by RJ Scott
Silence. Then Loki nodded. “Me too,” he said.
“And me,” added Ryan.
Alex swallowed. He’d been brought into this team as captain, never known anything but that role. Maybe it was time for someone else to take the lead.
“If you want me to step down as captain, then I’ll understand. There’s no point in leadership that doesn’t work.”
“We should vote,” Drago said immediately, and Alex’s chest tightened. Ultimately the choice of captain was a coach-led decision, but the team had to be behind the choice.
“Everyone who wants Alex to keep the C, raise your hand.”
There wasn’t a single moment of hesitation. Every hand went up, no exceptions.
“It’s done,” Drago said, then waved at Alex to continue like it was nothing important.
“Okay then,” Alex said. He hadn’t realized how relieved he’d feel to know that the team wanted their captain to remain the same. They must have faith in him; he just needed it for himself. “Let’s get everything out. Who wants to start?”
At first, every man looked unsure. Then Arkin stood up, and it seemed like it was going to be the rookie who began this. That was a good thing, right? That a rookie felt confident enough in the room to be able to speak out?
“Even though you said you want me with Rafferty, I’m not sure of my place in the team,” Arkin admitted, then dipped his gaze. “It’s not like college or my time in the Colts, and I get that it shouldn’t be, but here, I don’t know, I feel…wrong.” He sounded frustrated, like he didn’t really know the words to explain his position.
And the floodgates opened.
For four hours, maybe more, they sat in the locker room. At points, some left to shower. By the time the meeting finished, it was three a.m. and Alex felt like there’d been a point to it all, like he’d done the right thing. He was the Captain of the newest NHL team, and the team still wanted him there.
“Ready to go?” Ryan asked with a yawn.
Alex stretched and gave an answering yawn. Ryan and his girlfriend, Kat, lived in the same neighborhood, and he’d brought Ryan in that morning.
God, that seemed so long ago. He’d walked into the place with a heavy heart, already knowing they were going to lose to the Sabres. Didn’t matter that he wanted to be positive, that he was determined to focus—the moment he’d stepped inside, he’d known they lacked cohesion. He didn’t want that feeling again. A captain—hell, any hockey player—shouldn’t have that mindset.
“Sure,” he said, and grabbed his bag. They were the last to leave the locker room—the last in the whole damn building, apart from security, who looked at them curiously as they passed.
“Night,” Alex said, and Ryan echoed the words.
When they were outside, the November cold hit them like a slap in the face, and they hurried to Alex’s car. There wasn’t a lot of space in the trunk of the gleaming scarlet Ferrari; good thing they didn’t have to carry their equipment with them like they’d done in the minors.
“Can we stop at the firehouse? I need to drop car key in to Kat. She came by to pick it up but we were in the locked room thing.”
“Sure.”
What was a few more minutes on an already fucked night? Kat was a paramedic attached to the firehouse nearest the rink, and he knew that pulling nights had to be a fucker if she felt anything like he did at the moment. His body was confused by the lack of sleep, he felt wrung out by everything they’d talked about—on top of a brutal loss—but at least the cold air had woken him up and he felt awake enough to drive.
“How do you think that went?” Ryan asked as they left the parking lot, narrowly avoiding a guy walking across the main road like he had all the time in the world, with a crossing not much farther up. Evidently he thought three a.m. equated to clear roads. Apparently he hadn’t accounted for random hockey players driving home.
“Good.” Alex wasn’t lying—the team had needed tonight more than they’d known. The chance to be completely blunt. Between them they’d thrashed out new training to be passed to Coach Barton, reassured the rookies that everything was going to be okay, and talked about common purpose and playing their game. Yeah, some of it sounded cliché, but sometimes it was the clichés that actually meant something.
“We still have a chance. You know that, right?”
Alex nodded. Every team started the season with a chance of getting to the playoffs, but that was a long way off. At this moment in time, he’d be satisfied with pulling together as a team and winning the next game. He turned left, heading toward the firehouse. They were only a couple of minutes out, and he could already imagine himself getting into bed and sleeping through tomorrow.
He and Ryan saw the wreck at the same time. A Toyota wrapped around a stop light, a twisted mess of metal.
“Jesus,” Ryan said as Alex stopped the car and climbed out.
“Call 9-1-1,” Alex snapped.
Ryan already had his cell out, and he called the accident in as Alex sprinted across the road to what was left of the car. It had been protected somewhat by the fallen crossing lights. Alex slid through the narrowest of gaps, catching his jacket on jagged metal, hearing Ryan call something out loud. He didn’t have to hear the word “gas” to know that it was seeping onto the ground beneath his feet. There wasn’t much left of the front of the car, as if an invisible hand had grabbed it and ripped it apart.
“Help!” The voice was male, and Alex heard what sounded like a crying baby. Any thought he had of trying to get away from gas and fire was gone in an instant, and something inside him switched from caution to determination.
He yanked what he could out of the way and assessed the situation in seconds. A young guy, early twenties, steering wheel pressed against his chest…and in the back, wedged into a small space, there was a baby in a car seat, no more than a few months old.
“She wouldn’t sleep,” the young guy said, sobbing and gasping. “We drive…”
“What’s your name?” Alex said as he looked for a way to get them out. The smell of gas was worse inside the wreck, but he could reach the baby. Something in the ruined car shifted. Alex heard a loud curse; Ryan wasn’t far behind him.
“I’m here,” Ryan reassured.
“My name’s Derek,” the dad said. “Get my baby out, please.”
Alex pushed through the pain of metal cutting into his arm and managed to snag fabric, not sure if it was the baby’s clothes or car seat. The crying intensified, and he tugged as hard as he could without hurting the tiny scrap of a child. With a firm grasp, he had the baby in his hand, and he crawled back the way he came, holding firm to his precious package, handing her over to Ryan as he gulped in fresh air. He assumed it was a girl—she was in pink, and she was so tiny. Ryan cradled her just a gently as he had.
“I’m going back in for the dad.”
“Alex no, let the fire crew—”
“There’s no time—”
“This car could blow.” Ryan tried to snag his jacket, but Alex avoided him.
“Take the baby away from here,” Alex shouted as the child squealed in Ryan’s arms.
Alex—”
“Get. Away.” Alex said, and headed back into the twisted mass, hoping to hell that Ryan did what he’d been told, that the baby was safe.
“My baby,” Derek said.
“She’s safe,” Alex replied, “Can you move?”
Derek pushed at the steering wheel, but he didn’t have the strength, and the blood around his head was ominous, as was the overpowering smell of gas.
Focus. Think.
He looked for a way in, scrambled around so he was on the passenger side, and bracing his back, he pressed with his feet against the steering wheel. It shifted some.
“Okay, Derek,” he said, as calmly as he could, ignoring the flicker of orange to one side.
There is no fire. There is no fire.
“When I push, I need you to try to move.”
“Izzy…” Derek sounded
delirious.
“Your baby is fine. Izzy is fine.” Alex assumed Izzy was the baby, but for a second he panicked that someone else was in the car. “Where is your wife, Derek?” he snapped as he braced himself again. “Derek? Your wife? Girlfriend? Partner?”
“Home,” Derek managed.
Thank fuck for that.
“Okay, I’m pushing. Ready? On three. One. Two. Three.”
He pushed with every ounce of muscle strength he had in his legs, and the wheel moved, an inch, another. “C’mon, Derek, get the fuck out,” he shouted over the noise of crunching metal.
Something he said must have gotten through to Derek. He wriggled and managed to get unpinned. With an extra shove, he was out of the car and scrambling through the narrow path that Alex had used, the same route that was closing as the heat grew nearer.
Alex frantically scrambled away, smoke filling his lungs, heat on his face, and he crawled out the way he’d come in, his jacket catching until he couldn’t move, and the fire was too close.
The chassis cracked, a weight falling on his head, and his vision blurred, then something wet fell on him, and he closed his eyes. That could be fuel; this was him dead.
Hands gripped him, strong hands, and he yelled as the metal that held him released its hold.
With that cry, he scrambled free of the wreckage, and someone was dragging him back. He could hear shouting, feel the heat, and the night was dark around him. Pain snagged his arm.
“I got you,” a voice said; a woman’s. “You’re okay.”
“Out?” he asked.
Is the baby okay? Is the dad okay? Was there anyone else in the wreck?
Ryan’s voice was at the edge of things. “Kat is here. You’ll be okay, Simba.”
Then that other voice, the soft but firm voice, and the hands that had gripped him and pulled him free. Was it cliché to stare into someone’s eyes as you passed out? He didn’t know, but the intensity of the darkness he looked into was enough that he forgot the pain for a second.
“The baby?”
“They’re both okay. I got you. Help is here.”
Pain vanished. Nothing at all. No burning, no hurt, only the soft comfort of floating and the stark white of a hospital room.
“Team medic is here,” Ryan said, next to him. Ryan’s voice had been reassuringly there the whole time.
Then Loki was there, and Drago ordering people about, Gooly, the twins, and Mac bringing coffee. Hell, was the whole team in his damn room?
“The baby?” he asked, although the words floated away from him and he couldn’t quite hold on to them.
“You need to sleep,” Ryan said. “The baby is fine.”
And so he slept.
Next time he woke, it was to a world of hurt, and he told everyone exactly that. Adding that he was playing hockey whatever happened. Whatever.
Of course, being told the crack in his radius would keep him out for at least four weeks wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but at least everything else was okay. No other broken bones, the cuts and burns not too deep, and he might have avoided concussion even though he’d blacked out.
Four to six weeks my ass—I’ll be back in a few days.
Had he said that out loud? No one answered him, so he guessed he hadn’t.
Then he started coughing, and his chest freaking hurt.
When he woke to daylight at whatever time of the day it was, all he could think about was his car.
“My car?” he asked.
“Dealt with,” said a voice. He thought it sounded like maybe Drago, but couldn’t quite make it out.
His Ferrari was his pride and joy, and he’d only just got the scratches fixed from Ryan sliding down the side of it.
The voice continued, “Ryan took it home.”
All Alex could think was that he was glad it wasn’t Loki, because Loki drove like a demon and had absolutely zero respect for cars.
Had it only been yesterday they’d had that meeting in the locker room? Or was it the day before? He’d lost the concept of time somewhere along the way.
“They’re showing a game,” a nurse explained, or a doctor, or a visitor, he didn’t know who, as they placed a control next to him.
Which game? The Dragons were playing Boston next. Was it the Boston game? Why were the players wearing Dallas-green on one side and Wings-red on the other? It wasn’t their game. And why were the guys flying? Were they actually flying in Dallas now? What the hell? Was that snow? And puppies?
“I’m not taking any more drugs,” he announced to the owner of the soft hands checking bandages.
“Okay,” the voice said.
“I mean it. No more drugs.”
Three days, and he was released from hospital, smuggled past reporters to Ryan and Kat’s place. He sat on the sofa, wondering what the hell the time was, the day was, where he was. And still in pain.
But. At least there were no more drugs.
Chapter 2
Jo walked in on a team meeting.
Not her team; not the big burly firefighters that formed her life and mostly sat around looking all kinds of badass whenever they had a meeting.
Nope, it was the key members of the Ice Dragons hockey team that had congregated in her friend Kat’s living room. Of course, it was also Ryan’s living room, given that Kat and Ryan were recently engaged, and it was their new house. Hence why Ryan would be there.
“Excuse the noise. We’ll study upstairs again where it’s quiet,” Kat said.
“It’s a team meeting then?”
“Less meeting, more smack-down and telling Alex like it is. Poor guy can’t stay at his own place because of all the media attention, so he’s staying here, but he’s pissed and probably scared of being off-ice for far too long.”
“It’s fine,” she said, although she wasn’t exactly concentrating on what Kat said, so had missed most of it.
And all because from there she could see the center of attention, one Alexandre Simard, or Simba as his teammates liked to call him. She knew that Simba was his nickname because he’d done those ridiculous car sales ads for a local Toyota dealership a couple years back. They’d made this whole thing about his blond hair and his name, likening him to a lion based on his hockey nickname.
She’d seen the ads so many times she could almost recite them from memory; too much down-time at the firehouse between calls.
Of course, his face had been fixed firmly in her mind after she and Mitch had been the ones who’d dragged his trapped and heavy ass out of that car, the flames burning through his jacket and the jersey beneath. He’d been the one who’d looked up at her and asked not about himself, but about the baby.
The damn man had crawled back into the burning car for the dad. He could have died. Jo had been furious about his actions—the last thing professionals needed was civilians getting involved—but when the action of the call had faded, she’d thought past the rookie checklist for civilian interaction on scenes. Instead, she’d gone from seeing him as a man who’d helped to sell cars, played a game for a living, to a man who’d risked his own life for a child and father.
With no thought for his own safety.
He was pretty much a local hero if you listened to the news—a tall, gorgeous, blond-haired, blue-eyed hero. Could the guy be any more of a cliché? And why did he have to look so sexy and handsome even when he was angry?
“They’re all mad,” Lieutenant Dennison had said when they’d been working on getting the car clear. “Hockey players—all mad,” he’d elaborated when she’d stared at him, not really understanding at first.
Seemed like they weren’t just mad for putting themselves in danger, but they were mad-angry as well. So it wasn’t so much a meeting she’d been warned was happening at the same time as her study session, as a heated debate.
There was some language she didn’t understand, although it was deep and guttural and likely Russian, and then one hell of a lot of cursing. She caught some of it, a shouting match over ice time
and why couldn’t their fucking captain understand the concept of fucking rest.
She didn’t watch hockey that much, sometimes caught highlights on shift down-time, but being the probie at the firehouse kept her busy. That would all be ending soon when she passed probation and her exams, but for now, it sucked. She kind of wanted to watch hockey. The way her fellow officers and the paramedics talked about it, the game was fast and changed on a dime. Burlington had an expansion team, or so she’d read in the paper that morning. In fact, she’d learned a lot about hockey over the past few days. Ever since the accident, actually, because the articles on it were everywhere.
To be fair, every article she’d read about the Dragons’ captain and him risking his life had begun with the words Alexandre ‘Simba’ Simard, Captain of The Dragons, the NHL’s newest expansion team… She’d looked it up, knew what expansion meant, that it was a new team, only five or so years old, and that this year they’d started strong before setbacks had them trailing in the rankings.
Not to mention they’d lost their captain for at least four weeks. Maybe six. One writer pointed out that the team didn’t have the chance to label it a generic upper body injury so that other teams wouldn’t know the captain’s vulnerabilities. Nope, there were pictures and news reports of burns and a fractured radius.
According to news reports, the team losing their captain was critical, and Jo could understand that. A captain was a key piece in his team—the leader, the one everyone looked up to. He was also a real American hero, or at least that was what the news was painting him as. Without thought for his own safety, he’d rescued a father and baby from their car only seconds before the fire spread.
Brave. Not everyone was a trained firefighter; not everyone would risk their own life to rescue others. Not everyone was trained like her. Brave, stupid…they were different sides of the same coin.
