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“I’m gonna send them a letter about him,” Eli declares, and ignores every one of my protests—he doesn’t know if I’m any good at my job, he’s only met me twice, but none of it gets through to him.

When the pre-show of the draft begins, Lex and Ruko lock in like they’re planning a war and not like they’re just spectators . . . okay, Lex might get a new teammate or two, but still they have no say in this, which Eli has reminded them of a few times.

The commentators do a thorough recap of the finals, of course, and everyone cheers whenever Vinny—Lex’s brother—is mentioned.

Then they move on to the changes the off season will bring to the league and there, a huge picture of Tucker appears.

It’s him, I know it’s him, and not only because of the banner under his face with his name in big, bold letters, but because I know him.

I have never seen him look so serious in real life, though. Maybe serious isn’t the right word, more apathetic, robotic.

Tucker—in my experience at least—is always full of life. There’s so much lurking behind his eyes. Warmth, yes, but also focus, mirth, fucking life.

As they drone on and on about all the changes Tucker has made to the Demons organization since his father’s death, my breath catches.

They have the third pick apparently, and both Lex and Ruko begin loudly sharing their opinions on who Tucker should pick.

I just keep staring at the picture and wondering what would be worse.

Getting the teaching position at Luxton and never seeing him again, experiencing the pain of Tucker and the boys forgetting me? Or not getting the job and being stuck as his employee and never feeling like we’re safe to be?

The future seems bleak.

19

TUCKER

July 1st

This is not the first time I’m in the war room on the day of the NHL Draft.

Jim always played at being an owner and made an appearance and I came with him last year, but he always said it wasn’t his place to get too involved—a clever lie that made him look humble when in fact he was a coward who would never put his money where his mouth was.

I plan to do things differently, starting with watching the whole thing right here, and being the first to welcome any new player to the team personally.

I got the memo about the little changes they would make to the opening of the show, and I can barely keep my heart from exploding as the owner of the Montreal Dukes and the commissioner walk out on stage to the booing crowd—as is tradition. They smile, standing shoulder to shoulder in front of the podium, and manage to sound sincere as they say how excited they are to announce the new chairman of the Board of Governors.

Them using chairman is deliberate to throw people off.

And it pays off ten times over when Gabrielle walks out with a white T-shirt that has a picture of a fucking chair on it.

Fucking iconic.

She might be the enemy on any given day, but this is still New York, and so the crowd in Barclay Arena goes absolutely insane for her.

I burst out laughing out of pure glee in the middle of the tense as fuck room, and I’d like to think the surprise of Gab telling them she responds to that, to chairwoman, or even chairperson too, is a happy one for the management team Sarah and I have been slowly putting together over the last month.

We’ve still got about six open positions for management, and Corinne hasn’t nailed down who she wants the goalie coach to be yet, but she’s hired all the other assistant coaches. Everybody in the room seems to let out all that tension in the next breath when the commissioner thanks Gabrielle for being there then asks the Montreal owner to announce their pick since they won the lottery for the first one.

Predictably, they pick Gavin Nowy, a kid with one of the most beautiful backhands I’ve ever seen.

He’s going to be Montreal’s newest shot at star centre and I can do nothing but wish the kid the best, honestly. He’s about to be served the biggest piece of cake made out of expectations and pressure across the border.

But with the first pick out of the way, the room begins to buzz with energy, since we got the third pick and we need to start getting ready.

When Portland has just ten seconds left to put their pick in, I finish typing a new number into my phone, ready to make the call as soon as the Panthers announce they have in fact also picked a centre, and not⁠—

“Fuck yes!” Sarah shouts, and I hit call.