Chapter One
“Maybe try without smiling.”
Troy Barrett nodded at the photographer—a young woman with short silver hair and a French-Canadian accent—and packed away his awkward attempt at a smile. He replaced it with his usual cold, blank stare.
“Better,” she said.
Troy had never been traded before, and posing for the camera in a black-and-red and, frankly, ugly Ottawa fucking Centaurs jersey felt weird. Until yesterday, Troy had been a top forward on the division-leading Toronto Guardians. Until this week, he’d had friends, a shot at the Stanley Cup, and a sweet condo with a view of the CN Tower. Now Troy was living in a hotel room outside Ottawa with a view of a Costco parking lot. Definitely not the cool part of town.
Did Ottawa even have a cool part? Toronto had Raptors games and big concerts and awesome parties. Ottawa had government buildings and rivers.
And the worst hockey team in the NHL.
“That’s probably enough,” the photographer said, stepping out from behind the camera. “And, hey. Good for you, calling out Dallas Kent.”
The name made Troy flinch. Maybe it always would. “It’s complicated,” he mumbled. It was a word he’d been using a lot lately.
“Sounded pretty clear to me.” Her smile was warm and a little teasing. Troy didn’t return it, but she was right. There’d been nothing unclear about what Troy had yelled in Kent’s face during practice. Everyone on the ice had heard it, and everyone who watched the leaked video afterward had heard it.
You’re a piece of shit rapist, Dallas.
Not much to deconstruct there.
Troy wished the league gave a shit that one of their biggest stars was a monster. He wished he’d never met the guy. He wished he’d never been his roommate on the road, his linemate on the ice. His best friend.
He wished he’d been paying closer attention to what Dallas had been doing all those years. To what kind of person he was.
Learning the truth about his friend had been the first blow. Learning that the team he’d worked so hard to be a part of—that he was so proud to be a part of—was determined to protect Dallas had been the knockout punch.
He thanked the photographer, then, in a clumsy attempt to be friendly, said, “Sorry, what did you say your name was?”
“Gen.”
“Nice to meet you, Gen.” He searched for a polite question he could ask her. “Do you do most of the team photography?”
She began detaching her camera from the tripod. “I do the off-ice stuff, mostly. Portraits and promo shots. I work with Harris. Have you met him yet?”
Troy had been introduced to equipment managers, coaches, trainers and the team doctor, but he assumed Harris wasn’t any of those people. “I don’t think so, but I’m not great at remembering people.”
“He runs the team’s social media. And trust me, you won’t forget him.”
Troy couldn’t imagine what that meant. Was Harris an asshole? A weirdo? Hot? Also, Gen was vastly underestimating his ability to not remember people.
And, if he had his way, he would be interacting as little as possible with the team’s social media manager. Troy had no interest in that shit.
He left Gen to pack up her gear and made his way to the locker room. The room had been mostly empty when he’d arrived very early for practice, but he knew it must have been getting full by now.
The first person he noticed when he entered the room was Wyatt Hayes, the one guy on the team who had played with Troy in Toronto. Wyatt had been the Guardians’ backup goalie until two seasons ago. Now he was Ottawa’s starting goalie, and a damn good one. He was a nice guy, but he probably hated Troy, and not because Troy had yelled at Dallas Kent. Because Troy had been friends with Dallas in the first place. And also because Troy had devoted his entire career to being a fucking prick. He hadn’t been friendly to Wyatt when he’d been a backup goalie, so he didn’t deserve to be friends with him now that Wyatt was an NHL All-Star.
Wyatt glanced up at him from where he’d been tying his skate. “So it’s true then?”
“I’m afraid so,” Troy said, trying for a joke. The room, which had been buzzing with chatter when he’d walked in, had gone silent.
Wyatt stood. “Is this the new and improved Troy Barrett?”
Troy forced himself to meet Wyatt’s gaze. There was nothing stern or intimidating about Wyatt, but Troy had always found his unwavering goodness to be unsettling. Troy tended to gravitate toward men on the opposite end of that spectrum. Men who sneered at and made fun of nice guys like Wyatt.
Troy answered him as honestly as he could. “I’m trying.”
Wyatt offered him a smile that seemed cautious, but certainly warmer than Troy’s earlier attempts for the camera. “The enemy of my enemy is my...well, I’m not gonna say friend yet, but I’ll give you a chance.”
Troy’s gaze fell to the floor. “Thanks.”
Relieved that was out of the way, he found his stall and began getting undressed. The room once again filled with chatter, and he no longer felt his new teammates’ eyes on him. He was hauling on his new black-and-red socks when he heard a familiar Russian-accented voice cut through the commotion of the room.
“Is Harris here yet?” The team captain, Ilya Rozanov, was scanning the room as if this Harris guy everybody seemed to be obsessed with was hiding among the players somewhere.
“I don’t think so,” said Evan Dykstra, a defenseman Troy had played against but never actually met before. “But the new guy’s here. Barrett.” He nodded, and the brim of his camo trucker hat pointed in Troy’s direction.
Rozanov glanced briefly at Troy, then quickly turned his attention to Wyatt. “Harris said he was bringing a puppy today.”
The back of Troy’s neck heated with embarrassment. This was how it was going to be if he wanted to keep playing hockey: teammates who either hated him for ever being associated with Dallas Kent, or who hated him for being a traitor. Friends weren’t going to be an option.
Probably for the best. Friends sometimes turned out to be monsters.
“I’m sure he’ll be here soon,” Wyatt said. “And you have to greet your new teammate, Roz. It’s part of the whole team captain deal.”
“Fine.” Rozanov strode over to where Troy was sitting. He loomed over him for a moment, frowning. Rozanov was much larger than Troy’s five-nine frame, and Troy had difficulty not squirming under his hard stare. “Am I supposed to like you now? Think you are a good guy because you finally noticed that your best friend is a fucking scumbag?”
Troy managed to hold his gaze. “I’m just here to play hockey.” It was a weak reply, but it was also the truth. He couldn’t promise more than that.