Game Breaker (Portland Storm Book 14)

by Catherine Gayle

  “I feed them. I take care of them when you’re gone.”

  “You feed them when I’m gone. You don’t walk them. You don’t clean them or clean up after—”

  “How do you expect me to walk them when the two of you can barely handle them?” she cut in.

  “They’re your dogs!”

  “I do the best I can,” Amanda bit off, the camera absorbing every bit of this—which might actually prove to be a good thing for me. Not that I wanted RJ to suffer the same kind of scrutiny I’d been under, but it would be a relief to have the focus shifted. Amanda seemed to remember that we were being filmed, shifting her eyes over to Anne and her crew of one. Then she ripped off the microphone and jerked the mic pack free from her waistband, tossing them in Anne’s direction. “I’m ready to go. Let’s go.” Then she stalked off, leaving us on the ground as she headed toward RJ’s enormous SUV.

  He gave me an exasperated look, but it slipped away as soon as it came on. I was tempted to remind him that he was the one who intended to marry her, not me, but I bit my tongue. Not the kind of thing I needed to say in front of Amanda, let alone in front of anyone and everyone who decided to tune in and watch this show online.

  “I’d better go,” he said, dragging himself to his feet and tugging on Max’s leash to get him up. He reached for Lola’s leash, which I gratefully handed over. “Thanks for giving me a hand with them.”

  I shrugged now that I could move again, no longer pinned to the ground by Lola’s exuberant affection. “You know me. Glutton for punishment.”

  He laughed. “Yep. Always have been.” Then he tugged on the dogs’ leashes and started to follow his fiancée. “See you in the morning, Ghost,” he called over his shoulder.

  I was still on my back, basking in the sun and momentarily oblivious to the fact that I was now all alone with Anne and her cameraman, when she limped over and took a seat next to me.

  Well, shit. I draped an arm over my eyes to block the sun.

  “Hiding from me?” she asked.

  More like hiding from the camera. But that wasn’t like me, at least not until lately, so I put my arm back down on the ground at my side. “You’ll get your pants dirty,” I pointed out.

  “Too late, they’re already ruined.”

  “You can probably get the grass stains out.”

  “Maybe my dry cleaner can, but not me.” She winked. “I never learned the art of doing laundry. One more way I failed in my mother’s eyes.”

  The sun was behind her like a halo, and I squinted to see what I could make out in her expression. There wasn’t any irony in her tone—only resignation. Which meant she actually believed what she’d said. That had to be one of the most ridiculous things I’d ever heard. Anne Dennison was making her mark in a career where few women ventured.

  “How on earth could your mother think you’re a failure?” I demanded.

  “It’d be easier to list the things I’ve done that she approves of.”

  “Which are?”

  “I have a college degree. The wrong college degree, but still. I graduated.”

  “And?” I coaxed when she didn’t continue, sitting up so I could see her better. I draped my arm over my knee and searched her eyes. Definitely no irony in her look. Good grief.

  “That’s about it.”

  “You’re joking.” She had to be.

  “Nope. I went into journalism and minored in radio, TV, and film. She wanted me to get a degree in math or science—something useful, she said—and marry an Indian doctor so I could make Indian babies and let my degree go to waste. I wasn’t supposed to still be single at this age.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-four. By now, she thinks I should have popped out at least my first two Indian babies. I should spend my life barefoot and pregnant, don’t you know? That’s what a good Indian girl is supposed to do. Be smart, but never use her smarts other than to snag an Indian doctor and make Indian babies.”

  I rolled my eyes. That sounded like the last thing she would want, based on what little I knew of her. “I didn’t realize you’re Indian.” Never would have guessed it, based on her name, but now that she said it, I could see it in some of her features—her lighter skin and curly hair, not to mention the shape of her face. She had high cheekbones that gave her an exotic look.

  “Half-Indian. My dad’s half-black, half-Irish. He’s a doctor. Mom got that part right, she says, but their marriage was always rocky. They divorced when I was ten. Mom has been trying to brainwash me into getting everything right that she got wrong ever since. That’s one of the reasons I don’t spend as much time with her as I do with my dad.”

  I didn’t have any difficulty imagining what it would be like growing up with animosity between divorced parents. Not that mine were like that—they were still happily married more than thirty-five years later. But RJ and his brother had spent a ton of time at our house growing up because his parents were constantly fighting. Even after they’d divorced, he’d continued coming to my house because it was a refuge for him. Mom and Dad had treated him like he was one of their kids, loving him in ways his own parents seemed incapable of doing. We hadn’t ever really talked about what happened at his house. I’d never wanted to push him into it. I just knew that he needed somewhere to go, and we were always happy to be that somewhere for him.

  But I did have a hard time imagining a life with a parent who was trying to get you to do all the things they felt they’d done wrong. Shouldn’t they want their kids to chase their own dreams, to go after the things they loved? My parents had never played hockey in their lives. Hell, Dad couldn’t skate and refused to even try. But they’d taken me to every practice and tournament, watching from the stands and cheering me on. My sister, Nicole, had wanted to become a teacher, so they’d gotten her into babysitting and enrolled her in early childhood development programs so she could get a head start and be sure it was the career she wanted to pursue. They did everything they could to support both of us in reaching our goals, never attempting to force their own dreams on us.

  “You’ve known Jezek for a long time?” Anne prompted after a long silence.

  “Since I was probably nine or ten? RJ and I’ve known each other for what feels like forever. I barely remember a time before he was around.”

  “Seems like you two are good friends.”

  “You could say that,” I replied, trying to figure out what she was fishing for. These felt like leading questions. But leading up to what?

  “And your family? You’re close to your family?”

  “Yeah. I spend time with Mom and Dad every chance I get. My sister’s a teacher, so her summer breaks tend to coincide with the time I have off from hockey. It works out well.” I remained intentionally vague, not giving away too much, because in the back of my mind, I knew the camera was still rolling. “RJ’s kind of like family to me. Hell, the whole team is like family to me. We’re a bunch of brothers, teasing each other, giving each other a hard time, but when it comes down to it, these are the guys watching my back. They’re the ones I’m going into battle with. We take care of our own.”

  One thing we learned early in my world was that hockey was a team sport. It should never be about individual achievements or failures. We tended to answer questions about the team as a whole, lauding teammates and pointing out areas where our personal game needed improvement. The focus was almost never on an individual, though, which was one more reason the entire situation with the banana peel had made me uncomfortable. It was about me, and only me. Not about the team. And all this time with Anne was forcing me to look at myself even more. She wanted me to talk about myself. I wanted to put the focus back on the team.

  “I’ve noticed that,” Anne said dryly. “Every time I’ve tried to get you alone like this to talk to you, someone else has tried to get in the way or distract me. They’ve wanted to talk to me about anyone and anything else. No one has given me anything more than pat answers when it comes to what happened
the other night.”

  “Because that doesn’t matter.”

  “Doesn’t it?” She raised one of her eyebrows, drawing my attention to how thick and perfectly arched they were. “Can you really say that and believe it? In this day and age, the fact that someone threw a banana peel at your feet and shouted racial slurs at you doesn’t matter?”

  “It doesn’t,” I ground out.

  “How can it not be a huge deal?”

  “It’s only a big deal if you decide to make it into one. But me? I’m not giving it that much power. Neither are my teammates. There are ignorant people everywhere. Racists, homophobes, sexist assholes, perverts, people who are scared of other religions… But I don’t think that’s what most of the world is like. I choose to believe that most people are good. Most realize that hatred based on someone being different is truly just fear of what they don’t understand. So you can make this into something bigger than what it is if you want, but I’m not going to play along. I’m going to go about my life like I always have. We’ve got our first game of the playoffs tomorrow. That’s what I’m focused on. And only that.”

  To Anne’s credit, she didn’t blanch at anything I said. She kept a straight face. Interested. Intrigued, maybe. “I was talking with your coaches about you yesterday,” she said. “Coach Bergstrom seems to think that final game of the regular season might have been the beginning of your coming-out party. He seems to think you’ve got the talent to become a real game breaker, something you’ve shown hints of in the last few months.”

  I shrugged. “I was always an offensive threat growing up. Took me a while to figure it out at this level.”

  “You’re seriously going to downplay that?” Anne shook her head and laughed. “That’s an amazing compliment, and you’re going to shrug it off like it’s nothing.”

  “It is nothing unless I back it up. Let’s see what happens in the playoffs.”

  “Yeah, let’s see. Thanks for agreeing to do this, by the way. I know you didn’t want to, and I can’t say I blame you.”

  “Well, like you reminded me before we left… I don’t really have a choice, do I?” As soon as I said it, I wished I hadn’t been so short with her. Everything had been smooth between us, but now it was like a cold front had blown in. “Sorry. It’s not your fault.”

  “No, but it isn’t yours, either. I get it, Nate. I really do. I’m not trying to make your life difficult. I hope you know that.” When I didn’t respond, she let out a sigh. “Well, I think that’s good enough for now. Dave, you can pack up to go,” she added, glancing over her shoulder at the cameraman. She got to her knees and made to stand, but her ankle twisted beneath her again, and she flopped back down to the ground with a pained squeak.

  I tugged her ankle toward me for a better look. “That’s a lot of swelling. You shouldn’t have been traipsing around on it all day.”

  “I had a job to do. It wasn’t that bad until I sat down.”

  “It’s always worse once you get off it.” I scowled. “You have no business walking on this right now. Not until you get some X-rays and we can be sure what’s going on.”

  “We?” she asked, drawling the word and arching one of those gorgeous brows.

  “Figure of speech.” I wasn’t sure why I felt the need to cover my tracks there.

  She struggled to an upright position again. “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.”

  When she tried to stand, I had to push on her shoulders and keep her down. “You don’t listen very well, do you?”

  “Well, how do you propose I get back to my car and drive myself to a doctor without walking?”

  “I could carry you.” Then I saw that Dave had finished putting away all his equipment, slinging the strap of a carrying case over one shoulder. “Or you can put an arm around each of our shoulders so you can use us like crutches. Honestly, I don’t care which, but I don’t want to let you walk on that any more right now.”

  She huffed, the breath blowing her bangs out of her face for a moment as she frowned. “To be honest, I don’t know if I can manage it, anyway.”

  “You’re too stubborn for your own good.”

  “Something else my mother is constantly reminding me of,” she said, but this time when she spoke of her mother, she did it with a laugh.

  I SPENT THE majority of the next day holed up in the cutting room with my editor, a writer, and Carson, the local actor we’d chosen to be the narrator of the series. They kept nagging me to elevate my foot, and an assistant continually ran errands for me instead of allowing me to get up and do things for myself—fetching ice packs, food, and drinks, bringing me more ibuprofen, running messages back and forth between me and other members of my crew, and a thousand other things at once.

  The whole time we were piecing the episode together, I was also fielding what felt like a thousand calls, texts, and emails from different members of my crew, from people involved in the Storm organization, and a couple from my father, who reminded me to take it easy today. Just a sprain, I told him repeatedly, and a couple of the Storm’s trainers intended to monitor me occasionally to be sure I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. That part might have been a slight exaggeration, as they were only providing me with ice packs and wraps for my ankle, but my father didn’t need to know that.

  Besides, Dad wasn’t my doctor. He wasn’t even the sort of doctor anyone would go to over a sprained ankle. He was a bariatric surgeon. He worked with severely obese people, helping them to lose weight and live a healthier lifestyle, which had next to nothing to do with sprains. Still, I was his little girl, and he was determined to worry about me. There were worse things he could do, so the least I could do was put up with his meddling and worrying.

  With barely more than an hour to spare before the first webisode went live, I sent Carson and the writer off to the sound studio to record the narration we’d discussed so it could be cut in over the footage we’d selected. While they were gone, Bill the editor and I both worked at a feverish pace alongside each other, both of us occupied by a different sequence, to edit the remaining few scenes and cut them together.

  They raced back in with the audio with only twenty minutes to go. I hadn’t intended to cut things so close—we really ought to have a final run-through of the whole thing so we could make a few tweaks before it aired—but there wasn’t time for that.

  We uploaded and crossed our fingers that there weren’t any issues. I sent off a quick message to the Storm’s Internet guys so they knew to put a link about it on the home page of their website and have their social media department post about it. Then I took a moment to post about it on our own Eye of the Storm social media accounts so the world would know it was available. Once all of that was done, we sat down and watched it through for the first time, along with everyone else in the world who decided to check it out before the Storm’s first playoff game of the season.

  I don’t think I took a breath through the entire thirty-minute webisode, and especially not when it got to the banana peel incident. Even though I’d seen it happen live, and I’d watched all of our footage countless times over the course of the last few days as we’d painstakingly selected what to use and what to leave behind, I still choked up when it hit the ice in front of Nate, and I saw the pained expression come into his eyes while Carson’s words trailed off into nothingness.

  We’d settled on using only the true audio for that moment. No exposition. We weren’t going to tell anyone how they should feel about it as they watched Nate’s dawning comprehension, or the explosive anger that lit a fire in the eyes of some of his teammates, or the hatred revealed in the faces of the men who were behind the moment. We wanted everyone to make up their own minds as to how they should respond to such a disgusting display.

  Watching it through like that, I was left with chills racing up my spine.

  Somehow, it went off without a hitch. All the men in the room high-fived each other, and I sucked in a breath, finally filling my lungs with air.


  “Great work, Anne,” Bill said, slapping me on the back like I was one of the guys.

  “Same to you. All of you.” I removed the most recent ice pack from my ankle and grabbed my crutches. “But for now, I have to run.” The camera crew was at the Moda Center already, filming what I’d instructed them to, but I needed to get out to our control center so I could keep an eye on everything going on in this game. One episode down, but now we needed to start thinking up the narrative for the second.

  “Car’s waiting for you out front,” Bill said. He grabbed my bag for me and held open the door for me to crutch my way through. When we reached the car we’d arranged, he tossed my bag inside and shut the door behind me once I had the crutches situated.

  The driver pulled out. Bill winked at me as we drove off.

  Since I was just along for the ride, I took out my phone and pulled up Twitter to see if people were posting reactions to the first webisode.

  Then I wished the driver would pull over, because I felt like I might toss my cookies.

  @EyeoftheStormShow is just glorifying racism. No surprise with @AnnePDennison at the helm. Someone should rape her to shut her up.

  How many people did @AnnePDennison fuck to get this @EyeoftheStormShow gig? Women don’t know sports. #stupidcunt

  Why is @StormNHL letting @AnnePDennison run @EyeoftheStormShow? #rapethebitch

  Those were just the first three reactions I came to, but scrolling through my feed revealed hundreds more along the same lines.

  This wasn’t anything new, of course. I’d been facing the same sort of hate since my first day on the job as part of the Storm’s broadcast team. I’d faced it throughout my college days, working for the university newspaper and radio departments and taking on the hockey coverage. I knew there was bound to be more to come, and I’d thought I was prepared for it now. But it washed over me like a torrential downpour, drowning me under its weight.

  The Moda Center came into view, and I forced my face into a calm, neutral expression. Now wasn’t the time to give in to the negativity threatening to swamp me, and I needed to have my game face on; I had a job to do, whether the world thought I was capable of doing it or not.