Apparently Dean Hamm has picked up on my disinterest. “There’s no point in thinking about that,” he says as he strokes his brown moustache. “Maverick isn’t going to make it to the title game. He doesn’t care enough to do it.”
“I beg your pardon? I have poured my heart and soul into this game, sir. And, let’s not even mention how much I put up with this team. Why else but to be drafted?”
“Why? I don’t know, son, maybe to convince some alma maters to buy you enough alcohol that you would strip down naked in the middle of the street and declare yourself king?”
I grin. I don’t remember a thing about that night, but the pictures and videos my friends took were bloody epic.
“Not to mention getting into fist fights. Calling a country boy a heinous traitor and declaring war in the name of England? It’s like you’re begging to get deported.”
I sigh and roll my eyes at this melodrama unfolding before me. “They won’t deport me. I’m white and I have money. That’s like—double protection here, isn’t it?”
Hamm’s face turns three shades of red. The wrong answer, I guess. Too bad.
“An expired visa is an expired visa no matter who you are.” He shakes his head disapprovingly at me.
“Yeah, but you’re my sponsor, remember?” I shrug, ready for this entire conversation to be over. “You wanted to bring the school a little class upgrade, didn’t you? All you have to do is petition for an extension and vouch for me, that’s all. The charges have already been dropped, haven’t they?”
‘What’s your problem?’ I want to tack on, but something about the blood rising and falling in his face warns me against it.
“Yes,” Hamm says slowly. “Why did they drop the charges? You were clearly drunk and disorderly.” He shakes his head in visible frustration.
I smirk at his question. He’s just proving my point for me. “As I said, I’m white and I have money. Pay the right people off and you can do whatever you want without reaping the consequences.”
“Shut up, Maverick,” Coach Willis groans desperately.
Hamm looks like he’s about to explode. “That baseless entitlement is precisely why I’m withdrawing as your sponsor, Maverick. I have given you chance after chance to get your act together, and you have somehow managed to spit in my face every single time. You’re finished and I’m done.”
“Aw come on, Dean, you don’t mean that. Think about the school’s reputation. Think about what it would mean for the school to have an athlete go pro right after graduation. If my visa expires before then, you’ll miss the chance to be plastered on headlines all over the country. Hell, you could increase your tuition by half and still keep a waiting list. I’ll make this place famous, Mr. Hamm.”
Hamm raises a thick eyebrow and glares at me.
He opens his mouth to speak, but Coach interrupts. “He’s not wrong, Paul,” he says grudgingly. At least one of these men seem to have their eye on the puck. “Something like that would keep us on the map for a long time.”
Hamm strokes his mustache thoughtfully for a long moment, then shakes his head. “I can’t have it,” he says. “Maverick’s behavior will eventually come to light, if not before his draft, then after. The school’s reputation will suffer, especially with me as his sponsor. Have you thought about that? No. I can’t keep this up with him. He clearly doesn’t care about how much harm he does or who he drags with him and I won’t have him drag me into the gutter. I have no choice, Steve.”
I shift restlessly in my seat. This is taking forever and I have places to be, people to see, havoc to wreak.
For as blasé as I’m acting, I know as well as Hamm does that if he really doesn’t vouch for me, I’m as good as gone.
“So we’ll cover it up,” Coach Willis is saying. “We’ll pay a few people to keep quiet and just go on as nothing happened.” He’s clutching at straws. Even I can feel how little weight is behind his words.
“It was on the news, Steve.” Hamm shakes his head with a fierce pout settling on his thin lips. “Bare-assed on public property waving one of our uniforms over his head. And don’t think I didn’t hear about that stunt in the hall this morning.” Hamm whirls on me and wags a bony finger in my face. “You terrorize the students. The students have social media. It might be news to you, but videos live on the internet forever. Do you have any idea what you’ve done to your reputation? What you’re doing to the reputation of this school?”
I sigh. “Name one famous hockey player who was ever brought down by a scandal. A scandal of this nature. There isn’t one, you know why? Boys will be boys. Athletes get a free pass.”
“Not anymore you don’t,” Hamm says, slamming his fist on the folders resting in front of him. “I am withdrawing as your sponsor as of now. I’m washing my hands of you. Your visa expires at the end of April. Make your arrangements. I’m done!”
“Paul, come on, he’s my best player,” Coach pleads.
“I’m open to suggestions,” Hamm says, casting me a sideways glance after a few minutes of painful brooding.
“Here’s one: sponsor me!” I rarely raise my voice—I don’t see the point—but I’m beginning to lose my temper. This whole argument is ridiculous. Hamm is being a total pain in my arse and I’ve had enough.
Hamm snaps his fingers and points at me in a gesture that uncomfortably reminds me of my father. It pisses me off even more, but I fall silent, sullenly folding my arms across my chest and glaring at him.
“One more outburst, Maverick. Just one more outburst of any kind and you will be expelled,” Hamm says, his voice low and threatening. “If you want to extend your visa, I suggest you find another route.”
Coach opens his mouth, then closes it again.
“You have an idea,” I ask. “What is it?”
“It’s nothing, it’s nothing,” Coach Willis says, shaking his head. “Terrible idea.”
“I need terrible ideas.” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them. “Give me something, Coach. Crazy over there seems determined to have me deported so what you got?” I ask without looking at Dean Hamm.
Willis rubs a hand over his face and shoots an apologetic look at Hamm. “You’re eighteen now, Maverick. You could get married.”
“A green card marriage? That’s your answer?” I stare at him, too shocked to even laugh at this bad joke.
“I told you it was a terrible idea.”
But the wheels in my mind are turning. If I could get a girl to marry me—even temporarily—it could be enough to get me on the team. I would never have to go back home, if I can even call that place a home.
Hamm scoffs. “Eighteen-year-old girls aren’t exactly desperate to get married these days, Steve. He’d need to find someone in the next two weeks and with the reputation he’s made for himself, I don’t think even Brandy Pickering would be willing.”
“She doesn’t need to want to,” I say thoughtfully, getting on board with the idea.
Willis and Hamm stare at me with twin looks of horror. I grin, confidence returning. “Money, remember? I’ll just bribe a girl.”