A Mountain Springs Christmas

Chapter 2

two

CONNOR

Connor strode over to the aisle with shaving razors, a shopping basket on his arm, his phone at his ear, listening to his sister, Laura. She was making her way through his house, gathering things he needed.

“These contact lenses are daily-wear ones, right? I’ve got you a week’s worth and your glasses case.” She let out a big exhale and he heard the drawer shut. “I can’t believe they didn’t let you spend five minutes at home to pack a bag before you left.”

Connor scanned the choices of razors. “There was no way I could’ve driven all the way home from the arena and turned around to immediately drive back to the airport— even without going inside and packing a bag— and still made that flight.”

“Where are your glasses?”

“Nightstand.”

“And there’s really no way for you to come back home for Christmas?

Connor scanned the razors again but didn’t see the brand he normally used. Maybe he would just leave the scruff. “I used in-flight WiFi any moment I wasn’t fielding messages from TV analysts and reps from the Glaciers to search every airline out of Denver. I looked at the ones that were leaving from the earliest moment I could get there after my game on the night of the twenty-third until the morning of the twenty-fifth. Not only could I not find a flight, but there’s a storm coming in, and they’re guessing all the people who actually did find flights will be sitting at the airport, not flying.”

No, he really hated the itchiness of scruff. That was something he was only willing to do when his team made the playoffs. He had to find a razor.

“This sucks,” Laura said. “Did you really not have a clue that they were going to trade you?”

“None. I thought things were going well.” A lot of trades happened right before the trade deadline, which was in early March this year. If trades happened earlier in the season, it was often because they didn’t think a player was a good fit on the team or because the team in general was struggling.

But Connor got along great with his team. He loved the guys. Traveling with them day in and day out, battling with them, shooting for the same goals— he was willing to do anything for them. And his team was doing great. He’d been told by the management not long ago that he was in the team’s long-term plans. They’d even put up a billboard featuring him six weeks ago and stocked more of his jerseys in fan stores.

“I was changing after practice when the public relations guy came in and said that the GM wanted to see me.” The sinking feeling he’d gotten in his stomach at the time had immediately told him that it was about a trade.

He grabbed a razor and tossed it into his basket, then added some shaving cream.

“Okay,” Laura said, “I’ve got your favorite pajama pants and a few shirts, including that bluish-gray one with the super soft fabric. What else?”

“Shoes.” He headed to the next aisle over.

“I can’t believe they would actually trade a player eight days before Christmas. Right before the Christmas blackout— which is far too short, if you ask me. No one wants to move across the country at Christmastime, let alone move with no warning.”

“It’s all part of the life I signed up for when I joined the NHL. At least I don’t have a wife and kids I had to break the news to.”

“True. But do they really have to give you zero notice? They couldn’t have just selected a later flight today to at least give you a bit of time?”

“You’re really hung up on that no-notice thing. It’s just part of the job. It sucks, but I’ve been luckier than most to have spent my entire career up until now near family. Besides, they had press interviews lined up for me, so I had to fly in quickly.” He added deodorant to his basket.

“Which they lined up after choosing your flight.”

“Laura, what’s done is done.”

“And moaning about it won’t change anything,” she said, finishing their step-dad’s mantra. “I know. How did the interviews go?”

It was more than just interviews. He’d also fielded a dozen messages and calls from his new organization to find out things like his skate size, any sponsored equipment brands, and his number so they could put it on home and away jerseys. He also got calls from the team doctors and training staff to coordinate and get information, and from the Director of Services to make the transition smooth and cover all the bases. He even got a call from payroll.

And that was just the urgent stuff that directly involved him, not any of the stuff going on behind the scenes with media relations, marketing, social media, retail, community relations, and a host of other departments. He wasn’t through getting calls, either. Two had come in just in the few minutes he had been on the phone with his sister.

“Fine. I had my suit and dress shoes with me at the arena, of course. Oh, by the way, one of the guys is driving my car back to my place, so don’t freak out if he comes in to drop off the keys while you’re there. Anyway, the interviews went well, if you don’t count how weird it felt to wear dress shoes without socks, which I did not happen to grab.”

“Oh, socks!” Laura said, followed by sounds of drawers opening and closing.

“Bottom drawer,” he offered.

“Got them! Who puts their socks in the bottom drawer? Weirdo. What else? Any bathroom stuff other than your contact lenses?”

“No. I’m not going to wait for that box to be delivered before I brush my teeth or put on deodorant.” Toothbrush. That’s what he needed. He started walking toward the aisle with them. “You are going to ship it overnight to the hotel, right?”

“Yeah, as soon as I leave here. But in case you’ve acclimated to the time zone there in the past few hours and already forgot, it’s ten p.m. here, so it’s not going to be tonight’s overnight.” After a short pause, she added, “So, you might want to find a store where you can buy some underwear, too.”

Frustration hit him and came out in a growl. He tossed a tube of toothpaste into his basket and moved over to the toothbrushes. The shock still hadn’t completely worn off yet, but grief and irritation were starting to settle in.

“You couldn’t have just refused the trade?”

“Not if I didn’t want to be suspended and lose my salary.” Another few weeks, and he would’ve hit his twenty-seventh birthday, and in four months, the end of his seventh year. After hitting either, he could’ve negotiated a No trade to Denver clause in his contract.

Trades were all part of the job, and he’d long ago accepted that a trade at any time, inconvenient or not, was to be expected. It wasn’t that he was angry about the timing. Although, he wished they would have waited until December twenty-seventh— when the Christmas trade freeze lifted— to take him away from his family. He was more upset that they traded him to Denver, specifically.

He chose a toothbrush and added it to his basket.

“Well, congrats on getting Mom and Max notified before your trade was officially announced.”

Sometimes the players themselves didn’t get notified before the media, so the congrats was well-deserved. “I knew she would not be happy if she found out from the Internet, so I called her as I was walking out of the GM’s office.”

“How did it go?”

He swallowed. “I can’t say it was fun making her that sad.” Christmas traditions were important to her, and he knew that all the ones he was going to miss had likely been running through her head. And he hadn’t even let her know the flight situation yet that wouldn’t allow him to go home during the three-day break.

“I bet.”

“Hey, don’t tell Mom that I’m upset about the trade or that I really didn’t want to come here. I’ll get over being upset, and there isn’t anything any of us can do about the trade being to Denver. I don’t want her to feel bad.”

“I won’t. This is just a new adventure, right?” He could tell that she had tried to make the sentence come out in a cheery voice, and she was mostly successful.

“Yep. A new adventure. Oh, and will you take everyone’s presents with you to pass out on Christmas morning? And will you wrap Max’s for me? I didn’t get a chance.”

“Will do. Maybe we can just video chat on Christmas as everyone opens presents.” There was a small pause before she added, “Okay, I think I’ve got the necessities, including charging cords for your devices. I’ll come back after I get this shipped off and pack more of your stuff. Any last requests for the overnight one? That cinnamon caramel hot chocolate that you love?”

Connor chuckled. “I think I can go a few days without it.”

“It’s weird to think that this morning when we got together for breakfast, you lived here in Charlotte, were one of the Thunderstorm, and had no idea you’d end the day as one of the Glaciers, living in Denver.”

“Yep, weird.” It felt like this morning had happened days ago. Waking up, going about his normal routine, going to practice, finding out he was moving fifteen hundred miles away, making that move, fielding all the phone calls, messages, interviews, and emails, coordinating with the new team, and shopping for the essentials was exhausting. He couldn’t have stuffed more into this day if he’d tried.

Yet, his new team was on the ice against another team right now, and he wished he was there, playing with them. He glanced at his watch. Actually, the game was probably over by now. It would be nice to have a practice with the new team before a game, and his flight hadn’t landed with enough time for him to get to the game, but it still felt strange to have tonight off. Especially because he had tomorrow night off, too— he didn’t play his first game with the Glaciers until two days from now.

Someone turned down Connor’s aisle, and he could tell the moment the man recognized him because the man’s expression turned sour. So, either he recognized Connor as a Thunderstorm player— and therefore was from the team that was the Glaciers’ biggest rival— or the guy already saw the news that Connor had joined the Glaciers, and he wasn’t happy about it. He was sure this wasn’t going to be an isolated incident.

Connor had pictured being traded plenty of times, but never to Denver. The trade had completely blindsided him. He should’ve guessed the feelings that coming back would give him. He got it every time his team had played the Glaciers in Denver.

He glanced around the drug store to see if there was anything he needed that he hadn’t thought of yet, and luckily, he noticed the shampoo.

“You might not have time to go house shopping,” Laura said. “Want me to look through listings and send you the best ones? I can watch for homes with walls that resist puck and stick scuffs. Or one with a trophy room. Swimming pool? An oversized garage with goalie nets and reinforced windows that can handle a hockey puck flying at them?”

“No need. The hotel they’ve got me at is pretty decent. I’m thinking of living there until the end of the season, then moving back home in the off-season.”

“Off-season? If your team does well in the playoffs, that’s what? Three months? You can’t spend the other nine in a hotel.”

“Laura, I am not going to live here again.” He was surprised at how fiercely his voice came out. There were too many bad memories tied to this place, and he really didn’t like who he was when he lived here. He wasn’t about to become that person again. “I’m going to put in a trade request as we come up on the end of the season. I already told my agent.”

He headed over to the self-checkout station and started scanning his items. But he couldn’t seem to get his mind to go down a different path. So, he asked, “Have you talked to Dad lately? Do you know if he’s living here?”

“I haven’t for a year or so, but I don’t think so. Last I heard, he was living in Arizona and buying a house in Spain.”

At least there was that small mercy. Judging by the relief it gave him to know, maybe it wasn’t so small. “And there’s a chance I won’t be living in a hotel for the whole season. I could get traded at the deadline to a team that’s closer to home.”

“Or to one that doesn’t get a quarter of their flights delayed due to weather in the winter. Yes, I did, indeed, just look it up.”

“Yes, traded to a team without winter flight delays. That’ll do, too.” He finished scanning the last of his items and tapped his credit card on the reader.

“Then, I’ll keep my fingers crossed that you’ll get completely blindsided and have to move with zero notice again soon.”

“I always knew I could count on you, sis.” He grabbed his bag and noticed that there was a clothing store across the street. It was getting pretty late, but it looked like they were still open. “I’ve got to go. I need underwear and a shower, and I’ve got to be at the rink early to meet my new team who was likely just as blindsided by the trade as I was.”

“Someone on the Team Services staff can’t get that for you? I thought they were there to make the transition smooth.”

“I am not asking them to buy me underwear.”

Laura laughed. “Fair enough. Okay, I’ll go get this box shipped. And Connor? Fake it until you make it, right?”

He nodded and smiled. “Fake it until you make it.” It was old advice, but there was something to it. Back in college, his hockey coach had their entire team read a book about how body language caused emotions, not the other way around. Slumping made you feel defeated; feeling defeated didn’t make you slump. So as a team, they would do winning poses before going on the ice to pump themselves up, and Connor witnessed over and over how much it worked.

It was advice that he’d desperately needed at the time. From a therapy standpoint, if there was an underlying problem, pretending it wasn’t there wasn’t likely to fix it. But he’d done the therapy, yet he’d still been angry so much of the time back then. The therapy had helped, but it was taking that book to heart that had gotten him past the anger and on his way to becoming the person he was now. A person he liked.

Right now, he just needed to make his body show happiness, and his emotions would follow. So he stood with his shoulders back, put a smile on his face, then crossed the street to the clothing store.

The men’s underwear section wasn’t hard to find— the four full-size mannequins wearing nothing but underwear, each in a different color, led the way.

He was standing next to a table of underwear packages, finding the style and the size he needed, when a couple of people caught his attention and he glanced over. It was two boys and a girl, all about seventeen years old. One might’ve been her boyfriend. Or possibly brother.

Connor tried to pretend he didn’t notice them as the trio discussed whether the girl should approach Connor and ask for an autograph (since she was a fan and seemed so excited to see him), or if they should maybe hurl insults at “the enemy” instead (which was apparently what the two boys thought of Connor). He wished he was doing anything other than buying underwear at that moment.

Apparently, the girl won the argument, because she straightened her shoulders as if to summon bravery— maybe she read the book, too— and walked over to him with a shy smile. “Hi. You’re Connor Greene, right? The hockey player?”

He nodded, and she let out a nervous laugh.

“I think you’re a great player.” She pulled a Sharpie from her purse. “Can I get your autograph?”

“Sure,” he said. “Um, what would you like me to sign?”

The girl looked around like a piece of paper would materialize from somewhere. When it didn’t, she picked up one of the packages of underwear. “How about this?”

He hadn’t fully formed in his mind the sentence that would suggest they instead ask a cashier if she had a piece of paper before the two guys must’ve decided that the girl had not, in fact, won the debate. They both grabbed unpackaged underwear from a bin, wadded them up, and hurled them at Connor.

The girl turned to the boys, shouted, “Losers!” then stormed off as they continued throwing underwear at him. He wasn’t sure if he’d rather they hurled the insults. At least the underwear was quieter.

They were relentless, though. He turned away from the flying underwear balls to make a quick escape toward the doors and ran right into a woman. He had been in such a hurry to leave that his speed knocked them both off their feet. He wrapped his arms around the woman as they fell, twisting so that he would land on the bottom instead of landing on her.

Which wouldn’t have been so bad, except that they hit a mannequin on the way down, knocking it over. And as it fell, it took out the next mannequin, which took out the next one. Connor, the woman, and each of the four mannequins fell to the ground like dominos. The landing knocked the air right out of him.

His sister was right— he really should’ve let someone from team services buy the underwear.