Breakaway (Beyond the Play, #2)
Grace Reilly
AUTHOR’S NOTE
While I have tried to stay truthful to the realities of college hockey and college sports in general throughout this book when possible, there may be inaccuracies within, both intentional and unintentional.
Please visit my website for full content warnings.
1
COOPER
After a lifetime of waking up at random times to head to the rink, plus two full seasons of McKee hockey, you’d think I wouldn’t mess up something as stupid as the time of the season-opener exhibition.
Yet here I am, running at a full tilt to Markley Center, my duffel bag slung over my shoulder like it’s full of cash and I’m trying to get to the getaway car before the cops. I dash across a crosswalk, ignoring the outraged honk of a car as the driver brakes to avoid me, and almost fall on my ass as I hustle past a group of students pre-gaming on their way to a party.
I smack into a girl’s shoulder, and she wheels on me, shouting, “Watch out, asshole!”
I’m not fast enough to dodge the cup of beer she throws at me.
Fantastic. I wipe the drip away as best as I can while running. When I finally reach the doors, I yank them open and skid inside.
I make it into the locker room at the exact moment Coach Ryder wraps up his pre-game chat. All my teammates are wearing our home purple, pads on, skates on, sticks and helmets in hand. This game against the University of Connecticut won’t count for the standings, but it signals that it’s time to get serious. After weeks of preparation for the season, it’s our first chance to show Coach how much we’ve absorbed the new playbook—and a chance for me to make my case for captain.
Right now, though? He gives me a hard look with those pale blue eyes that can cut through you like a knife. They remind me of my father’s, and not in a good way. “Go on,” he says. “Show me what you’ve got, gentlemen.”
“Where were you?” Evan, my defensive partner, asks me. He shakes out his braids before he puts his helmet on. “And why do you smell like a frat house?”
“I got stuck in class.” That’s not technically a lie; I just thought I had more time for office hours with Professor Morgenstern. I needed to beg her for an extension on my Macbeth essay for her Shakespeare seminar, and when she gets going, it’s hard to wrap up the conversation. The semester has been underway for a month now, but I still don’t have my shit together, especially for the three seminars I’m taking. Shakespeare. The Feminist Gothic. Fucking Milton. I haven’t done my readings in a week.
I pull my sweatshirt over my head and shove it into my locker along with my lucky Yankees cap. “I’ll see you on the ice.”
“Callahan,” Coach Ryder calls. “A word.”
My stomach sinks even though I expected as much. I keep undressing, throwing on my pads as quickly as I can while doing it right, but look up when I hear his footsteps.
I’ve had a lot of coaches in my life, but no one screams “hockey coach” like Lawrence Ryder. He always wears a collared shirt, not just for games but for practices too, and while he hasn’t played since his senior year at Harvard—when he led his team to a Frozen Four victory—he has the crooked nose and hard-ass attitude to prove he did his time on the ice. He’s improved my game so much in our first two seasons together, and we’ve spoken about the future—the only future I’ll accept for myself—in a way I can’t with my actual father.
I know Dad will never admit it, probably because Mom won’t let him, but I’m sure he still wishes that I fell in love with football like him and my older brother James. Instead, I traded cleats for skates and never looked back.
“Why were you late?” Coach asks.
I bend to lace up my skates. “I lost track of time, sir.”
“Is that why you smell like cheap beer?”
“A girl spilled a beer on me. Outside the rink.” I look up at him as I stand, balancing on the blades of my skates. “It won’t happen again.”
“What did you lose track of time doing?” The unspoken question hangs in reserve. Not that I’ve ever spoken to Coach about my personal life, but it’s not exactly a secret that under normal circumstances, I spend my free time getting tours of the campus dorms, one Daddy’s little girl at a time.
“I was in office hours with a professor.”
He nods. “Fine. But I don’t want you coming in late again, Callahan. Especially not for an actual game. Preparation—”
“—Makes the game,” I finish. I’ve heard it from him many times. He expects the best from all of us, but especially from players like me, the ones with a shot at a future in hockey.
Coach Ryder is a college coach; we’re students, not his employees. McKee University isn’t paying us to play. We’re here for an education, however important sports are to the overall profile of the college. Academics are supposed to come first—but he’s known since freshman year that if I could, I would have declared for the NHL Draft the moment I turned eighteen. I’m getting my degree for my parents; my dad has always urged us to consider past our athletic careers to the rest of our lives. Originally, I wanted to play in a junior league, get drafted, and work on an online degree in between, but that wasn’t enough for him and Mom. The only consolation? I’ve had great preparation for the NHL so far at McKee, so hopefully I’ll be able to go straight into the league, rather than start at a farm team, as soon as I graduate.