Alex (Cold Fury Hockey #1)(28)

That was true enough, so no need to argue.

At any rate, I signal for the bartender to cash me out. Dislodging the dark-haired beauty’s hold on my arm, I spin around and clap Garrett on the back. He’s bent over, his lips pressed near a blonde’s ear, most likely whispering sweet nothings that are so not needed to get him laid tonight. When he turns his eyes my way, I say, “Hey, man, I’m heading back to the hotel.”

His eyes flick to the brunette and then back to me, so I add, “Alone.”

Garrett’s eyebrows go sky-high and he steps away from the blonde to turn fully to me. “What’s the deal, man? Your dick broken?”

“No.”

“Are you gay?”

“No.”

“So why not take that chick behind you? She’s willing.”

Shrugging my shoulders, I notice the bartender approach with my bill and I hand my credit card over to him, not even bothering to look at the total. I only had two beers and I think I bought the brunette two drinks as well.

“Just not interested,” I tell him.

“What’s bothering you?” he asks, and I actually flinch at the question. I’ve never had a teammate ask me something personal before. Most take my surly, introverted character to heart, which means they stay just as guarded as I do. I look hard at Garrett and try to figure out what his game is.

But he just returns my stare, and if I’m not mistaken, there’s a touch of concern in his eyes.

Fucking weird.

“Nothing. Just a shitty night” is all I offer.

“We f*cking pounded Toronto and you scored a hat trick tonight. How can that be shitty?”

The bartender returns with the credit card ticket and I scrawl a tip and my signature, handing it back to him while I pocket my card.

Turning to Garrett, I look him dead in the eye and say simply, “My dad showed up. Nothing good ever comes of that.”

I turn away before I can even gauge the expression on his face from my admission. I’ve never talked about my dad to anyone, and I’m surprised I let that out. But I’m definitely not about to talk about it further, so I walk away from Garrett, the brunette whose name I’m not sure I even got, and the half empty beer I hadn’t bothered to finish.

I easily hail a cab within just a few moments, and then I’m in the back with my head resting on the seat, eyes closed. I hate playing in Toronto. It’s only about an hour away from my hometown of Hamilton, which means my dad will be at the game.

I have to suffer through his voice mails after every game, criticizing and cutting into me with all of my faults. Then I have to suffer while he drones on and on about what I need to do to improve. I have to suffer when he calls me lazy, arrogant, worthless—all things I heard growing up, but f*ck…it wears thin on a man, especially when it was practically beaten into me when I was younger. My dad can’t use his hands on me anymore. He has no say-so on how I train or what I do. So the only way he still tries to have power over me is with those f*cking phone calls, and I hate them with all my soul.

Yes, I have to suffer that all year long, but it’s still nowhere near as bad as having to see my dad in person those few times I play in Toronto.

I had my obligatory ticket waiting for him at Will Call this afternoon, so I knew exactly where he’d be seated. I didn’t even need to look over at him when I’d scored my third goal and hats came raining down on the ice, to know that he’d just be sitting in his chair, his face stony. He never cheered me on. He expected the best, but was never happy when I gave it. That boiled down to the mere fact that he was jealous of the creature he had created.

My dad drowned his sorrows in vodka for as long as I can remember. Those sorrows included losing his wife and my mother to cancer when I was just three years old and Cam was eight, as well as not being good enough to make it into the NHL. He floundered around the minors for a few years before he was released from his contract. That was about the time good old Dad decided Cameron and I were going to be professional hockey players.

Fortunately for Cameron—yes, fortunately—he had no natural talent, and after playing only one season, he was promptly forgotten and Dad turned all his attention on me.

Beyond getting my dad a ticket to the game, the other obligation I had to fulfill was meeting him for dinner. I could have come up with some excuse or another to bag out on him, but I made myself go. I made myself suffer his presence for an hour, so I could remind myself why I would never let him completely into my life again.

Dinner started off as well as could be expected. We talked about his part-time job delivering newspapers, which was okay for about five minutes. Then that turned into a bitch-fest, during which he sucked down a double vodka tonic. This led to him complaining that I wasn’t sending enough money to live on, despite the fact that I pretty much pay all of his bills. His part-time job was to buy his liquor, because I wasn’t about to support that habit. I held firm in my refusal to send him some extra cash each month, which made him angry and caused him to suck down another double shot.

By the time our food and his third drink arrived, we got down to brass tacks and talked about the game.

“Your ‘C’ cuts are looking sloppy,” he told me, his words clear and sure. He wouldn’t start slurring until about the sixth drink, and hopefully we’d be done with dinner before then.

“Duly noted,” I said, because it didn’t do any good to argue with him.