Page 42 of Playmaker
“I’m in Buffalo, Sabrina.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and fought to keep my frustration out of my voice. He was baiting me. Trying to set me off and make me emotional, because then he could tell me howI needed to be rational and logical rather than being led around by my emotions. It was how he’d manipulated my mother, too—whenever she’d approach him with something that bothered her or that they disagreed on, he’d push her until she got angry. He’d keep pushing until she finally lashed out like any human would sooner or later, and then he’d lecture her about how she needed to calm down and be logical.
I wasn’t falling for it. My ex-husband had done the exact same thing, and I’d learned with him that my best weapon against this kind of bullshit was to keep my cool until he either lost his own or lost interest.
Or, if I was in the mood to provoke him and lethimget “emotional,” change the subject and let him know how utterly unimportant his opinion was.
Lowering my hand, I said, “Well, it was good talking to you, Dad. But I’ve got media availability, and they’re bringing in some of the kids who were sitting in your section. So I need to let you go.”
“The kids? What?”
“Oh, you didn’t know?” I couldn’t keep the smile out of my voice. “The arena staff moved a bunch of kids down from the charity suites. Since no one had taken your seats by the second intermission, they decided it was a shame to just leave them empty.” As much as I wanted to listen to him lose his mind over it, which he inevitably would, I also wanted to make sure he knew who was calling the shots. “Anyway. I have media availability. I have to run. Talk to you later.”
“I… You’re…” he stammered. Then he sighed, the defeat more delicious than it should’ve been. “All right. Love you, kiddo.”
Sure you do.
“Love you too, Dad.”
I ended the call and breathed a heavy sigh of relief. I’d had my media availability right after the game ended, so I didn’t actually need to go anywhere. I just wanted to be off the phone.
Mission accomplished. I’d won—I’d turned his bullshit back on him, and I’d ended the conversation on my terms.
But I couldn’t say I felt any better.
The one upshot to Dad’s constant trolling and messing with my head was that I was so used to it, I could shake it off pretty quickly. Sure, I was pissed off in the moment, and I’d gone to bed in a foul mood that night, but by the next morning, my attention had shifted to more important things. Things like coffee. Packing for the next away game. Getting to the rink for practice.
Yeah, on some level, I was still vaguely irritated when I thought about his stunt with section 114, but I was more annoyed with that old, persistent low grade throb in my hip and with some jackass on the freeway who wouldn’t let me change lanes.
By the time I was on the ice for practice, my hip was starting to loosen up and the rude guy on the freeway was a distant memory. The stands here in the rink were crowded for a weekday—no conspicuous void sticking out like a middle finger—and I tossed pucks to a couple of smiling little kids before shifting my attention to practice.
After that, it was the usual routine—showers, media availability, food. We were in Seattle for the next game, so we boarded the bus instead of driving home, and by about 3:00, we were in the air. Between the long flight, the bus ride to the hotel, and the time it took to settle in, it was almost 8:00 local time—so 11:00 Pittsburgh time—before I came down from my room to join my teammates in the bar. Everyone had eaten on the plane, and we were tired and jetlagged, but there were always a few people who came down for a nightcap.
I wasn’t usually one of them, hence the surprised, “Oh, hey, Mac!” from Sims as I joined them in the bar.
“Hey.” I smiled. “Room for one more?”
“Of course!” Our teammates shuffled around a bit, and I sat down at the table.
No one drank heavily—that was for after a game, not the night before one—but I got a glass of wine and some of my other teammates had beers or cocktails. Most of the conversation was about Pittsburgh. We were all fairly new to the city, aside from Val, who’d grown up here, and Nora, who’d played for RMU in college.
We all compared notes on places to eat and neighborhoods we were thinking of buying or renting houses. All of us who’d spent part of our careers in Canada—growing up there or playing in major juniors, plus a few who’d been on WHPL teams up there—agreed that we had zero complaints about Pittsburgh in the winter. That, of course, got us going down the familiar track of comparing winters in various cities we’d played in; since most of us had played in Canada or the coldest U.S. states, we all had strong opinions about this time of year.
Sims was from Vancouver, which didn’t exactly have the monstrous winters that were pretty notorious throughout the rest of Canada, but like me, she’d spent her major juniors seasons in Calgary. “Those winters can go straight to hell.”
I nodded. “I loved it there, don’t get me wrong, but two winters in Calgary wasmorethan enough.”
“Ugh, same.” Nora, who’d also been in major juniors with us, bumped fists with me over the table. “The city is amazing,but the winter?” She tsked and shook her head. “That is just… barbaric.”
Laws made a “world’s smallest violin” gesture. “Come talk to me when you spend four winters inWinnipeg.”
That had everyone shaking our heads and murmuring, “Nope. No. No, thanks.” I’d played there plenty of times in my career, often in the dead of winter, and that kind of cold was no joke.
The conversation continued like that, and after a while, a few people started to peel away. They’d say their goodnights and pay their tabs, and the small crowd around our table thinned.
Which was how I wound up sitting across from Lila.
She glanced at our other remaining teammates, who were currently discussing their kids, and then faced me and lowered her voice. “I meant to ask—how are you doing after last night?”