Page 107 of Elite Player
“I do. I do love her. Not at first, but I do now, and I can’t let her go.”
“What about the front office?” Buss asks, and I shrug.
“I don’t know. I don’t care at this point. If they want to trade me because of how I used to act, then fine. If they don’t know the difference between somebody who’s trying to be a good guy and a piece of shit, I guess I don’t want to be on the team anyway. Might as well send me back to Florida where we were all pieces of shit.”
“So, let me get this straight,” Davey says, glaring at me. “You pretended to be engaged to play some kind of game to save your career?”
“Well, when you put it like that, you make me sound like a dick.”
“You are a dick,” someone mutters, earning a few chuckles.
“Fuck you,” I mumble back.
It’s Rovie who crosses the locker room to hold out his hand. He’s a veteran player, one hell of a winger, and a dedicated husband and dad. He’s also, in theory, my direct competition on this team. But he holds out his hand to me, and in his thick Russian accent says, “You want her back? We will help you get her back. Hockey is short time, but love is forever.”
Cubby presses his hand to his heart. “That should go on a card.”
Rovie rolls his eyes at him. “Pussy.”
Everyone laughs. Even me.
“So what do I do?” I ask, and Buss stands to strip off his hockey pants.
“Never had to woo a girl, huh?”
“No.”
Buss snorts in amusement. “Uncharted territory for ya. Don’t worry, buddy, we’ll help.”
“You’re gonna help him? Aren’t you a virgin?” Bombay teases, and they tussle for a few seconds before Sheffy whistles through his broken tooth. It’s always so loud. “Hey, hey. We gotta help Nico get his groove back, so who’s got ideas?”
They all start coming, one after another.
“Chocolates.”
“Diamonds.”
“A car.”
“A trip.”
“A good fuck.”
“A weekend of good fucking.”
“You can’t dickmatize her.”
“I could.”
“Jesus, Bombay, put yours away. We’re trying to have a serious conversation here.”
I sigh, dropping my head between my shoulders, all of this feeling useless, and slowly, my teammates drop the thread of the conversation to shower and change. It’s what I should be doing too, but Davey takes the space next to me. “I think you’re a fucking jackass for what you did.”
“Yeah. You and a lot of other people, including me.”
“But if you really love her, then you need to figure out what she’s scared of and show her you can protect her from it. Show her you won’t do that thing or be that person.”
“That what you did for your wife?”
