My teammates began to slink off, shuffling back to their stalls. Even Easton deserted me, not that I could blame him. I turned to leave, too, but Coach’s furious tone forced me to turnaround.

“Not so fast, rookie.”

“Yes, sir.” I looked him squarely in the eyes, knowing he’d expect nothing less.

“You’ve been on this team under twenty-four hours, and already you have the most amenable guy in this locker room at your throat. I don’t know what you did to get him riled up, and I don’t want to know. It doesn’t happen again, or you’re done with the Sockeyes. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.” I almost saluted. The man would do a drill sergeant proud.

“Get ready. Now.”

I hurried off to my stall, ignoring the glares from my teammates.

“Everyone on the ice in ten minutes. Don’t be late, or you’ll regret it.”

We worked at a frenzied pace to get our gear on, and nine minutes, forty-three seconds later, I was on the ice. Jock avoided me, and I avoided him. We didn’t speak another word to each other. In fact, no one spoke one word to me. I’d been shunned, and I didn’t have a clue how to fix this mess I’d made.

My dad always said my sleeping around would come back to bite me in the ass, but I don’t think he ever envisioned the results to be like this. I’m pretty sure he’d been referring to a surprise baby, nothing like this. My dad raised his sons to respect women, and dating a married woman was a huge no-no in his book. He’d been burned himself when my mom walked out the door one day and never looked back. She left him with three young boys, and he depended on his parents to help him raise us. I was the middle child, the peacemaker of the family. Now I’d been the one to wreck another family.

Dad didn’t talk much about how he felt or his life. As a result, his sons were equally closed-mouthed. I don’t recall him telling any of us he loved us, but we knew he did.

If he found out about this, he’d be sorely disappointed in me, but I had no intention of telling him or my brothers. My older brother by one year played minor league hockey in Canada. He was still trying to break into the big leagues. My younger brother was playing junior hockey. We were a hockey family. My dad played adult amateur hockey. Before he’d married my mom, he had aspirations to make a career out of hockey, but things don’t always work out.

My dad never remarried. He was devastated after Mom left. In fact, I’d never known him to even date another woman, though I supposed he must have over the years. Then last year, he dropped a bombshell on all of us. He was gay. It was an adjustment for sure, but in the long run, we grew stronger as a family. I’d met Dad’s new boyfriend over Christmas, and I really liked him.