Chapter 14

14

BEN

After our second loss following the All-Star break, the dressing room is like a dungeon. The guys are all grumbling and complaining, tossing equipment around, and generally acting like pouty children.

“If you hadn’t missed that pass, we might’ve scored,” Hakim says to Crusher.

My mouth drops open. I look at Crusher, who’s scowling at his skates.

“Never mind me,” he replies. “What about that too many men penalty? Jesus, man, can’t you fucking count?”

I lose my shit.

“What the fuck?” I yell at both of them. Then I look around the room.

Everyone goes deathly silent, staring at me.

“You know what the fuck our problem is?” I stand up, agitation and adrenaline coursing through my veins. “We’re too focused on all the things we do wrong.”

“We do a lot wrong,” Crusher mutters.

“Okay, yeah, sometimes we do. But what do we do about it? Whine and bitch. That’s not going to fix anything.”

Every guy’s face wears an expression of wary confusion.

Okay, this is not like me. I’m the quiet one. I watch and observe and take everything in, but it’s not very often I speak up. Especially not loudly. Heatedly.

I shove my hand into my sweaty hair. I can’t hold back. “We need to learn from our mistakes,” I bark. “Mistakes are made for learning, not repeating. Jesus Christ!” I take a few steps across the carpet, aware of the trainers and equipment guys also listening. I’m so wound up, I don’t care. “I know I screwed up against Dallas when I gave up the puck in our own end. I was pissed at myself.” I shake my head. “But I try to learn from my mistakes. We have to learn. Learn from our mistakes, the wins, the losses, everything.”

Heads move slowly side to side.

“We all need to be accountable for our mistakes. We all make them. But if we don’t learn from them, we’re gonna keep doing the same stupid shit over and over. We’re not gonna get any better.” Frustration makes my voice louder. “Mack.” I turn to our number two center. “How’s your faceoff win percentage?”

“It’s shit,” he says glumly.

“Yeah. So let’s think about how to work on that.” I look at Dilly. “You need to stop shooting into the goalie’s chest.”

He narrows his eyes and his mouth tightens but he nods. “Yeah.”

“Let’s work on it. Come on, guys. I’m sick of this. I’m sick of losing. I’m sick of the same things going wrong night after night. We’re better than this. We did some good things tonight, too. That goal in the second… that was phenomenal. What an angle! We need more of that.” There are murmurs of agreement. I turn to Edouard Lafond, a big D-man. “Eddy, you were fantastic, great defensive stick in the lane on that power play.”

This time the sounds of agreement are louder.

“Yeah, Eddy!” Crusher says.

I pull in a deep breath, suddenly back outside my comfort zone. I can’t stop now, though. “Let’s all think about it. Let’s think about our mistakes and how we can learn from them. Let’s talk about it more tomorrow.” I sink back down onto the bench in front of my cubby.

Goddamn.

I bend over to unlace my skates. The room is quieter than it was, but I can feel the difference. Before it was heavy and gloomy. Now there’s a buzz.

I head to a bike to cool down. Mostly I need my head to stop racing. Did I just act like a complete asshole?

Smitty climbs onto a bike next to me. “Good talk, man.”

I slant him a look. “Really?”

“Really. You nailed it.”

I drop my head forward. “Probably pissed everyone off.”

“I don’t think so. We need someone to call us on our shit.”

He’s right. I just wish I’d planned that better instead of losing my mind and yelling like that. I sigh and we ride in silence for a few minutes until I climb off and head for the showers.

In the morning, we gather for our team meeting before practice.

“Benny,” Coach barks at me. “You have something you want to say?”

I blink. “Uh…”

“Finish what you started last night,” he says.

My mind scrambles a bit. “Right.” I rub my mouth. He heard that? Great. I pull in a breath through my nose. “I guess my whole point was that we need to spend less energy on complaining about our problems and more energy on finding solutions and things we can control. We need to build each other up. We need to be more cohesive.”

“Cohesive?” Turks says. “How do we do that?”

“The way we do that is to do our jobs. And communicate. We need to communicate more. During every shift. Hell, before every shift. After every shift. Off the ice. Verbally and non-verbally.”

I catch Coach’s eye and he gives me an approving chin lift.

Okay. Maybe I didn’t totally fuck up by blowing up last night.

“What is this? An intervention?” I look at my teammates who’ve sat me down on the couch at home with serious looks on their faces.

“Maybe?” Smitty shrugs.

“If you’re going to be the next captain, you’re gonna have to up your game,” Archie says.

Archie now also knows about this possibility.

“A captain doesn’t have to be well dressed.” I frown.

“Yeah, he does. You’re supposed to lead by example, remember?” Smitty shakes his head.

I sigh.

The team is doing a sharpest dresser contest. Every game they take photos of us walking into the arena and fans are voting for the best dressed. I don’t give a shit about that.

Apparently, I’m supposed to, though.

“We’re taking you shopping,” Archie says.

“Oh hell, no.”

“Yep. Come on, dude. Got your credit card?”

“Yeah. But I don’t think I trust you guys to buy me new clothes. Especially you.” I look pointedly at Archie’s sweater – a cardigan with brown trim and a geometric pattern in orange and pink.

“Point taken,” Smitty says. “We won’t let him pick out stuff. Just give his opinion.”

Mabel arrives home just then, carrying a paper bag smelling deliciously like a burger and greasy fries, and looking, as usual, like an absolute snack. “Hi, guys.” She sets her bag on the kitchen counter, unwraps her scarf, and shrugs out of her furry jacket. “How was practice?”

“It was good. We’re trying some new things.” Smitty stands. “We’re just heading out.”

“Where are you going?” Mabel hops onto a stool and opens her bag.

“We’re taking Benny shopping for new clothes.”

Her head whips around. “Really?”

“Yeah. He needs a new wardrobe. Specifically, game-day suits.”

I sigh gustily. “I have suits.”

“You do,” Mabel agrees. “Although they appear to be the same ones you wore when you got drafted.”

I scrunch my face up. She could be right, actually.

“He needs a glow up,” Archie says. “Especially if he’s going to be captain.”

“No.”

We all look at Mabel.

She shakes her head. “No, he doesn’t.” She picks up a French fry and takes a bite.

“He does,” Smitty insists. “You just said his suits are old.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t really matter. It’s not what’s on the outside that counts, it’s what’s on the inside.”

A smile tugs at my lips.

Smitty sinks back down onto the couch. “Seriously? You’re taking his side?”

“I’m not taking sides. I’m just saying, there’s nothing wrong with Ben the way he is.”

Something is happening in my chest. It’s like a snowstorm. Only warm.

I can’t help but think of Kodi, the one girl I went out with for more than a couple of dates, who got so frustrated with me because her friends thought I hated them. I told her I didn’t hate them, that I just didn’t have much to say. Can’t you just make an effort to be friendly? Can’t you just be normal? She definitely thought there was something wrong with me the way I was.

But Mabel doesn’t.

I stare at her, the rest of the apartment fading away, Smitty and Archie’s voices turning to a dull rumble. She’s casually eating a burger, dressed in brown leggings and a short dress patterned in shades of brown and rust and tan. Her shiny hair in similar colors of brown and rust and gold hangs in waves down her back. I think I fucking love her.

Jesus. No, wait. That’s crazy.

But that hot swirling feeling in my chest is still there. I rub at it.

“You could come with us,” I blurt out.

She looks up at me, a fry poised near her mouth. “Shopping?”

“Yeah. You probably know better than these guys.”

She pushes out her lips. “Hmmm. I did help you buy stools.”

“Yeah.”

She meets my eyes. “Do you want new clothes?”

“I guess I should look like the leader of the team if I want to be the leader.”

She nods. “Okay, then. I’ll help.”

Somehow, I know Mabel won’t make me wear something I’m not comfortable in, like the super tight pants Crusher wears, and the wild colors Archie wears. I feel better about this.

“Let me finish my lunch.” She holds up her half-eaten burger.

An hour later we’re walking into a shop in Midtown Manhattan that Archie says comes highly recommended. They do custom tailoring, which I might need because my thighs and ass are, well, big. Lots of the guys have the same problem. Hockey butt is real. The place is cool, with a velvet-upholstered seating area and mirrors and funky lighting.

I start looking at charcoal gray and navy suits. Archie’s looking at a burgundy suit and Smitty holds up a white suit.

“No,” I say to the white. “And probably no to that, too.” I nod at Archie.

“I like it.” Archie frowns.

“Buy it yourself, then.”

“Maybe I will.”

Mabel and I exchange amused glances.

“These are our modern suits over here,” says Dimitri, who introduced himself to us when we came in and took some measurements. Mabel follows him over to another area and starts looking. I hear her and Dimitri talking animatedly as I look at a nice light gray Italian wool suit. I pull a jacket off the hanger and try it on. Seems okay.

I walk over to one of the mirrors to check it out.

“That’s nice,” Mabel says.

I look up. “Yeah?”

“Very classic,” Dimitri says.

“Try the pants,” Mabel says. “And I found a couple of other suits for you to try.” She holds up two suits that look okay – another shade of gray and a navy.

I head into a dressing room which is as big as Smitty’s living room and try on the gray suit Mabel found. Eeesh. These pants are tight.

I step out of the room into the seating area. “These pants won’t work.” I tug at the leg of one. “They’re cheap hotel pants.”

Dimitri cracks up laughing and the others give me puzzled looks.

“Cheap hotel pants?” Mabel repeats.

“Yeah. They have no ballroom.”

After a beat, Mabel bursts out laughing too.

“I’ve heard that before.” Dimitri wipes his eyes. “Yes, you do have some junk in the trunk. Let’s look at more relaxed fits. If you like that fabric, we can mix and match the relaxed fit pant with the tailored jacket.”

“I do like it.” The wool is silky smooth.

“How about this one?” Archie holds up a burnt orange suit.

“No.” I turn and go back to the dressing room. The other suit Mabel picked is great. The quality fabric makes a basic suit look nice, and when I go out to show her, she has a selection of shirts and ties lined up.

“How out there are you willing to go with shirts and ties?” she asks. “It’s an easy way to jazz up a plain suit.”

“Yeah.” I peer at one shirt. “ A hundred and fifty bucks? ” I should be used to having money, but I guess I’m not.

She bites her lip. “I figured you can afford it.”

“Bruh,” Archie says. “We’re not at H&M.”

“It’s 100 per cent Pima cotton,” Mabel whispers.

“I do like the color.” It’s a light blue and there are a few ties I like in shades of blue.

“How about this striped one?” She holds it up.

“Yeah… I guess.”

“Look… with this tie…” She lays the tie over it.

“That’s nice.”

Dimitri returns with the other pants and a couple more suits that are a bit more adventurous. What the hell. I try them on.

A few hours later my credit card is squealing as I pay for my purchases – three new suits, a sports jacket, two pairs of pants, six dress shirts and ties, a pair of shoes, a pair of jeans that fit my butt amazingly well, plus a couple of casual shirts and a sweater. Dimitri has given me suggestions for mixing and matching the jacket and pants. Oh, and a bunch of new socks.

As I pay, Mabel is helping Archie with tie selection to match the orange suit he’s decided to buy for himself. We wait for him to finish up before stepping out onto Madison Avenue. It’s started snowing since we went in, and the temperature has dropped about fifty degrees. “We’d better get home. Traffic could be nuts with this snow.”

“Traffic is always nuts here.” Mabel looks up at the sky.

“That is no lie.”

Then Smitty and Archie decide they want to go to the Lego store.

Mabel makes a face. “I don’t want to go to the Lego store.”

I wouldn’t mind going to the Lego store, but if Mabel doesn’t want to, I can skip it.

“You go home.” Smitty waves at us. “We’ll Uber back later. Or take a train.”

I shrug. “Okay.”

“Will you be home for dinner?” Mabel asks him.

“You sound like a wife,” Smitty says.

She rolls her eyes. “Just asking. Should I make dinner?”

“Nah, we might grab something. Or I’ll make myself something when I get home.”

We came in my vehicle, so we find it in the parking garage and load the purchases in the back, and Mabel and I head home through congested Manhattan streets toward the Lincoln Tunnel.

“That was fun!” Mabel says. “You looked so good in all those things. You have a really hot body.”

I immediately sense that those words slipped out as the air in the car goes electric. I stare straight ahead out the windshield, my skin heating. I clear my throat. “Thanks. I guess they are a bit more modern than what I’ve been wearing.”

Silence crackles around us.

She thinks I’m hot.

I think she’s hot, too. No, wait. Hot doesn’t even begin to describe her, with her messy hair and high tits and tight ass. Her kissable lips and bedroom eyes. I’ve thought way too many times about her underwear and about her sleeping in skimpy clothes on the couch and about inviting her to share my bed so she’d be more comfortable – except she wouldn’t be comfortable because I’d be on top of her with my dick buried in her sweet pussy in seconds.

Oh, Jesus. Sweat trickles down my back. The guy downstairs reacts predictably and I force myself not to shift in the driver’s seat as my jeans become uncomfortable.

We come to a stop at a red light. “Uh. Listen. That… what you said?—”

“That you’re hot? I’m sorry. That was?—”

“No. When you said that I’m fine the way I am.”

She turns and meets my eyes. Heat shimmers around us.

“That meant a lot to me. That you’d say that.”

Her smile is slow and sweet and sexy as fuck. “You are fine the way you are. Just because we’re trying to teach you to be more outgoing doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you.”

In a world made for extroverts, I’ve spent most of my life thinking there is something wrong with me. I study her beautiful face with her big brown eyes and small nose and tempting mouth. And that warm fullness returns to my chest. Also to my groin. Dammit.

I need to talk about something else.

“I screwed up something last night.”

Her eyes widen. “What? How?”

The light turns green and I return my focus to the road. “Okay, not really a screw-up. After the game. I got so frustrated with how down the guys were on everyone else. All we do is talk about how bad we are. And I kind of lost my shit.” I tell her what I said.

She sits back and listens again. When I finish, she says, “Good for you. You were showing leadership.”

“Maybe. But not in the way I want to.”

“It’s understandable that when you bottle things up, they come bursting out. You’ve probably been feeling like that for a while.”

I rub my beard. “Oh, yeah.”

“And maybe it would have been better to plan what you wanted to say and do it calmly. On the other hand, passion is good. I bet your coach isn’t always cool, calm, and collected.”

I snort. “Hell, no.”

“You got their attention. And it sounds like it worked, if everyone was still talking about it this morning.”

“Yeah. And everyone’s willing to work harder: staying after practice to work on some things, putting a little more enthusiasm into things.”

“That’s great.” Her tone is soft and warm. “Good job, captain. You seem really driven to win.”

“Well, yeah. That’s always the goal.”

She nods. “The Stanley Cup.”

“Yeah. Maybe it’s a distant goal for us, but I remember what it was like, and I want it again.”

“You won the Stanley Cup? When?”

“A few years ago. When I played for the Aces.”

“Ohhhh. Right.” She purses her lips. “So you know you have it in you.”

“Well…” I flex my hands on the steering wheel.

“You doubt that?” she asks.

I debate blowing off her questions. But she’s so easy to talk to. “Sometimes I do, yeah,” I say slowly. “We won the cup my first full season in the league. It was the third time for the Aces. I was a rookie. I didn’t play as many minutes as some of the other guys. I didn’t score as many goals. I always felt like maybe I didn’t really deserve it.”

I glance sideways at her. With pursed lips, she nods. “I get that. But of course you did deserve it. Hockey’s a team sport. You win as a team. You lose as a team.”

I nod. “I know that. Everyone contributes in their own way. But it was more like, I was still a rookie, I hadn’t put my time in, I didn’t deserve to win the ultimate prize so soon. I should have had to work harder for it.”

“So you’re doing that now,” she says.

“Yeah.”

“I admire that.”

How is she so open and honest about everything? I admire her, too.