some girl he met at Starbucks literally an hour ago. Shane’s been trying to screw his way out of a broken heart since June. Though if you ask him, the breakup was mutual.
Spoiler alert: there’s no such thing.
“All right, shut up, y’all,” Rand orders. He and Mason are Texas boys, each boasting a faint twang, but while Mason has that laid-back southern demeanor, his older brother is always wound up tight. “We need to talk about this roster issue.”
He waits for everyone to quiet down, then looks at me.
“What?” I mutter.
“You’re the captain now. You need to get the meeting going.”
Leaning against the wall, I cross my arms tight to my chest. “I’d like it on the record that I didn’t want to be captain and you’re all assholes for doing this to me.”
Shane hoots.
“Yeah, tough shit,” Rand tells me, rolling his eyes. “They threw Colson’s name out there. What else were we supposed to do?”
“Not pick me?” I suggest coldly.
“We had to make a statement. Put up our best against their best.”
“It’s not their best,” Austin Pope speaks up, hesitant. The curly-haired kid stands near one of the leather armchairs with some of the other freshmen.
Rand glares at him. “What was that, rookie?”
“I’m just saying, there’s no ‘their best’ and ‘our best’ anymore. We’re all on the same team now.”
He sounds as miserable as we all feel.
“Whatever. Can we please talk about the roster now?” Rand says impatiently.
“What about it?” Beckett asks in a bored voice. He’s typing something on his phone, only half paying attention. “Jensen’s gonna pick whoever he’s gonna pick.”
“Wow, words of inspiration right there.” Our sophomore goalie snickers from his seat on the gray sectional.
“We don’t actually need to be worrying, do we?” Austin looks ill now. “He can’t cut all of us, right? What if he goes and cuts Eastwood in a clean sweep?”
Everyone just stares at him.
“What?” the teenager says awkwardly.
Shane grins. “You’re playing in the World Juniors in a couple of months. There’s no way you’re not making this team, kid.”
Austin possesses the rawest talent of anyone I’ve ever seen. Other than me, of course. Eastwood recruited him hard last year, and we were all thrilled when he accepted. Back in the spring, nobody would’ve guessed our entire fucking school would go under.
What pisses me off more is that only twenty-five Eastwood guys chose to migrate to Briar. Several of our other teammates, mostly the incoming seniors, jumped ship the moment it was announced. Some transferred to other colleges. Some went to the pros. A few quit the team altogether. The quitters are the ones I don’t understand. True hockey players know you don’t just quit when things get tough.
Shane’s right, though. Austin has nothing to worry about. A lot of us don’t. It’s easy to guess who Jensen will gravitate toward. Shane, Beck, and Austin, almost certainly. Patrick and Nazem are sophomores, but they’re two of the best skaters I’ve ever seen. Micah, a senior, is probably the best stickhandler playing right now.
The problem is, as I look around this room, I see more talent than open slots. Someone, no, many someones, are bound to be disappointed.
As if sensing where my thoughts went, Rand’s face reddens with anger. His cheek is already showing signs of bruising, thanks to Trager.
“If I don’t make this team and that fuckhead Trager does…”
“You’ll make it,” Mason assures his brother, but he doesn’t sound entirely convinced.
“I better,” Rand retorts. “And it better be Eastwood strong. All of us, and very little of them.”
As the new cocaptain, I know I should stop that line of thinking. Squash it hard. Because we can’t start a new season with an us-versus-them mentality.
But no matter how much Jensen wishes otherwise, it is us versus them. I’ve played with my Eastwood teammates for two years already. We’re a team, and we went all the way to the Frozen Four last season. We didn’t take home the trophy, but we were geared up to change that this year.
Whoever approved this merger basically took a shotgun and blasted buckshot into a team that was about to hit its peak.
“You guys don’t get it,” Rand growls, visibly frustrated by the lack of urgency in our teammates. “Can none of you do the math? Just here in this room alone, we have sixteen starters. That means for all of us to remain starters, Jensen would have to cut his entire existing lineup.”
The bitterness hardening his features rubs off on some of the other guys. Faces cloud over. Annoyed murmurs travel through the room.
The hostility fuels Rand, who’s already a hostile dude by default. He starts pacing, beefy shoulders tense.
“Some of us aren’t going to start, you realize that, right? Do you fucking get that? We’re competing for our own fucking positions—”
“You could have transferred,” Beckett points out. He was scrolling on his phone, but now raises his head to interrupt Rand’s angry rambling.
Rand quits pacing. “And go where? Besides, fuck that. You want me to jump ship like our own captain? Like our pussy coach?”
He’s referring to Scott Evans, our former head coach. Evans refused to work under Jensen after the merger, so he accepted a coaching job at an elite prep school in New Hampshire.
“Cool, then shut the fuck up,” Shane says with a shrug. “Quit complaining and fight for your position. Prove that you belong out there.”
Rand grits his teeth, and I know what he’s thinking. There are at least ten dudes on the Briar side who are better than him. And it all depends on how Jensen organizes his lines too. If he values grinders and bruisers like Rand, or if he wants to stack the team with goal scorers.
“What about you?” Rand demands, suddenly fixing his scowl on me. “You really got nothing to say?”
Irritation pinches my gut. Rand and I have never been best buds. Of course, I don’t think you can say I’m truly “best buds” with anyone. Even my best friends hardly know me.
My voice sounds gravelly when I address the room.
I drop my arms to my sides, shrugging. “This situation is bullshit, I get it. But like Lindley said, if you want to start, fight for it.”
Rand barks out a derisive laugh. “C’mon, Ryder, you’re goddamn stupid if you think it stops there. You’re already a starter, sure. But what do you think happens next, bro? What, you’re going to play on the same line with Colson, and you think he’s going to have your back out there? He’s going to pass the puck to you instead of hogging all the glory for himself because he doesn’t want to share with an Eastwood guy? This isn’t just about fighting to be a starter. Because even once you’re picked, you’re still left competing with your own fucking teammates.”
The room goes so silent you could hear a feather floating in the air.
The worst part is, Rand’s not wrong.
No matter which way you slice this, we’re all screwed.
