“Nine o’clock at Piazza Romana. I’ll let the team know.”

Leave it to him to know exactly where to go.

I faced Bromann. He’d been a loved player in Florida, and there were already several memes online with him wearing his new Vipers jersey and BRO-MAN stamped across it while he skated across the ice, on one knee, fist-pumping during one of our practices. The man could play to the crowd.

We needed him to play with the team. Accepted by everyone. End all chatter of his former bromance with fellow Florida player, Rudy Petrov, and hell, maybe solidify a new one here. We needed it to happen fast.

“You need to come,” I told him.

He looked warily at the open locker room door as Alix walked in, already shouting out the details of the required team event. Cheers echoed as the door closed behind him.

Yeah. Leave it to Alix. He’d make sure everyone was there.

“This shit takes time. I know that.”

“Yeah, but we’re also a family and the sooner we groove off the ice—”

“The sooner we find it on the ice. I got it.” He tapped his stick to mine. “Thanks, Andrews.”

“Doing my job.” But in truth, I needed this as much as the rest of them.

I’d always been a quieter guy, but life had thrown me a handful of curveballs over the last couple of years. If I was a baseball player, my batting average at those curves would be less than five hundred. I was also older now. Wiser. More serious. Perhaps, I’d also lost a bit of the fun edge I used to have.

I stayed in the hall for a minute after Bromann went inside and rested against the wall.

Max retired. Two years younger than me, and he was out of the league. Yeah, he’d gotten injured, had some concerns about the number of concussions he had. But we were both getting old.

I had five years max left in the league, and as a center, chasing after guys twenty to twenty-five, five years was a long shot.

What did I have to show for myself?

A failed marriage. A townhome in a luxury community.

Millions in the bank I’d never be able to spend at this rate, a few investment properties, and no family to leave it to.

Fuck.

I was getting old. And grumpy.

Already my head was hurting at the thought of all the noise to follow later tonight.

If it hadn’t been my idea, I’d bail.

But our team needed this. The guys did.

And they were all I had left.

As much as I’d already failed at so much in life, I wouldn’t let them down.

By the time I got to the locker room and stripped out of my gear, my phone was buzzing like a beehive.

I grabbed it.

Four missed calls from Heather.

Six texts.

My little sister was five years younger than me, living the high life with her job as a personal chef for the uppity, richest people I could ever imagine.