Breakaway, p.1
Breakaway, page 1
Breakaway
The Games We Play, Book 6
Taylor McNiff
Copyright © 2024 Taylor McNiff
Breakaway
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, except in the case of brief quotations and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Created with Vellum
Warnings
This book is rated explicit and intended for mature audiences only (18+).
Content Warnings: Severe depression, depressive episodes, suicidal thoughts/ideations, parental suicide (before book begins, when MC is a child), poor self-care, anxiety
Resources:
To be able to use texts, online chats, phone calls, and more for crisis support across the world, go to International Association for Suicide Prevention. This resource will give you information for local crisis lines for mental health/suicide as well as a range of other lines for demographics like veterans, military, youth, LGBTQ+, parents, and more.
Please practice safe mental health and self-care when reading!
Artificial Intelligence
No artificial intelligence was used in the making of this book or any of my books. This includes writing, co-writing, cover artwork, translation, and audiobook narration.
I do not consent to any Artificial Intelligence (AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to reproduce, mimic, remix, summarize, train from, or otherwise replicate any part of this creative work, via any means: print, graphic, sculpture, multimedia, audio, or other medium. This applies to all existing AI technology and any that comes into existence in the future.
I support the right of humans to control their artistic works.
The Games We Play Hockey Leagues
NAPH (North American Professional Hockey) - Major league.
PHL (Professional Hockey League) - Minor league.
HLENA and HLWNA (Hockey League of Eastern North America and the Hockey League of Western North America) - Second tier minor league.
Contents
Prologue
1. Hayden
2. Pope
3. Hayden
4. Pope
5. Hayden
6. Pope
7. Hayden
8. Pope
9. Hayden
10. Pope
11. Hayden
12. Pope
13. Hayden
14. Pope
15. Hayden
16. Pope
17. Hayden
18. Pope
19. Hayden
20. Pope
21. Hayden
22. Pope
23. Hayden
24. Pope
25. Hayden
26. Pope
27. Hayden
28. Pope
Epilogue
The Games We Play… continues!
The Games We Play, Book 7: Power Move
The Games We Play, Book 8: The Black Ace
NOTE FROM TAYLOR
Want More Taylor McNiff Books?!?
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About the Author
Prologue
Pope
On the bad days, I wake up shrouded in darkness. It’s a soaked blanket around my shoulders. It’s fog coating my thoughts. It’s fingers around my throat.
Am I hungry? Maybe. I can’t tell. Am I tired? Yes. To the bone. Am I alive? Ask me again later.
I eat because it’s seven in the morning and that’s what I always do at seven. Eggs. Wheat toast. Cottage cheese. Fruit. A vitamin. Wash it all down with Gatorade. Chase the meal with a protein shake.
My roommate is here. Jules. He talks. And talks. And talks. My mouth moves and he smiles a lot, maybe even laughs, so I must be talking too. If I concentrate, I can tell that I am. But I don’t care enough to concentrate. I’ve been doing this for so long, my body performs without me. It doesn’t need me here. I’m pointless. Everything is.
On the bad days, hockey is the only thing that isn’t pointless.
On the good days, I find myself terrified that one day the bad days will be bad enough where even hockey is lost to me.
And the bad days are only getting worse.
Chapter 1
Hayden
Having a best friend is a hindrance to a person’s sanity. Someone really should have warned me about this. Preferably at age five, before a too-big, clumsy white boy sat down at my table with a Superman lunch box, declared that I looked interesting—“I’ve never seen a brown person in real life before, how the heck did you get your skin like that?”—and decided for the both of us that we’d be friends.
As a kid who had been told all my life to be on my best behavior anytime I’m out of the house, I gave the white boy my best smile and said, “I was born like this, and yeah, sure, we can be friends.”
“Did your mom eat a bunch of brown paint when you were in her belly?” he had asked.
I shrugged. “No idea. Did your mom eat white paint?”
“Gee, I hope not. I mean, who would pick white? That’s so boring. Brown is at least a color. But why not blue? That’s my favorite color. Have you ever seen a blue person?”
“No.” I fiddled with my sandwich. “I think purple would be cooler. I like purple.”
“Purple is cool too.” He grinned then, eyes lighting up with an idea. “When we have kids, we’ll drink blue and purple paint. I’m Ian, by the way.”
And because I was five and stupid, I had shrugged, convinced this would be a great plan. “Okay. I’m Hayden.”
Turns out, drinking paint isn’t how your skin gets colored. I was worried the next day when I explained this to Ian, relaying the information I got from my parents. What if he didn’t find me interesting anymore? What if he doesn’t like my skin after I explain? I didn’t understand why, but Dad warned me sometimes white folks don’t like us because of our skin. He told me that I can’t ever let them make me feel small or lesser than them. That if that boy didn’t want to be friends with me because of that, then I shouldn’t want to be friends with him either.
But that was my first friend—my only friend, no one else had said a word to me all day the day before—and I really didn’t want to lose him. I was so relieved when he just shrugged the whole thing off, said my skin was still cooler than his, and asked if I wanted to go to the slide.
Now, as I stand in front of the hockey arena, I find a tiny part of myself wishing that boy hadn’t been quite so welcoming. Maybe then I’d be back in New Orleans, enjoying the heat and the good food and a job I loved, instead of here in way-too-far-north Michigan just before winter to work a job I once vowed I’d never do.
With a slightly dramatic sigh, I tighten my grip on the shoulder strap of my leather messenger bag and head inside.
The familiar earthy-rubber-chemical-sweat scent of the arena brings me back to high school for a moment. An ache develops in my chest as I think of Ian’s mom pressed up against me on one side with my mom on the other, the three of us freezing our asses off as we cheered our lungs out for him. It’s been far too long since I’ve visited Ian’s mom—it’s her fault more than anything, the little world-traveler that she’s become, but still. I make a mental note to ask Ian when she’ll come to visit next. Seeing her would be the only highlight of this move.
I follow the rhythmic sound of skates on ice until I reach the boards closest to the only man on the ice not wearing gear. I lean against them and smirk as I listen to him bark orders. Would all of these men respect him if they knew he went through a phase in middle school where he was adamant that Britney Spears was God’s gift to Earth? Or that in high school he was dumb enough to try snorting sugar sticks, only to end up in the damn hospital and grounded for a month?
“Switch!” Ian barks, blowing his whistle after.
I follow it up with a whistle of my own, smirking when he whips around to look at who would dare whistle at him. His shoulders relax when he spots me, his face splitting into a shit-eating grin. And of course it does—the bastard convinced me to do something I didn’t want to do, and he always grins like that when he wins a battle.
It takes all of my professionalism not to flip him off. Instead, I give him a two-finger wave.
He flips me off.
Typical.
“Why don’t you put some skates on and get out here?” he calls, drawing most of his players’ attention. The sound of skates slows as they turn to look at me.
I roll my eyes, refusing to let my face burn beneath all the staring. I’m no longer a skinny, inexperienced queer boy trying not to melt around all the hot jocks my best friend hangs out with. In fact, now I put jocks like them on their knees, and I’m never the one blushing. “You couldn’t pay me enough for that.”
He laughs. Which is fair, considering I had said that exact same thing when he first told me he needed an athletic trainer last minute and begged me to come work for him. Unlike then, I’m not giving in now. The one and only time I put skates on ended with a broken arm, a bruised ass, and a personal vow to never, ever do it again.
Ian turns back to his players. “This is our new athletic trainer, Hayden Wallace. He’s doing us an enormous favor by coming last minute, dropping everything to be here before our fir
“Yes, Coach!” they chime.
“Jules, finish off this drill and run cool down.”
A particularly large player—which is saying a lot in this crowd—skates forward just enough to stand out. “Yes, sir.”
I barely contain my snort. Ian gives me a look like he’s aware of this, hurrying off the ice and shucking his skates.
“It’s so cute how authoritative you are here. It’s like they actually respect you,” I tease, keeping my voice low. “Do they know you’re deathly afraid of spiders?”
“Fuck off.” He snags an arm around the back of my neck and yanks me forward, his other arm coming around my back to tighten the hug. We laugh together as we soak in the familiar warmth and feel of our bodies being close. “I missed you, man.”
“Missed you too,” I admit, smiling as I get a whiff of his oh-so-familiar scent of ammonia, sweat, and the cheap cologne he’s been using since puberty hit. I know what I’m getting him for Christmas. “Still can’t believe you got me to come here.”
He pulls out of the hug, grinning like before. “You’ll like it here, I promise. It’s a great group of guys, and the staff is excellent.”
“And the snow?” I ask, wrinkling my nose at the thought of the weather forecast I checked this morning. Snow later this week. In October. It’s disgusting.
He chuckles. “The snow… you get used to.”
“Really?”
“No. Not really.” He shrugs. “But every time you get your car stuck, or your boot goes farther than you expected and you wind up sunk to your knee, or you have to spend ten minutes scraping off your windshield, just remind yourself that you love me.”
I frown at him. Scowl, more like. “That love only stretches so far.”
“I’m not too worried.” He winks at me. “Come on, let me show you around before the guys are finished. Then I want you to meet our high-priority players.”
“Lead the way, Boss.”
He shoots me a warning look that doesn’t hold up considering the smirk he’s clearly fighting. “Keep it up. See what happens.”
“I haven’t been scared of you since the seventh grade, buddy.”
“We agreed not to talk about seventh grade ever again.”
I put my hands up in surrender. “Fair enough. That was dirty of me.”
With a flick to my cheek that stings enough to earn him a middle finger, he leads me down the first hall and starts pointing things out—the locker room, supply closet, equipment manager’s closet, equipment vault. He explains that the floor above us is where the GM and the rest of the backend staff can be found. Apparently the only one that ever really comes down here—unless there’s a problem—is Tara, the public relations and social media coordinator.
“She’s a huge hockey fan, so she likes to come watch practices.” He smirks. “Plus, I think she enjoys the view.”
“Of you or the players?” I tease, waggling my eyebrows at him.
He rolls his eyes, but an amusing blush creeps along his cheeks. “The players. But she’s pretty cool. I grab a drink with her sometimes. I think you’ll like her.”
“Just a drink?”
“Just a drink,” he assures. “I told you, I’m not on the market.”
“You did tell me that. You failed to tell me why, though.”
“Not now. We’re at work.”
I nod. “Yeah, okay, moving on. Does this place really bring in enough money? It’s in the middle of nowhere.”
“We actually do pretty well. There’s not a whole lot to do in the Upper Peninsula for indoor entertainment, so people were really excited to have the arena built here. Plus, hockey is a huge part of the local culture, so that helps.” He shrugs. “We also work a lot with the community, which makes a huge difference, I think. We have theme events and give tickets to community groups and get businesses to sponsor nights. We offer coupons to anyone who has vacation rentals in the area to give to their guests and discounts to guests at the hotel nearby. We have youth hockey teams come and play during intermissions or before the games. We only sell out for rivalry games and playoffs—and one or two of our more popular theme nights—but it’s plenty.”
“I’m low-key impressed. Were those all your ideas?”
He snorts. “No. Tara. She’s brilliant.”
When I give him a look, he rolls his eyes. “Stop. Tara and I are just friends.”
I put my hands up. “I said nothing.”
“Your face said it for you.” He stops after turning a corner. “This is the staff hall. If you turn right at the corner at the end down there, you’ll be back at the ice. It’s one big loop. This is my office. Assistant coach’s office here—his name is Brian Jeffries, he’s a good guy, but pretty quiet. This is the office for my goaltender coach. There’s the office that our physical therapist and doctor share. The doc only comes twice a month. The PT comes two hours a day to work with whichever players need him at the time, usually late morning between practices. You can coordinate with him and the doc to make changes to the schedule if you need. I’ll give you their information.”
“I’d appreciate that, thanks.”
“Come on, let me show you your workspace and introduce you to your intern,” Ian says, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and dragging me along.
I shrug him off with a scowl. “No one will take me seriously if you keep acting like I’m your kid brother.”
“You’re right. Professionalism.” He drops his arm, putting on a serious face that is impossible to take seriously.
I roll my eyes at him. “You’re just as bad as you used to be, you know that? I thought for sure you’d have matured in the last three years.”
“Three years,” he echoes, shaking his head. “Has it really been that fucking long?”
“It has. My fault.” I wince, thinking about those three years. Two years wasted on a toxic asshole who made me feel worthless, plus a year of avoiding everyone because of the shame.
“Both our faults,” he corrects. “This job took all my attention. I should have seen it sooner. Fucking Eddison. That manipulative little—”
“Another time,” I say, not wanting to spend my first day at this job talking about that.
“Fine.” He looks around, making sure the coast is clear, then plops a kiss on my cheek. “Love ya, man.”
“Yeah, yeah, love ya too.”
Ian gives the order for all players with current injury profiles or any new issues they’d like to discuss to stick around after practice. While I wait for the first to arrive, I listen to my intern Maggie as she explains how everything is organized and shows me the tablet that holds all of the players’ files and the previous AT’s notes for each. She seems skittish around me, like I’m going to yell at her any second. I offer to make her a cup of tea from the station of supplies by the sink. She relaxes a little, accepting the offer, but still seems wary.
The first player lumbers in just as I’m handing over a mug of tea and earning my first real smile from her. Progress.
“This is our goalie!” she informs me, tapping at the tablet before handing it over. It’s now open to the correct file—Knut Larsen.
“Knut,” I say, stepping forward and offering my free hand. “I’m Hayden Wallace. It’s great to meet you.”
“I’m hoping to say the same,” Knut says with a slight frown. “We’ll see what you say about my groin.”
With an arched eyebrow, I turn my attention back to his file. “Says here you’ve got a finicky left side, but no sign of tendinosis. Says…” I stop reading aloud, starting to realize why people didn’t like my predecessor. Told him he needs to strengthen his groin more and just push through the pain—will be better in the long run. Player ignored my suggestions. Told him not to bother me until he’s ready to listen. “Jesus. Never mind.” I put the tablet off to the side, deciding to approach this from the beginning instead. “When did it start to hurt this most recent time?”
