Page 32

“Chill, Brownie. I’m good. This girl and I are about to take off and go back to her place. Bro, she is so fucking hot.” He pushed up out of the booth and wobbled slightly. Without saying goodbye, Sewell wandered off to another booth, probably to get away from Noah and Bennett. Bennet had already been dubbed Captain Buzzkill when he wouldn’t let them order a fifteen-thousand-dollar bottle of champagne.

“I can’t believe anyone wants to fuck that kid,” Noah said when they were alone.

“He’s nineteen. You were obnoxious back then too, probably.”

“I was never that obnoxious. I was very mature at that age.”

Bennett snorted and set his drink down, ready to give up the pretense of wanting it. “Mature? In major juniors? Okay, sure.”

“Fuck off! I was working my ass off in the AHL at nineteen.” Noah finished his beer, then put the bottle on the table. “Not all of us can be number one draft picks with Cs born on their chests.”

Everyone knew Bennett’s story, that he’d never played in the minors. At eighteen, he went right from the QMJHL, or the Q as it was called, directly into the NHL. He became captain at twenty, one of the youngest in the league, and he’d always taken the responsibility seriously. Turning a franchise around hadn’t been easy, and the Toronto media were particularly ruthless. Canadian hockey fans did not tolerate losses. But he’d always considered the pressure a privilege.

“This was a dumb idea,” he said, glancing around. “No one will be stupid enough to do anything tonight.”

“Probably. But at least everyone is having fun—on your tab.”

Bennett could afford it. His AAV was almost fourteen million dollars—low compared to some other top centers, but it was still a fuck-ton of money. Rafaela Alves, his agent, claimed Bennett could get more in another city, like Tampa or Dallas, but Bennett liked Toronto. He didn’t want to leave.

“Ben.” A hand landed on his shoulder and he glanced behind him. It was Elias Holmberg, a Swede and one of their veteran wingers. He signed with the Reign the year after Bennett, so they’d been tight for a long time.

“What’s up, Bergy?”

Quietly, Elias said, “We’ve got a problem downstairs. Pence and Falk are getting into it with the locals and it’s turning ugly.”

Fuck. Standing, Bennett motioned to Noah. “Come on. We might have to break up a fight.”

The three of them hurried from the VIP area down to the main floor and Elias led them toward the back corner of the bar, where a small group of people were clustered together. They pushed through the crowd to reach the center, where Jason Pence and Eric Falk were arguing with two big guys who were definitely not strangers to the inside of a gym. Bennett cursed under his breath. This could turn ugly.

“. . . because we own you. Don’t worry!” Jason Pence was saying, his face red and blotchy. A visibly drunk Falk slung his arm over Pence’s shoulder and they both laughed like this was hysterical.

“At least we aren’t filled with idiots who have no critical thinking skills,” one of the locals jeered.

“Yeah, but soon you’ll be the fifty-first state⁠—”

Bennett lunged, snatching the back of Pence’s sweater, then shaking him into silence. “That’s enough.” He waved away the two locals. “We’re done here. Everyone go back to having fun.”

“Verreault!” Bennett heard his name called over and over from all different directions, the crowd having just realized he was down here, but he focused on Falk and Pence. “You two idiots get upstairs, now.”

“But Cap,” Falk said. “We didn’t start it. Those guys⁠—”

“No one cares.” He pushed Pence in Noah’s direction. “Go with Brownie. Now.”

Noah and Elias grabbed the two drunk players and led them away. Bennett knew his role at this moment, and that was to smile, smooth over any hard feelings, and be the Reign captain everyone loved. Cocktail napkins and pieces of paper quickly appeared, along with pens and markers, so Bennett began signing autographs, posing for selfies. One woman asked him to sign her skin, right above her left breast. These types of requests made him uncomfortable, not because he was gay but because it was weird, and yet he didn’t want to disappoint anyone. So, he signed and posed, smiled and shook hands, showed how well behaved and nice hockey players could be, then was finally rescued by an annoyed-looking security guard twenty minutes later. Bennett slipped the guy a hundred dollars and thanked him profusely before climbing the steps to the lounge.

A team night out here had been a really bad idea.

In the VIP lounge he found Pence and Falk laughing with each other, drinking, at Bennett’s booth. Noah and Elias were standing off to the side, quietly talking, so Bennett dropped into the seat across from the young men. When they saw his face, they instantly straightened, their amusement dying. “That is not,” he said slowly, “how our team operates. Not in public, not in private. I expect better out of both of you.”

“Cap, listen,” Pence said, leaning closer to be heard over the music. “It got a little heated, but we weren’t going to do anything.”

“Yeah, it was harmless,” Falk added, his words slurring slightly. “We were just sticking up for our country.”

“Shut up,” Bennett ordered. “You live in Canada, idiots. You work in Canada. The Reign fans are Canadian. No one cares about American politics here, and they definitely don’t want to hear any delusions about your country taking us over. Read the fucking room. But good news—there were at least three people filming that exchange, so we can expect to see you ranting like right-wing lunatics online at any minute.”

Pence slouched in the booth, unhappiness radiating off him in waves. “So now we aren’t allowed to express ourselves? Even when defending our home?”

God, these idiots. “I can’t have you getting in fights or arguments, not off the ice. Period.”