Page 140 of Edging Coach
“Devon. Devon, slow down.” Phone pressed to my ear, I paced across my living room. “What’s going on?”
On the other end Devon paused for an audible deep breath. Then, slower, he said, “Hairs is threatening to out us. He’s blackmailing me.”
My stomach somersaulted. “Fuck.”
“Yeah.” He exhaled. “Lous overheard him. He knows what’s going on, and he told Hairs to cut it out, but… I don’t think he will.”
I swallowed. “What does he want?”
“He wants you to campaign for him as hard as you campaigned for me, so he gets called up.”
I halted. “But… Ididn’tcampaign for you.” Okay, I kind of had, but only in the sense that Emil had offered me two options and I’d picked one. Devon had been the objectively better choice.
“It doesn’t matter,” Devon said miserably. “Itlookslike you did.”
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I swore under my breath. “Christ. And if he doesn’t get called up, then he’ll out us?”
“That’s what he’s saying.” He paused. “What the hell do we do?”
“I’m not sure. I’m… Let me think for a second.”
He didn’t speak, and I resumed pacing as I searched for some kind of solution. Both playing and coaching hockey required a lot of changing on the fly. The game moved fast, and far more often than not, there was no time to stop and analyze the situation before making a decision. Set plays, set lines—they all went out the window when the puck was on the move. The ability to think fast and adapt in those situations were what separated the wheat from the chaff in this sport, and I’d long been proud of my skills in that regard both on the ice and on the bench.
A situation like this? Fuck, I didn’t even know where to start.
Except there was one solution that kept shoving its way to the forefront. One that was as terrifying as it was sound.
Finally, I dropped onto my couch and sighed, resigned to that one and only course of action that might see us both through this. “I think I need to come clean to Emil.”
“You—what?” Devon sputtered. “Are you serious? But he’ll—Jack, you’ll never be able to work in this sport again.”
“Maybe not, but it sounds like the alternative is letting Hairs out us to the press. Then it’ll be egg on the club’s face as well as ours, and we’ll both have to deal with that fallout. At least this way, we’re not blindsiding the club, and we have some control over the narrative.”
“But the narrative is still that we were fucking and then I got called up.” He paused. “You… You didn’t push for me to get called up, did you?”
“Not the way Hairs thinks.”
Devon was silent for a few seconds. “That’s not a no.”
“It isn’t.” I wiped my hand over my face. “When we came back from Tofino, Emil told me he needed to send up a defenseman. He was debating between you and one of your teammates, and he asked for my opinion.” I paused. “He didn’t know that I knew that you’d already been called into his office. So, I think he’d already made his decision. He just wanted to confirm with me that it was the right one.”
More silence.
“I would never push for you to get sent up if you weren’t ready for it,” I said softly. “Even if I went into it as—well, as whatever we are to each other, rather than your coach, I wouldn’t do that to you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, if I knew you weren’t ready, but I sent you up anyway, I’d be sabotaging your career. What good would it do you to go up there, get overwhelmed, and have a disastrous performance? It happens, and the coaches know it’s a huge jump from the farm team to the big leagues, but you still have to hold your own.”
“Oh.” There was some movement on the other end, as if Devon were trying to get comfortable. “So if you sent me up before I was ready, it could fuck my chances of ever getting called up again.”
“Exactly. But I knew you were ready. And you’ve proven that at every turn since you’ve been up there. So, yes, I encouraged Emil to send you. But that was purely as a coach who sees your talent, your hockey IQ, and your potential.”
“Hairs won’t see it that way.”
“He doesn’t have to. Emil knows how our conversation went. He knows what your stats look like. Even if people think I pushed for you to get called up, no one can argue with your stats or your skill. There’s literally no one else on the Grizzlieswho would’ve been a better choice than you, and that’s an objective fact.”
Devon sighed but said nothing.
