High Risk Rookie

by Odette Stone

  “I also said I don’t know.”

  “Which is why we need to stop.”

  She blinked and then lifted her hand. I held it as she wiggled off the counter and slid to her feet.

  She didn’t say a single word as she walked across the room towards the front door. She looked back over her shoulder at me. “Plug in your phone.”

  And then she was gone.

  I walked ten blocks to find a convenience store that sold chargers.

  That night, I listened to a personal message from Mark Ashford offering me a place at the Vancouver Wolves hockey training camp.

  Five days later, I was leaning against the wall in the lobby of a hotel in downtown Victoria. I stood alone in a room filled with other hockey players, and I didn’t recognize a single face. In Europe, I knew most of the players in my league. Here, I didn’t know anyone.

  I deliberately stood off to the side and observed the group as a whole. I was watching who knew each other, who were friends. Groups of players were starting to form as we waited for our first meeting to start. Brody walked in with Red on his left, and he started to work the room like a politician. This was his home turf. He had that advantage, but the real battle would happen on the ice.

  “Rookie,” a feminine voice said from behind me.

  Something kicked me in the gut when I turned to watch Krista walk towards me. She wore jeans, heels, and a floaty, colorful blouse that still managed to showcase her magnificent breasts. I had to work to keep my eyes on her face. “Hi.”

  She stopped just inside my personal space. “How’s it going?”

  “No complaints.”

  “I thought I’d check in with you.” She looked around. “What’s happening now?”

  “It’s our welcome meeting.”

  She looked up at me, her blue eyes focused on mine. “Pay attention in there. Tonight, they will tell you what they’re looking for.”

  “There are a lot of players here.”

  “I’ll do the math for you. There are eighteen defensemen fighting for two permanent defense positions. And I’m fairly certain that one of those permanent positions will be filled by last year’s rookie. They’re negotiating right now. There is also one temporary position that will be filled until January for an injured veteran.”

  We watched as groups of guys walked by, laughing at some joke. It made me miss my old team. “You know this for sure?”

  “I’ve heard rumors.”

  Those weren’t great odds. “Any parting words of wisdom?”

  “Yeah: don’t fuck this up. I have to go.”

  I worked to keep her talking. “Nice pep talk.”

  “You earned it.”

  I wanted to know who she had been thinking about when she put on that blouse, because I was getting a damn eye strain from trying not to look at her breasts. I had no idea that keeping my eyes on her face would take this much effort. “Where are you going?”

  “To pick up the champagne for the party—and probably a couple of bottles of wine to get me through this weekend.”

  I laughed.

  She gave me a look. “You think I’m joking.”

  Her hair looked perfect, and her lips were a dramatic dark red. That blouse looked like it was created to showcase her body. The question came out of me before I could stop it. “What about after?”

  She started digging through her purse. “What about it?”

  “Are you going on a date?”

  “You sound like my mom.” She pulled a phone charger from her purse. “Here. Take this.”

  “I bought one.”

  “This will be your backup.”

  I took it. “Thoughtful. You never answered the question.”

  “My dating life is none of your concern.”

  She had a point, but I didn’t have to like it. “What if I want it to be my concern?”

  She ignored me. “Call me if you need anything.”

  “Thanks for stopping by.”

  As I watched her walk away from me, I couldn’t take my eyes off that ass. And I couldn’t stand the thought of some other guy touching it.

  I walked to the line of players at the door. Ahead of me, Brody was joking with some of the guys. He turned and gave me one of his famous dark stares.

  That was okay. Because I was itching for a fight.

  I moved so I stood directly behind him.

  He looked over his shoulder and gave me another look that was filled with menace. “You don’t belong here.”

  I leaned forward and whispered in his ear. “You’re all bark, Hillman. You don’t even know how to bite.”

  He spun around and grabbed me around the neck. I let him. I let him push me back through multiple players until multiple hands started to pull him off me. That’s when I took my shot. I punched him in the nose. My intention was to inflict extreme pain without quite breaking bone.

  “Fuck,” he said as he held his hand to his nose. Blood sprayed down his shirt.

  “Hillman! Ziegler!” Mark Ashford spoke from the other side of the doors. The surrounding players scattered like the wind.

  He looked at Brody. “Go clean up.”

  Brody didn’t waste any time heading for the elevator.

  Which left only me to deal with Mark. “Sorry, sir.”

  He looked around the lobby, his eyes thoughtful. “I need you two to get along.”

  My jaw tightened. “I never start this shit, okay?”

  He looked at me. “Then be the one to end it.”

  I looked away from him, hating being told how to handle it. “I thought I just had.”

  “With a little less violence.”

  “With all due respect, sir, I believe my methods are more effective.”

  A smile touched his lips. “No doubt. But I still would prefer you do things my way.”

  This man held my future in his hands. I didn’t have to like it, but I needed to respect it. “Yes, sir.”

  Friday morning, they started our day with an early, hour-long bike ride. The competition began immediately with most of us pushing to come in first. By the time we got back to the stadium, we were all dripping in sweat.

  We suited up and were immediately divided into two groups depending on if we played forward or defense. The goalies were divided up between us, and we started a grueling practice that focused almost entirely on cardio. After that, we had a scrimmage game. The line I was given was weak, so no matter how hard I hustled, the competition blew past our defense and scored multiple times during our game.

  While I was in play, I caught sight of glossy auburn hair and red lipstick in the stands, but when my shift was over, she was gone, and I wasn’t sure if she had just been my imagination.

  We broke for lunch, and then they pushed us through another practice, another full scrimmage, and a brutal fitness test at the end. I had been conditioning hard for the past five weeks, and I found the test tough. Some players were puking up their water halfway through.

  Someone skated up beside me. “You can see who was drinking this summer and who was training.”

  I turned and grinned at Rio. “Hey, man. How are you?”

  “Not bad. Nice to see you.”

  “I saw your goal earlier. It was a perfect slapshot.”

  He bumped gloves with me. “Thanks.” He looked around. “Tough group this year.”

  “I just learned the odds.”

  “Seventeen of us working for the one spot.”

  “Who’s the favorite?”

  “Brody, most likely.”

  As if he could sense us talking about him, Brody turned and looked over at us. He was definitely the front favorite. He seemed to know everyone in the league, and the coach had put him on one of the best lines. He was fast and competitive, and his cardio was as good as mine. But I didn’t think he was better than me. Eight months ago, I would have been the better player.

  He threw me another dirty look before skating away.

  I’m coming for you, Brody. I’m going
to take your spot.

  If I thought Friday was tough, it was easy compared to our day on Saturday. We had another highly competitive bike ride before they went over yesterday’s scrimmage games in detail.

  Then we were sent to suit up and get on the ice. I was halfway through getting dressed before I realized that someone had cut my laces. When I went into my bag to find new laces, they were missing. By the time I found a trainer who helped me re-lace my skates, I was late for practice.

  Gordon, the head coach, blew his whistle and yelled, “Nice of you to join us, Ziegler.”

  “I needed new laces.”

  “I don’t care what you needed. Your teammates will do ten pushups on ice for every minute you were late.” He checked his watch. “And you were six minutes late.”

  Around me, players gave me the stink eye as they got to their knees. Everyone except Brody. He lowered himself to the ice and looked up at me with a grin.

  Way to go, he mouthed at me.

  I ignored him as I got on my hands and knees.

  “Ziegler! You don’t get to join them—you get to count for them. Now come stand at the front where we can see you, and count to sixty for everyone.”

  I was pissed, but I was doing everything I could to mask my anger. I didn’t care about the little shit, but when someone started messing with my game, I had no choice but to engage.

  I raised my eyes up to the stands as I counted out loud to sixty. Krista was there. Beside her, Mark Ashford and two other men sat watching.

  When I was done counting, the coach blew the whistle. “Skate it off, boys. You have five minutes.”

  We started to skate. A few players muttered at me, but most of them wouldn’t even look at me.

  I skated alongside Brody and spoke to him through my smile. “You scared to try to settle this on the ice as a hockey player? Are you such a gutless, talentless, wannabe hack that you need to do things behind the scenes?”

  He picked up his pace. “You don’t deserve to be here.”

  My eyes scanned the seats for Krista, but I only saw Mark Ashford. We briefly made eye contact. I gave Brody an easy smile. “I can smell your fear, Brody. I think everyone can.”

  His stick went between my skate, and he tripped me. I almost hit the deck but somehow recovered. “You got a problem?”

  He ignored me as he skated away.

  At 10 p.m., even though my body was exhausted, my mind was wide awake as I went over every single moment of the day.

  My phone rang, and Krista’s name appeared on my phone screen. I picked up on the first ring. “Hey.”

  “How was your day?”

  “Good, but long. They worked us pretty hard today. How was yours?”

  “This weekend is like a bad flashback of my childhood.”

  I laughed. “How was the baby shower?”

  “It doesn’t happen until tomorrow afternoon. Today, my mom made a total of five people cry. Even scarier, I don’t think that’s her personal best.”

  I grinned like a fool. “What’s your personal best?”

  “In one day? I once made three people cry, but I was one of them.”

  “What happened?”

  “It’s in the past.”

  Why did I want to know everything about her? “Were you one of the people who cried today?”

  She made an indignant noise in the back of her throat. “Please. It would take more than my mom to make me cry.”

  I tried to imagine Krista crying but failed. “What happened today? Why were people crying?”

  “My mom is a perfectionist, and most people fail to meet her high standards. Things got heated, and then tears were shed. Why were you late for practice?”

  “Someone cut my laces and then took the spares out of my bag.”

  “Who?” Her voice went up a notch.

  I didn’t want to tell her about my continuing suspicions of Brody. “No clue, but it didn’t win me any friends.”

  “Levi, let me help.”

  I had zero interest in getting her involved. “Thanks, but nope.”

  “We need to deal with this.”

  “Not until after training camp is done.” I knew I wasn’t going to sleep. I decided to go for a walk. “Tell me more about the baby shower.”

  She made an unimpressed noise. “Not worth talking about. How did you feel today went?”

  “Brody is my biggest competition.”

  “He’s your only competition, but I think you’re better,” she said, and her words soothed me.

  “He’s got the advantage of having played with a lot of the guys already.”

  “Mark will take that into consideration. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Yeah, we’ll see.” I felt too keyed up. I checked my watch. It was just past ten. “I think I’m going for a walk before curfew.”

  “You should be sleeping.”

  “I will. I just need to move.”

  “Get some sleep. Tomorrow is a big day. I’ll try to get there in the morning.”

  I didn’t want our talk to end. “You doing okay?”

  She let out a long sigh. “I will be once this party is over with.”

  “That bad?”

  “It could be a lot better.”

  Something in her voice told me it was much worse than she let on. “Hey. You okay?”

  There was a long pause when I thought she might share, but then she said, “Don’t worry about me. You have enough worries. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

  I struggled to think of something to say that would cheer her up, bolster her, fix whatever made her sound so sad. “You know what?”

  “What?”

  I shut my eyes. I wanted to tell her how fearless she was and how I thought she could handle anything, but the only thing that came out of my mouth was, “You’re Krista fucking Taylor. Don’t forget that.”

  Another interminable pause before she finally spoke in a quiet voice. “Thanks, Levi.”

  Then she hung up.

  Chapter Nine

  Krista

  I’m Krista fucking Taylor. I repeated Levi’s words as I walked to the window of my childhood bedroom. If there were ever a weekend I needed to remember that, it was this one.

  Below me in my parents’ massive backyard, most of the garden was obscured by the two big party tents that had been installed today. Dread didn’t even cover how I felt about this baby shower. I didn’t want to think about what I faced tomorrow, but I knew it would include a lot of questions, well-meant comments, and pitying looks from 120 of my parents’ closest friends.

  I squared my shoulders. I needed to focus on Levi and training camp. I had only managed to sneak away to the rink once today, but Levi was right: Brody was his biggest competition. Not only was he fast and smart, but he also had extensive knowledge of the other players on the ice. He had played with all of them before and was able to anticipate their styles when playing defense.

  Brody was also favored by Gordon, the coach, who had put him on a much better defensive line. Meanwhile, Gordon had put Levi on one of the worst defensive lines. From what I could tell, Levi had done most of the heavy lifting, but when he had been on the ice, his team had been scored against multiple times.

  I had complained bitterly to Mark about it, and he’d given me one of his famous, hard-to-read smiles and told me he’d talk to Gordon about it. But so far, nothing had changed. Mark looked for performance, but they weren’t even giving Levi a fair chance to show them what he was capable of. It felt like he was testing Levi in a way I didn’t understand.

  I moved downstairs and walked through the living room. The floor was covered with buckets of fresh-cut flowers. Two women I didn’t recognize stood at the dining room table and appeared to be making table centerpieces.

  One of the older women looked at me with a sour expression. “Your mom’s in the kitchen.”

  I stopped in the doorway of my mom’s massive, modern, Mediterranean-style kitchen. My mom was chopping something at the stove.


  My stomach growled. “Something smells good.”

  “Where have you been?”

  “I had a work call.” I opened the wine fridge in search of wine, ignoring the disapproving look my mom gave me when I started to open a bottle.

  “You know this is an important weekend for your sister.”

  And I knew it because it had been drilled into my head since I was young. Every weekend of my childhood had been filled with either my sister’s skating practices or her skating events, often in other cities. I was too young to stay home, so I was dragged around behind her for years. You know this is an important weekend for your sister. That had been my mom’s mantra when I dared complain.

  I took a deep breath, not wanting to fight. I motioned my head towards the two women. “Are they from the flower shop?”

  “No, they are not. That’s Margaret and Alice. They both belong to my floral design group.”

  “That’s nice of them to help.”

  She sniffed. “I helped with Alice’s daughter’s wedding. She owed me.”

  My mom kept a measure of her own generosity, seeing it as a kind of currency she could cash in down the road. She was playing out that game among the bored Stepford wives, but I saw those same transactions among most of the agents I dealt with. Everyone owed someone something.

  “What are you cooking? Can I help?”

  “Eduard just arrived, so I told him I would make him some dinner. I’m making him my signature herb-crusted halibut.”

  I felt my entire body go cold and then hot at the mention of his name.

  “He’s coming here tonight?”

  “He’s already here.”

  I looked over my shoulder, my heart pounding. “Where is he?”

  “He’s checking on your sister. Helene went to bed early.”

  I’m not ready.

  I wasn’t getting enough oxygen into my lungs. “The agreement was if I came up alone for this shower, Helene’s fiancé wouldn’t be staying here for the weekend. You promised.”

  She gave an indifferent shrug. “His golf tournament ended early, and it made sense for him to drive up tonight. Did you expect him to sit at home?”