Page 21 of Two for Charging

“Okay, team,” Lindy called out as soon as the charter plane reached cruising altitude. She hopped out of her chair next to Phil and stood in the aisle. “Phones away, headphones off.”

It wasn’t as if Luca had achieved anything with his research anyway. He slipped his phone into his pocket and elbowed Mooney next to him until he pulled out his earbuds.

“So.” Lindy bounced on her heels. Her hair, cascading around her shoulders in perfect waves, bounced with her. “Everyone who was on this team last year went through something crazy, huh?”

The rumbling of agreement from the far corners of the plane came from the prospects and the guys on professional tryouts. No one who had been there said anything.

Objectively, she had a point. Luca’s first season in the NHL and midway through, it turned out management had been deliberately sabotaging them for years, and the coaches weren’t real coaches. Absolutely insane. By the time the team found out what was going on, he couldn’t do much but keep his head down and play his best hockey.

But looking back now, Luca couldn’t remember why he’d been so shocked. The stress of organized crime intruding on their team was nothing in comparison to a playoff run.

Nothing could have prepared him for the pressure of playoff hockey. He’d grown accustomed to playing for half-empty arenas and half-hearted audiences—a hockey career in Italy would do that. San Francisco, a football town first and foremost, did have hockey fans, but they seldom had a full house for every home game.

The playoffs were a different beast altogether.

Fans lined the stands so close together Luca could hardly make out individuals from the ice. The roar of voices and cheers became a constant background with occasional crescendos. Half the team played through some sort of strain or injury. For Luca, it had been a pulled calf muscle. Easy enough to heal if he hadn’t been on the ice for upward of twenty minutes every other night, skating as fast as he could. The athletic trainers stood in wait every night with a questionably legal and certainly immoral number of anti-inflammatory shots, forcing players’ bodies into submission for one more night, one more game.

Losing in the Western Conference Finals had been gut-wrenching. Luca hadn’t even been with the team long, but to come so close and fall short… The craziest part of last season, far more than the coaching conspiracy, was how much it hurt to lose. A life in professional sports prepared him for loss, but not on such a scale. No matter who coached him now, they could not change the devastation.

Luca thought Lindy would at least give a better post-loss locker room talk than Ben had. Ben was wonderful with words, but once Luca knew he didn’t care about hockey, he couldn’t forget it.

“When I took this job, I thought I would be getting a team who walked through fire together,” Lindy said.

Luca jerked his eyes up to look at her. She wore a navy pantsuit with a teal pocket square, the team colors.

“Instead,” she continued. “I’ve got a team hanging out in little cliques, barely talking in the locker room. That’s no way to start a winning season, boys.”

“She’s got a point,” Mooney said in an undertone.

“You are going to start making nice with Hayes, then?” Luca asked him.

Mooney snorted.

“So we’re going to use this flight for team bonding. I want each of you to think up compliments for three other people on the team.”

Again, silence met her words, this time of the incredulous variety.

But if Lindy were someone easily cowed by disbelief, she’d never have become their coach.

“Be specific and be kind,” she said. “You have five minutes. Then I’ll be going through the ranks and asking each and every one of you.”

When no one moved or spoke following her announcement, Phil emerged from the seat next to hers. “You heard the coach.”

Luca and Mooney looked at each other. Luca wondered if Mooney could read the dawning horror on his face.

“I don’t like any of you,” he muttered.

Mooney stuck his full lower lip out as far as it would go in an exaggerated pout.

“Oh, shut up, you do not want to do this either.”

“Got me there, bro.” Mooney pressed his head against the seat back and stared out the window. “I knew today was going to be shit.”

Luca raised an eyebrow.

“Mara’s phone rang at four in the morning. One of the shelter kids was puking.”

Luca raised the other eyebrow.