Unsportsmanlike Conduct: Claimed by the Rival Hockey God novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Equipment Room

I was still standing in the study doorway when Cillian came up the hall behind me with two coffees.

He stopped when he saw my face.

"Ah," he said.

"There are hundreds of them."

"Three hundred and twelve."

"You counted."

"I'm a hockey player. We count."

I walked along the wall, past a dressing-room whiteboard from March and a legal pad on a bench from the year before.

My handwriting slanted left and the arrows had little hooks on their tails.

"How did you get these?"

"Our video guy took photos of every visiting board after our losses," he said. "I started collecting the ones that were beating us. Then I noticed one hand was in all of them."

"And then you found my name."

"In January. On a Harbormen staff list."

"And you waited until March."

"I waited until I had something to offer you."

I turned and looked at him.

He held out a coffee, and I took it.

"It's a little frightening," I said.

"I know."

"It's also the nicest thing anyone's done for me in ten years."

His jaw moved.

"I'd have hired you either way," he said. "You'd have said no, and I'd have asked again."

"Is that why I'm here?"

"You're here because you came out of a ballroom in the rain, and I was standing there."

It was the truth, as far as I could tell, and I decided to be satisfied with it.

I drank the coffee and went to work.

By two o'clock that afternoon I was in the arena basement sorting through a rack of spare skates for a trainer who had asked me to find a size twelve.

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