Page 94 of The Fake Out

He nodded.

After talking to a couple of the guys about where they lived, I decided I’d prefer to stay in the city versus moving to the Main Line to be closer to the practice facility. I called my realtor and found a four-bedroom brick-facade townhome in Rittenhouse Square. What sold me on the place was the home gym and that it had parking. It was perfect. My brothers roasted me for getting such a big place all to myself, but I reminded them we had a big-ass family, and they shut up. Assholes.

I found out the buyer had accepted my offer the day after the wedding. I had stepped out of the room so I didn’t wake Veronica, but when I came back, she was gone. When she texted me asking what our cover story about our breakup should be, it crushed me. I wanted so badly to have something real with her, but she showed me repeatedly that wasn’t possible.

“Having stability’s good. But I want you to know that if you need to talk, I’m here. I know I’m your coach, and that probably feels weird to you.”

I nodded.

“But I want you to play like you actually give a fuck about this game.”

I nodded. “Right, yeah. I’ll do better.”

He gave me a quizzical look. “And whatever you did to fuck it up with that lady of yours, fix it. For fuck’s sake, kid, I saw the way you played when she was cheering you on. This shit right here’s not it.”

I bit my tongue, not trying to explain that it didn’t matter. None of it mattered.

He motioned to the door. “Go on, get out of here!”

I didn’t say another word and took off for my dad’s house. My younger brothers were arguing in the kitchen about something hockey related when I walked in. Dad stood at the counter drinking his coffee with an amused smirk on his face.

“What are you assholes hammering on about?” I asked.

“That headshot Eli took last night,” Michael seethed with anger.

Right, that. Montreal played Pittsburgh last night, and one of the goons on the Miners hit our oldest brother in the numbers. I talked to Eli last night, and he seemed a little foggy, and we were all worried.

“He can take it,” Dad said with a shrug.

The three of us whipped our heads around at him. “Dad!” Ayden cried. “You can’t go all old-school hockey tough guy anymore. Concussions are serious.”

“Why do you think I don’t want to play professionally?” Michael argued. “That can be dangerous.”

“That’s not why you don’t want to play,” Dad scoffed. “You just like writing your kissing books.”

I froze and stared at Dad. Michael self-pubbed his romance books under a pen name, but I didn’t know Dad knew about it. His pen name was Mikey Holmes, so it wasn’t like he tried too hard to make it different.

Ayden laughed his ass off at my expression.

“Wait…I thought it was a secret?” I asked.

Michael sighed. “Maja told on me.”

Dad laughed. “Got me laid, so I don’t care.”

Me and my brothers looked at him in disgust and cried in unison, “EWWWWW!!!”

Dad laughed and then fixed me with a glare. “I have a bone to pick with you.”

“Me?” I asked and put my hands up in surrender.

He glared at me. “Yeah, I was wondering why you’ve been in such a bad mood, and these two spilled that you and Veronica broke up.”

Ayden mouthed, ‘sorry,’ and Michael shrugged.

Dicks.

“It’s not your business,” I explained. “Are you assholes gonna help me move the rest of my shit, or what?”