The Tao of Hockey (Vancouver Vice #1) (18 page)

W
e paused
outside Panner’s closed office door.

“Okay, Eric. Let me do the talking.”

I nodded, that was fine with me. I had a hollow feeling in my stomach. After all, getting to stay in Vancouver had become a lot more important in the past 24 hours. I knocked on the door.

“Yeah?” Panner’s voice sounded irritated before he had even seen my face. I opened the door, and we walked in.

“Mr. Pankowski? I’m Richard MacMillan of MacMillan, Brunswick, Carr.” With one smooth motion he shook the coach’s hand and then slipped a business card onto the desk. We all sat down in the cramped office. In his expensive suit, Richard looked extremely out of place.

When Panner saw me, he scowled. I straightened up in my chair and stared him down.

“What are you doing here, Fairburn?”

“I want back on the team.”

Richard kicked me in the ankle.

“Mr. Pankowski, I understand that you released Mr. Fairburn from his contract on the basis of a recent car accident.”

“Yeah, but—how exactly is this your business?”

“Sorry, did I not explain that Mr. Fairburn is my client?”

“Why does he even need a lawyer?”

“Let’s start off with the facts.” He passed Panner a file folder. “This is the police report I got from Constable Vinci, the officer assigned to investigate Mr. Fairburn’s accident. If you read it, you’ll see that he was completely not at fault. The driver of the other car was speeding and ran a stop sign. She’s been charged with reckless driving causing injury.”

Panner kept leafing through the file. I realized he had no clue what it all meant. He had probably read only that one web article and never really investigated my accident. That made me even angrier. Players got cut all the time, and they didn’t have a high-powered lawyer to try to save their asses.

“Are you related to this Josephine MacMillan?” Panner asked. He rotated his neck several times.

“Yes. She’s my sister.” Richard fixed the coach with an ice-cold glare. I had experienced that glare myself, and it was scary. “I understand that you slandered her. But hopefully I won’t have to file suit on that account. The main issue here is one of wrongful dismissal.”

Panner had stopped chewing gum or even blinking.

“A thorough investigation would have revealed that Mr. Fairburn was not at fault, therefore the so-called morals clause that you added to his contract should not have come into effect. By the way, you should consult an attorney because the morals clause as it stands is not defendable in court. It lacks concrete definition.”

Panner finally recovered some of his bluster. “What about the bad publicity he got for the team? You know he’s done this kind of thing before.”

Richard shook his head. “If you reread the article, I think you see that all the ‘bad publicity’ was generated by last season’s Vancouver Vice team. Which you were in charge of, I believe. And if you’re referring to Mr. Fairburn’s DUI conviction, he has fully discharged all the penalties for that and is beginning with a clean slate.” Richard raised his eyebrows. “Fresh starts are a good idea. Don’t you agree?”

“Well—” Panner’s eyes darted from side-to-side, as he tried to weasel his way out. “Unfortunately, we’ve already filled his roster spot.”

“Really? Because I have it on good authority that you still had an opening as of 9:00am this morning.” Under pressure from Richard, I had called Brenda. She was all too happy to supply me with the roster information.

“Back to the issue of wrongful dismissal suits.” Richard paused, leaned back, and tented his fingers. This guy was a master S.O.B. And right now, he was
my
S.O.B.! “In my experience, most of these suits could most easily have been settled by reinstating the employee early in the process—before the costly issue of damages to reputation have arisen.”

He smiled, and I was reminded of a snake charmer with a snake. “I think you’ll find the damages that Mr. Fairburn might receive would be well in excess of his original contract, and then there are lawyers’ fees. And unfortunately, those fees can add up.” He chuckled in a completely humourless way.

The idea of paying me more money for not playing had caused a sweat to break out on Panner’s forehead. “Well, I’ll have to talk to the GM before I can do anything.”

“No need to do that. We already have an appointment to see him this afternoon. I was only hoping that since you hadn’t filled the roster spot, and since Mr. Fairburn is such a skilled player—we might settle this matter right here and now. But if you don’t have the power to reinstate him, that’s fine. We’ll involve your boss and apprise him of the whole situation—your erroneous dismissal of the player and the resulting exposure of the organization to a lawsuit.”

Panner didn’t say a word. You could see all the scenarios running through his head.

Just then someone rapped on the door, and Coach Lee stuck his head inside.

“Rob, I was just—” He stopped talking and stared at us. “Oh sorry, I didn’t know you had a meeting going on. Oh hey, Eric.” He gave me a head nod and started to leave, but Panner called him back in.

The head coach glared at me. “So, Ian, it looks like Fairburn here has sorted out his, er, issues, and he can rejoin the team.”

A big smile broke out over Coach Lee’s face, but after noticing Panner’s scowl, he quickly hid it. “Uh, okay. I guess we can still fit him in somewhere. I’ll be in and around the training room, Eric. You can come by and see me later, and I’ll get you set up.” He backed out of the office.

Richard opened up his briefcase. “Well, it’s great that we could come to this understanding. But before I go, I’d like to get this all in writing. Here’s a memorandum stating that you agree to the new terms.”

Panner signed it without reading a thing.

“And here’s a new copy of Mr. Fairburn’s contract. It’s exactly the same as his previous one, except the morals clause has been removed. As I mentioned, in its current state, the clause is not actionable. So there are really no material changes.”

“Okay. But I’ll have to get the General Manager to sign off as well.”

“That’s fine. As a representative of the Vancouver Vice, your signature is binding. Any paperwork required on your end, you can fulfill. I’ll take this copy for Mr. Fairburn’s files.”

Panner nodded. I’d never seen him so quiet before.

Richard stood up and extended his hand again. “Thank you very much, Mr. Pankowski. Glad that we could settle this matter so easily. We appreciate your time and effort.”

I got up, nodded at the coach, and thanked him as well. He scowled.

Richard was already checking his phone as we walked down the hallway, so we didn’t speak until we left the building.

“You know, Eric, when your lawyer tells you to shut up, you need to shut up.”

“Yeah, sorry. Panner gets my back up.”

“I’ve seen cases like this before. He’s going to make your life hell from now on, you know.”

I shrugged. “He was already. How much worse can it be?”

“You’ll find out, I’m sure.”

“I can handle it. Hey, how did you get a meeting with Mr. Richardson so fast?” The team GM was notoriously hard to reach. Unless you were a beautiful woman, or so the rumours went.

Richard smiled. “The lawyer is the one who should ask the questions. I prefer to keep my methods to myself.”

Son of a bitch! He never had a meeting. I laughed loudly.

“Okay, I have to go now.” He hit the remote, and his Mercedes beeped open. He held out his hand and shook mine.

“Good luck, Eric.”

“Thank you so much. What you did today was huge.”

“You’re welcome. But I didn’t do this for you. It’s the first favour that JoJo has asked of me in ages—” He didn’t finish the sentence, and again I was struck by how every one of the MacMillans seemed unable to express affection normally. To find out that Josie was the warmest member of her family was stunning. But they all seemed to care in their own ways. Richard put on his sunglasses and turned to me. “Be good to her.”

His tone made that sound like a threat. But he didn’t have to worry, and I was pretty sure he knew that.

A
s I turned
to go back into the arena, I noticed that Rams was standing in the entranceway. He had been watching us. Now I’d have to deal with him daily, and I didn’t want to waste energy watching my back every moment. What Would Richard Do?

“Hey, Rams.” I ran up to him. “Great news. That was my lawyer, and I’m back on the team.”

He looked less than thrilled to hear that. “Really? Well, we’ll see how long that lasts.”

“Don’t worry, I’m going to stick.” Then I leaned in closer. “But you want to know something really interesting?”

He nodded slowly.

“In all that free time I had, I did a little investigating on my own. I went back to that pub we were at. I was talking to this waitress—you remember the one with bright red hair? Anyway, she saw something weird. Someone put something into the shots we drank. No wonder a lot of guys got sick.”

He flinched a little. “That is weird.”

I pulled a folded paper out of my jacket and waved it at him. “I asked her to sign a statement verifying what she had witnessed. Once we get a team photo, I’ll go back and get her to pick out whoever it was that did that. According to my lawyer, that’s a prosecutable offense.”

Was “prosecutable” even a word? I must have heard it on TV, but whatever—this was working. Rams looked very nervous.

“You know, Burner, maybe pushing this thing is not the best idea—you know, for team unity.”

“D’ya think? Maybe it was one of the guys who got cut. Anyway, the most important thing is how things go from now on. If bad shit keeps happening, it will be important to sort out who the asshole causing the problems is.”

I watched him swallow and nod. “Yeah, I think you’re right. Hey, welcome back, Burner.”

“Thanks.”

We both headed inside. He was a huge fucking phony, but at least I had called him on his shit. I tucked my new contract back into my jacket pocket.

A
fter calling
Lance and meeting with Coach Lee, I rushed home to see Josie. She was still lodged amongst the living room pillows where I had left her, but on the table there was an empty container of chocolate avocado ice cream.

“Well?” She looked up at me with wide eyes.

“I’m back!”

“Woo hoo!” She tried to high-five me but ended up wincing. “Ow, my ribs.”

“Oh no. Don’t hurt yourself.” I sat down beside her on the couch.

“But we have to celebrate.” She stuck two fingers in her mouth and let out a shrill whistle.

I shook my ears. “Jeez, Josie. That hurt.”

“I am a woman of many talents. So, tell me all about it.”

“Richard was phenomenal. He made me want to go to law school.”

She held up her fingers in the sign of the cross. “Stay away, bloodsucker.”

“He had Panner cowering by the time he was done. And he completely snowed him into thinking we had a meeting with Richardson. It was magnificent. And all because of you!” I leaned in to kiss her. We had developed a new kissing system that didn’t involve our bodies touching at all.

“Richard can be all right,” Josie admitted. “I’m sure he was in his element. Now I’ll have to be nice to him at the next family reunion.”

“You have family reunions?” That would be scary.

“No. But now they might start so they can dissect you.”

“Your brother started by finding out the worst stuff about me, so things can only get better from here.”

Josie laughed. “Who cares what people think?”

I squeezed her hand. “Well, I do. But I’m trying to make sure it’s only important people.”

“Like me?”

I nodded. “The most important person. How are you feeling today?”

“Better. I was walking around and doing a few things today.”

“No lifting, right?”

“Nope. What’s to lift? But I had to turn down a job today.”

“Oh no, really? A stunt job?” Of course it was. She could do the courier thing whenever she wanted. I sighed.

“Do you feel guilty?” Josie asked.

“Of course I do. I did this to you, and now you’re missing out on a job and a paycheque.”

“I could feel better if we had pizza for dinner. Like real pizza—with mozzarella, mushroom, and pepperoni. Not healthy pizza made out of cardboard and kale.”

“Josie, you’re manipulating me!”

“Is it working?” She nestled further in the pillows and giggled.

I bent down and kissed her again. Then I stroked her hair. “Why are you so flipping adorable?”

“I think it’s the pain meds. I feel like I’m having an out-of-body experience.” She giggled again. “And I didn’t even have to go to the desert.”

I laughed and carefully put an arm around her. “You’re cute.”

“I’m also happy you got back on the team.”

“It’s going to be tough. Panner looked like he wanted to strangle me right on the spot.” I dug out the paperwork I’d gotten from Coach Lee and H.R. “I’ve got my schedule. Practice tomorrow. I’m home for the next ten days, and then we leave on a road trip. I’m going to have to find someone to take care of you when I’m gone.”

“Maybe I’ll be better by then. Anyway, I can find someone myself. I appreciate your doing all this, but I’m not your responsibility.”

“Okay.” It was great to get to spend all this time together, but I still had to navigate around her independence.

She was reading through my schedule. “You go away for weeks at a time?”

“Yeah. We have road trips—on a bus. So we hit all the teams in the area. Is that a problem?”

“No, it’s great.” She patted my hand. “Nothing personal, but I like being alone sometimes.”

Was this an invitation to keep living here after she got better? I wasn’t going to presume, but I could hope. With Josie, taking things slowly was key.

She pulled out a large pink post-it. “What’s this? ‘
Eric, so happy you’re back on the team! I’d love to take you out for lunch and give you the inside scoop on how things work around here. Brenda.’
And there are hearts all around this! Does this chick have a crush on you?”

I blushed. “Yeah. I guess.” Then I braced myself for what was going to happen next. Sunny used to go ballistic when crap like this happened.

Josie threw back her head and laughed. “Owww, my ribs. Oh Eric, you crazy ladies’ man, you.”

“It doesn’t bother you?”

She snorted. “Why? When you’re not into me anymore, I assume you’ll have the decency to tell me. But I am pretty awesome.”

I kissed her. “The awesomest. I’m hungry. Did you want dinner?”

She smiled at me and nodded.

“Okay, where’s the pizza menu?”

“Ahhh, perfect. This means I’m still into you,” she declared.

“You’d get rid of me if I didn’t feed you pizza?”

“I have executed men for less.”

J
osie was still weak
, so after dinner we settled for watching a movie on her laptop. But even then, she started to doze off.

“Hey, sleepyhead. I’m going to tuck you into bed now.”

She nodded and went off to her bedroom. When I came in, she was already in bed.

“I’ll put your water and pain stuff here. Do you need anything else before you go to sleep?”

“Are you sleeping in the living room again?”

“Yeah, I was planning to.”

She rolled her eyes. “What’s the point of having a hot guy look after me if he sleeps on the couch?”

“It’s for your own good.” If I slept beside her, it was going to lead to something that would hurt her ribs.

“Have you done this before—looked after someone?”

“Nope. Only for you, babe.”

Something softened in Josie’s expression, but her voice was still mocking. “That’s pretty fucking sweet.”

I lay down on the bed beside her. I put a hand on her hip, and she rolled to face me, wincing a little.

“So, you think I’m a hot guy?”

“Don’t start, Eric. You know.”

“I want to hear it from you.”

She snorted. “Okay, Mr. Needy. When I first saw you, I thought you were totally gorgeous. I wanted to rip your clothes off and do you right on the table at the pub.”

I laughed. “There. Was that so hard?”

“Yes. It hurt me. My ribs hurt.”

“Your ribs hurt whenever I make you do something you don’t want to. You’re a wimp.”

“Nobody has ever called me that before. I’m a freaking stunt woman—taking pain is my job.”

“Mine too,” I pointed out.

“Great. We can have a pain-off to see who’s tougher. Fire up the branding irons.”

I laughed and tried to cuddle her without touching her ribs. Squeezing her ass seemed to work—for me, anyway.

“Josie, can I ask you something? If you liked me so much, how come you practically ran away the first times we saw each other?”

She didn’t answer right away.

“I don’t know. When I saw you guys, I wrote you off as assholes. You all had this physical presence—like you owned the space around you. It reminded me of the jock table in high school. Then you started betting on picking up women.”

“How did you know? You couldn’t have heard us from where you were sitting.”

“I could tell by watching. That’s why I like to go to bars. Instead of TV, I get to see all the sex and drama live.”

“You know what I don’t get—why didn’t I see you when I came in? Because once I saw you….”

“That’s easy. It’s this aura thing. I learned it from being on sets—all the good actresses can do it. You project confidence and you’re visible. Or you act shy and you disappear into the background.”

“Seems like magic. But let’s get back to the part where you wanted to rip my clothes off.”

Josie laughed—her full-throated laugh that I loved. Then she winced. “Well, I thought you were good looking, and your body... oh yeah. Jocks are usually jerks though. But you had this detached quality even amongst your buddies.” She put her hand up to my cheek. “It was like you were lonely too.”

Had she even noticed that she admitted she was lonely? That only made me love her more. I kissed the hand resting on my face.

“So you turned on your magic aura and drew me to you?”

She smacked me in the chest. “You, of all people, shouldn’t make fun of auras.”

“I wasn’t. It’s what happened.”

“Yeah. Like a butterfly to the light.”

I caressed her hand. “I’m pretty sure you’re the one who came on to me.”

“Maybe. You were hot so I thought, why not? It’s just one night.”

“But then you backed out when you saw the interlock.”

“I bet that was a first for you, getting turned down.”

I shook my head. I’d been turned down before, but never once the woman had agreed to come home with me.

“I was going on intuition. I thought you were a good guy under all the macho posturing. But when I saw you blow into that thing, it gave me second thoughts. I knew nothing about you, and you could be some criminal with a handsome face who was going to strangle me after we had sex!”

“That’s crazy.”

“I know. My inner nice-girl comes out at the worst times. I could hear my mom’s voice telling me to be careful.”

I had more questions, but I could hear the fatigue in her voice. I kissed her on the forehead.

“Good night, Josie.” I started to get out of bed.

“A forehead kiss? And now you’re leaving me alone in bed? Does a punctured lung make me less attractive or something?”

I laughed. “You are as gorgeous as ever. But if I spend all night lying beside this body, something’s gonna happen.

“What if I want something to happen?”

“You heard what the nurse said.”

“She said it would be okay if you didn’t contact my ribs. You could go down on me....”

“I could.” That sounded like fun. “But what about me?”

“You could get naked and jerk off in front of me. That’s always been a fantasy of mine.”

“Josie!”

“What? I’d do it for you—if I was well.”

That was a debt I wouldn’t mind collecting. I took off my t-shirt and got back into bed with her.

“You comfortable?”

“Yes. Except I’m a little hot.” She was a lot hot in my opinion.

I undid her flannel shirt. Josie was wearing button-down clothing because it was more comfortable to get on. Underneath she was naked and I pulled the shirt to her sides. She raised herself to let me take it off completely.

“Well, look at that. Peach fuzz.” I ran my hand over the dark hair where the V of her legs met.

“I know. The Vancouver General doesn’t have a waxing bar. Can you believe it?”

“Mmmm.” I blew on her hair and she shivered a little. I carefully pushed up her knees so I could access her pussy. “You okay?”

“Not yet….”

I ran my tongue slowly over her pussy lips, and she sighed with pleasure. “Yes, I’m feeling better now.”

I used my fingers to spread her open and popped the hood off her tiny clit. Not fucking Josie for a week had made me extra-horny, and I wanted to get her off before I exploded. I poked the little button with the tip of my tongue, then sucked on it. Josie wriggled a little, but I could tell that she wasn’t able to move around much. I watched to make sure she was okay. Judging from the sounds she was making, everything was fine.

It didn’t take Josie long to come. I got off the bed.

“Where you going?” she murmured.

“Nowhere.” I put my hands on her hips. “Can you move your hips to the edge of the bed?”

She gingerly crab-crawled over, trying not to move her upper body much. Once she was sideways on the bed, I put a pillow behind her head, and a couple at her sides.

“What’s happening?” she asked.

“I’m going to help you get to sleep.” I pulled down my jeans and boxer briefs. Josie smiled lazily at the sight of me naked.

“This is more like it. When a hot guy wants to take care of me—this is what I had in mind.”

I waved my boner at her. “I’ll take care of you, baby.”

“Could you be any cornier?” Josie started giggling. “No, owww. Don’t make me laugh, it hurts.”

“You’re not supposed to laugh at a guy who’s naked and ready to do you.” I took a condom from her bedside table where we kept them. Then I knelt on the floor between her spread legs. She was watching me with half-closed eyes.

“Okay, tell me if it hurts anytime, and I’ll stop.” But could I really stop? Once I was inside Josie, all conscious thought went out the window. I eased my aching hard-on into her hot depths. It felt so fucking good that I pushed in deep and fast and then pulled out. I could see Josie trying to meet my motions by rising up.

“No.” I put a hand on her stomach. “Lie there. Really, I want to make it good for you—I want to do everything.”

She fell back, and I moved my hand down until my fingertips were resting on her clit. I pushed my whole hand down and started fucking her again. In and out—this glorious sensation of being inside her was so fucking incredible. For Josie, having to stay still was intensifying the sensations. The pressure of my hand on her and my cock inside her was unreal for both of us.

“Oh God, yes,” she panted. Her eyes were tightly closed, and her hands gripped the sheets. Was she coming? I fucking hoped so. I stroked in and out of her, and the pleasure was intense. I started to come and come.

Afterwards, my legs felt weak, but I carefully lifted Josie up and tucked her back into bed. She moaned a little, and I kissed her on the mouth. Then I slipped into bed beside her. I leaned over her to see if she was asleep yet. Her eyes were closed, and her breathing was regular. I lay back down and slid one hand over her hip.

What an incredible day. I was back on the team and things were perfect with Josie. Again I felt joy surging through me. Maybe I hadn’t made the NHL, and maybe I never would. But it was hard to imagine how things could be better. I had set my own goals, gone after them—and won! Now I was going to enjoy every moment—just like someone else in this bed.

“I love you, Josie.” She was asleep, but my excitement was uncontrollable.

Josie shifted slightly, and her words were only muttered. But I still heard them.

“Love you too.”

I waited for more reaction, but there was none. She seemed to be fast asleep.