Page 12 of Locke

I stand in the auditorium, considering my next move.

I have a feeling that Locke Donovan is going to be the most difficult person I’ll have tried to help in my young but successful career.

Good thing I don’t scare easily.

Chapter 5

Locke

I’mhardtoimpress.I was a second-round draft pick in the league when I was eighteen.I spent one year down in the minors before I was given my shot with the big boys, and I’ve never left.Nine years playing at a professional level and I thought I’d seen everything a team had to offer to a player.

Patrick Rowe has blown all those notions away.The ridiculous amenities he provides for his team will never be topped by another owner, and nothing says that more than the Boeing 737 he had refurbished for the Wildfire.

We’re five weeks into the regular season—eight road games so far—and this aircraft still registers as objectively excessive.It doesn’t have regular seats.It doesn’t even have sumptuous first-class recliners.No, that wasn’t good enough for Patrick Rowe, so he had specially designed pods—fifty of them staggered the length of the main cabin—to provide quiet luxury to his players.

Each one is a shell of curved leather and brushed metal with noise-dampening panels built into the walls and individual controls for light, air and temperature.The cushioned seat goes fully flat at the push of a button, converting into a bed long enough for our tallest guys.There’s a tiny cabinet that has sheets, feather pillows and blankets with higher thread counts than I even purchase for myself.Sleeping in what amounts to a private suite at thirty-five thousand feet is a perk I didn’t mind getting used to.

The rear cabin of the plane has a lounge that looks like someone’s very expensive living room with thick carpet, actual lamps on side tables, and leather couches and love seats to congregate.An area with polished wood tables seats groups of four with captain’s chairs, where you can set up your laptop to work or pull out a deck of cards for a rousing game of gin rummy.

Does Rowe do this all for show?Maybe, but he also does it to give us an edge.His logic makes sense though.I read an article in which he said, “Travel takes from the body and mind and the plane should give it back.”

I thought it was the kind of thing rich men say to justify spending obscene amounts of money but five weeks later, I sleep better on this plane than I do in most hotels, thus I can’t argue with results.

It’s true that I’m not a social guy but it doesn’t mean I hang out in my pod all the time.The trip to San Diego from Portland is only a couple hours, so I set up at one of the tables in the lounge area, choosing a captain’s chair near the window.One of the trainers sits opposite me, quietly flipping through his phone.The other players are scattered around in groups, laughing and joking with one another.I’m easily able to tune it all out and focus on a new book I just started.

Every once in a while, my eyes lift and I scan the area.I tell myself it’s just peripheral curiosity until I’m able to sink into the book, but it is a bit irritating that every time I look up, I manage to clock exactly where Livia Cross is.She’s been in the lounge almost the entire flight, alternating between staff and players.She’s the newest to the team and she’s trying to acclimate, I guess.Any time I’ve sensed she might look my way, I avert my eyes and hunch further over my book so it looks like I don’t want to be bothered.

I sneak another quick glance and see she’s currently at one of the tables with our backup goalie, Macon Dawes, and the goalie coach, Jordan Michaels.They’re all three bent over a diagram on the table, and I assume it’s goalie oriented.I observe the way they seem to fawn over Livia.They look focused, intensely intrigued, and maybe smiling a bit too brightly at her.

Men are not complicated creatures.Introduce an attractive, warm, genuinely fascinating woman into a contained space and they will orient toward her the way plants reach for the sun.

Movement to my right catches my attention and I look up just as Van Turner drops into the seat next to me.While I go out of my way to avoid bonds with teammates and generally distrust coaches, Van is someone I’ve managed to form a bit of a relationship with.I can’t say exactly why I’m comfortable with him, but I think it’s because he’s had a rough life and understands trauma.His father was a notorious serial killer back on the East Coast and while Van doesn’t talk about it, everyone knows the details because his father published a tell-all book before he died in prison.

Yeah… I read it, just like everyone else.

I took almost all of it with a grain of salt, because none of it was approved by Van.His dad was an obvious psychopath and narcissist, and I firmly believe he wrote that book to spite his own son.Van has never said a word about any of it—not to me, not to anyone on this staff that I’ve seen—and that kind of silence I understand on a cellular level.You don’t owe anyone the story of your worst moments in life.You carry it or you don’t, but either way, it belongs to you.

It’s because Van has been through his own hell, the kind that follows you into eternity, that I give him a pass.Not trust exactly, but grace.There’s a difference, and with me, it’s about as close as anyone gets.

Van’s got a coffee from the galley and a tablet that he angles toward me.“Watched the San Diego tape last night,” he says, all hockey business without preamble.“Their top line is running a weak side overload I want to talk through.”

I put my book aside and I’m all ears.This is why Van doesn’t threaten my space.He doesn’t try to be anything more than someone who wants to talk business.He doesn’t waste time checking in on how I’m doing but rather launches straight to it because he has come to understand that for me, the game is the only door that opens reliably.

I lean over to look at the tablet with interest and watch a clip that he has queued up.

“Their center,” I say, pointing at the video.“He telegraphs the weak side pass.Watch his shoulders before the puck moves.”

Van nods, makes a note.“I caught that too.Question is whether we shade our coverage or trust the read.”

“I’d trust the read.”

“Agreed.”He scrolls to the next clip.We go through four or five more sequences, the conversation finding its own rhythm.Van asks a question, I answer.I point out an option, he builds on it.The tablet passes back and forth between us, and not once does he mention the fact that my bad penalty the other night cost us the game.

It’s the closest thing I have to easy with this team, although I still hold the greatest part of me in reserve.That’s a lock I’ve never loosened the entire time I’ve been in this league.

After a while, Van closes the tablet and sits back.His eyes drop to my book.“What you reading?”he asks, taking a sip of his coffee.

“Eisenhower in War and Peace,” I say, holding it up so he can see the front.