Total pages in book: 53
Estimated words: 51827 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51827 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
He gives me the finger, his smile spreading. “Don’t quit hockey to become a motivational speaker with that cheesy bullshit.”
“Yeah, well, you look like a cheesy movie character. The mouthy teenage son who got grounded for staying out too late. Get your ass up.”
He scowls, but stands.
“The film session starts in five minutes,” I say. “Be on time. Have a good attitude. Learn something.”
“I’m going to the film session.” He glares at me, sounding annoyed. “Get off my dick.”
“Quit feeling sorry for yourself.”
He looks like he wants to say something else, but he doesn’t. I start walking toward the small auditorium we watch video in, and he comes, too.
“You suck at pep talks,” he mutters.
“You suck at emotional regulation.”
I hear his gasp. “Oh, that’s rich, coming from the guy who wanted to fight me over my nickname.”
“I boiled over that day, and I own it. But you will never, ever see me get emotional during a game. You showboat when you score, you yap at the refs, you slam the bench door, and you overskate your shifts.”
He doesn’t respond. Probably because any response would fall flat. Opponents can read him like a book, and coaches and teammates don’t want a guy they can’t trust on their team.
When we’re almost to the video room, I say, “Work on it. We’ve got a mindset coach who can help you with it.”
He looks sheepish for a second, and then he says, “When you push off, your back leg lags too long. Makes you slower. Even an old guy like you can drill that out.”
I open my mouth to argue with him, but then close it. I shouldn’t assume he’s wrong.
“I’ll watch for it in my videos,” I say.
We go inside the video room and find seats. One of our assistant coaches, Shawn, leads the session.
We’re only about ten minutes in when Leo yells, “Oh shit! Mara’s in labor!”
Good thing I finished knitting their baby blankets.
Leo just gapes at his phone screen for a couple seconds, and then Coach Turner says, “Get moving, Abbott! Go be with your wife.”
Carter’s already halfway to the door, calling over his shoulder. “I’ll drive him.”
They both race out of the room and we return to the video session, but about five minutes later, Leo runs back through the door, looking panicked.
“The fucking parking garage door won’t go up! The security people are trying to fix it, but ... should I call an Uber? Is anyone not parked underground?”
“I’m in the outside lot,” I say.
My trainer had me park there so I could run sprints in the lot earlier.
“Can I borrow your car?” Leo asks me.
“The gearshift is weird. I’ll drive you.”
We run to the locker room, where I grab my keys. Carter finds us there, and the three of us race toward the exit.
My Trailblazer is the only car in the outside lot. The three of us get in and Leo tells me which hospital to go to. I start the car and shake the steering wheel while pressing the brake to shift into drive, which is the weirdness I was talking about.
“Jesus, man,” Carter says from the back seat as I drive toward the lot exit. “You probably leave this bitch unlocked in hopes someone will steal it.”
I laugh because I know this car doesn’t compare to the ones he and his wife drive. There was a huge knife cut running from the top of one of the back seats all the way down and across the seat part when I bought it, but I hardly ever have passengers, so I didn’t care.
“It’s reliable,” I say. “That’s all I care about.”
I roll my window down when we reach the security guard’s booth. Leo leans over from the passenger side and yells, “Mara’s in labor! Get that gate up, Billy!”
Billy lunges at the button, grinning. “Congrats, man! I can’t wait to see pictures!”
The gate goes up and I fly through it, feeling my phone buzzing in my pocket. When I take it out and look at the screen, I see that it’s my agent, Art. This call could be about a contract offer.
“You need to answer that?” Leo asks.
“No, I’ll call back.”
He exhales long and slow. “Okay, breathe. Ice chips, skin to skin, support the neck. Don’t look down there.”
“She’s the one doing the hard work,” Carter barks from the back seat. “You just need to stay calm and cool.”
“I will, but there’s a lot of shit to remember,” Leo says.
“Let the professionals handle it.”
Leo reads an incoming text on his phone. “She’s going to a room! Hurry up!”
“Women having their first kid don’t pop them out in ten minutes,” Carter says.
“My mom was in labor for twenty-eight hours with me,” I say.
“I don’t think I’m going to miss it, I just want to be there with my wife. She shouldn’t be alone when she’s in labor.”