Page 19 of Omega’s Forward

“When the terms of my father’s will permit a sale, I expect to pursue one. That’s roughly two years out. Until then, this organization will be run properly and funded properly. Nothing about your jobs changes.”

“How do we know you’ve got our backs?” The flattened nose again, arms crossed.

“You’ll be paid on time, insured, equipped, and staffed. Sure.”

“Sure?” A stall creaks as somebody big leans forward. “Like what? Like when the league comes after one of us?”

And there it is. It’s the goalie, the big hairy one who came to the house last night with beer, watching me with his arms folded, and then he looks at Callahan, and something about the look lasts a half second too long before it comes back to me. “League’s talking about making examples of guys who drop the gloves,” he says. “Big suspensions. Where does the owner land when that’s one of us?”

I could soften it. I know how to. The phrase I should use is “we’ll review each situation on its merits.” Instead, I look around a room full of men wearing my father’s initials, and I decide they can have the truth.

“If the league suspends one of my players for fighting, I won’t spend this team’s money or my time appealing it. If you can’t take the punishment, don’t start the fight.” I let that sit. “I watched grown men concuss each other for entertainment in my father’s last game. I don’t think much of it, and I’m not going to stand in this room and pretend I do.”

Nobody says anything. The young Swedish one is staring at the floor. Sacco clears his throat and says ice in ten, gentlemen, and twenty-three alphas turn back to their stalls. I say thank you to no one in particular and leave. Callahan doesn’t look at me on the way out. His jaw is tight enough to hurt.

Nobody comes to show me out. I find my own way back down the corridor.

I don’t need media training to know how that went. I drive back to a house that isn’t mine, let myself in through the garage, and practically race back to the bedroom.

I dive into work. I’ve always been good at this. I like the math of it and — if I am honest — the money. There is something incredible about looking at a proposal, mapping out the calculations and seeing how much I get in my bank account at the end of the day.

My father didn’t bother providing any financial support when my mother left. At times, it was tight. Really tight. Stomach painful because I haven’t eaten tight. And that was with my mother making sure that I ate first.

That’s not ever happening again. And every time I get a new deposit into my bank account, that proves it. Maybe that makes me some greedy corporate banker or whatever the team thinks I am. I don’t care.

There is no way that I am ever going hungry again. Me or anyone I care about.

At some point the garage rumbles under the floor. His footsteps go to the kitchen. Cupboards. The fridge. Then the shower starts up down the hall and the scent of him comes through the floor warm and wet and everywhere, and I sit at a borrowed desk with my jaw set and read the same paragraph of a term sheet four times. I type harder.

The knock, when it comes, is two knuckles, twice.

No. I told him to leave me alone. We haven’t had an in-person check-in yet. I don’t know why. And I don’t care.

I don’t say anything. I’m not talking to him or dealing with him until I am forced to. He needs to go away.

He knocks again. I ignore it.

I hear the door open. I turn immediately and regret it.

He fills the doorway. He’s wearing a Barons hoodie. His hair is wet. Fresh out of that shower and smelling like the crisp air in the fall. I keep my eyes on the screen and my breathing shallow.

“Hey. So. That didn’t go great.”

“You think?” So what? What difference does it make?

“I’m not here to pile on. But I’m the captain, and it’s my job to tell you where the room’s at.” He leans a shoulder into the frame. “The room is unhappy.”

“No shit, Sherlock.” I don’t look up from the screen. “What exactly would you like me to do about it? Go back in there and tell them it’s perfectly fine, carry on beating the shit out of each other like a pack of thugs, I’ll hold your coats?”

The silence goes on long enough that I do look up, which is the mistake. His scent has changed. There is an edge in it now, hot and close, and my own body reads it as a threat and as an invitation in the same half second and cannot tell me which. He has straightened off the door frame, and his voice, when it comes, is very level. “What are you saying?”

“Probably what you think I’m saying.”

“They didn’t need you to love hockey.” Still level. Barely. “They needed to hear that when the league comes for one of us, the man signing the checks isn’t holding the door open for them.”

“So the ask is that I endorse the thuggery. Publicly. That’s the job.”

He looks at me for a long moment. “You’re an asshole,” he says, and walks away.