Page 1 of Punked By the Playmaker
Chapter 1
Levi
Therewasnoplacelike home.
It might be cliché, but it was true. California was in my blood, and standing with my toes in the sand, the Pacific Ocean stretching endlessly across the horizon, I felt at peace.
Plus, you couldn’t beat that it was sixty-five degrees in mid-January.
A part of me would miss Connecticut—the part that liked actually winning games—where I’d spent the entirety of my fourteen-year professional hockey career, but I wouldn’t cry over saying goodbye to those bitter New England winters.
I dragged in a deep breath, letting the salty sea breeze infiltrate my lungs before blowing it out slowly.
Fuck. How did I get here?
Oh, that’s right, I was an asshole—sorry, not sorry—both on and off the ice. I got in a lot of fights, pissed off a lot of people, but I never expected something I did almost a decade ago to bethe reason I was traded mid-season, without warning, to the San Diego Surf, the absolute worst team in the league.
Apparently, the Connecticut Comets’ new general manager, former player and league superstar, Jaxon Slate, was the type of guy to hold a grudge.
Yes, I may have messed with his baby brother’s love life when he stole my spot in the starting lineup, which ultimately led to him leaving the Comets for their divisional rival, the Indianapolis Speed. But since then, Braxton Slate had won two league championships—one more than I could claim—and from what I’d heard, he ended up married to the same girl he’d been with before leaving Hartford.
So, technically, it was no harm, no foul.
Whatever. It’s not like I could go back in time and change the past. All I could do now was make the best of this shitty situation.
Speaking of shitty . . .
A flock of seagulls flew overhead, and apparently, one of them decided to bestow upon me a little gift as a wet splat hit the top of my head.
I groaned, reaching up to wipe the disgusting mess from my hair. But all I managed to do was spread it to even more of the short strands.
As I grumbled under my breath on the trek back to my car about how I now required a shower before heading to the rink, something my older sister once said filtered to the front of my brain. She’d declared that being pooped on by a bird was a sign of good luck.
I sure as hell hoped that was true because tonight was my first game as a member of the Surf, and I was going to need all the luck I could get.
When I arrived in the arena, I was greeted by a member of the front office, who expressed the team’s excitement about my arrival. Despite having played in this building once a year during my tenure with the Comets, I was mostly familiar with the visiting team’s designated spaces, so I was given a quick tour of the facility, which ended with me being deposited inside the locker room to prepare for the game.
The trade had gone through late last night, and I’d taken the first flight out this morning, which meant I missed morning skate. Essentially, I was being thrown into the deep end, and it was sink or swim.
I was Levi fucking Nixon. I refused to flounder with the whole world watching.
Stepping deeper into the room, I located my stall, noting the freshly minted jersey hanging there. I’d spent my whole career in Comets navy blue, and it was jarring to see my last name and my number nine staring back at me in bright orange, stitched onto aqua fabric. It was going to take more than a minute to wrap my mind around the sudden change.
“Welcome to the Surf, new guy,” a voice called out.
I spun around to find that the captain of my new team, Cole Astor, had joined me. Plastering a smile on my face, I took the hand he offered for me to shake. “Happy to be here.”
Cole laughed. “Yeah, somehow I doubt that. But I can’t say I blame you. We’re going through somewhat of a rough patch.”
That was putting it mildly. The Surf hadn’t been competitive, well, ever. They came into the league as an expansion team twenty years ago and never quite found their footing. You know how people say winning breeds more winning? Well, the samecould be said about losing. No one wanted to hop onto a sinking ship, so free agency was brutal for a team that consistently sat at the bottom of the standings. Their GM was notorious for offering monster contracts to top talent, only to have them sign with another team for less money.
Would I be here if it weren’t for Slate trading my ass? That would be a resounding hell no.
Most of the team had been acquired via the draft, and sure, when you were at the bottom, you got high picks, but young players, even talented ones who went in the top five, were a gamble. Some turned out to be busts when placed on the brightest stage, others needed more time to build the muscle mass necessary to compete against grown men, and then there were the ones who thought they were God’s gift to hockey and had major attitude problems. Anyone with promise stayed through their three-year entry-level contracts and the restricted free-agency period—which lasted until they were at least twenty-five—but left for greener pastures the minute that became an option.
Astor and his twin brother, Crew, were pretty much the only exceptions to the rule. At twenty-seven, they were talented, in their prime, and could have taken positions elsewhere but they chose to stay. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why.
Simply put, the Surf were a disaster. And with ticket sales nearly nonexistent, it was only a matter of time before the commissioner relocated them to another city.
