Coming in First Place (Between the Teeth Book 1) Read online

  Contents

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  COPYRIGHT

  For my mom.

  You’re my hero.

  Full stop.

  And in memory of my grandfather Ken Wheeland.

  My brother and cousins would get practical gifts every Christmas, such as flashlights and screwdrivers.

  But I always got the most practical gifts of all from him: books.

  CHAPTER ONE

  David doesn’t remember meeting Jake Lourdes. He imagines it’s irrelevant, how they met, though he’s sure the media would consider it fated. Important.

  In all likelihood, David met Lourdes somewhere in the multiplicity of tournaments: Lake Placid, London, Rochester, a blur of Southern Ontario and upstate New York. He doesn’t remember it, but if he asked one of the reporters bunched in front of him, microphones in his face, he’s sure they could tell him, tell him it was a handshake line in Lake Placid or an illegal hit in London or neighbouring urinals in Rochester. He’s sure they know.

  He doesn’t, however, nor does he much care. It’s irrelevant. There’s no point wondering.

  David has known Jake Lourdes’ name since he was fourteen years old. Has played him since he was sixteen, new to the U18s and shaking with pride, just to watch Lourdes and his team hand them silver with a smug grin. Turned it around when he was seventeen, captain now, facing Lourdes, captain himself, and serving the States that silver medal right between their teeth.

  They have been advertised as rivals since people figured out they would be important, the brash American and the polite Canadian, like they’re national figures instead of teenage boys. When Canada bows to the US for Gold, David feels that rivalry, with Lourdes’ grin so obnoxious he wants to knock it off his face. When Canada wins the next year and he shakes hands on the other side of losing, he bets Lourdes feels the same.

  But mostly the labels don’t even make sense. David is polite with the media because of course he is; who would be rude to people who can make all the difference in your career? Lourdes is brash and cocky in a way that the media paints as quintessentially American but is the province of teenage boys the world over.

  They’re the assured first and second draft picks, though no one’s sure which of them is going first and which of them is going second. Either way it’s to a terrible team, and either way it’s an honour, so David doesn’t care at all, except in all the ways he does.

  *

  On draft day, David’s hands shake so much he can’t tie his tie. He has to stop, breathe in, out, will his hands still, before he tries again. It still isn’t right, and he reties it once, twice, before it finally satisfies him. He puts on his cufflinks, a present from his agent, with hands that have already started to shake again. They’re lucky cufflinks. He’s decided that, even though he’s not generally superstitious. They’re lucky cufflinks, and they’re going to take him to first place.

  “You look good,” his agent, Dave Summers, tells him before everyone takes their seats. “Nice suit.”

  “Thank you,” David says. He finds himself self-consciously touching his tie, his newly lucky cufflinks.

  “You’ve got nothing to worry about here,” Dave says.

  Dave doesn’t look particularly worried himself, but he represents both Lourdes and David, so no matter what happens one of Dave’s clients is probably going to go first, another second. The media’s torn as to whether it will be David or Lourdes first, but they’re the consensus one and two picks. David wonders if Dave bought Lourdes lucky cufflinks too. He hopes not.

  “Sure,” David says.

  “There’s nothing you can do anymore,” Dave says, which is true. He had an amazing season, broke Remparts records. He won Gold at the U18s. His results at the combine were lauded. He thinks he did well in his interviews with his prospective teams. Dave and his assistant coached him before the interviews, told him what questions were likely to come up, what answers to give, and he answered all the questions like they trained him to. There were only a few questions that Dave or Marjorie hadn’t anticipated, and David had done his best with those.

  The Panthers GM shook his hand after with a broad smile, told him he’d be looking forward to seeing him soon. David doesn’t know if that meant they would next see each other when he was calling David up to put a Panthers jersey on, but he hopes so. He’s never been to Sunrise before, doesn’t know if he’d even like it, but you go where you’re asked to, and nothing is as big an honour as being the first pick of the draft.

  “Enjoy it,” Dave says.

  David smiles weakly.

  “I know you won’t,” Dave says. “But this is what you’ve worked for. Try to enjoy it at least a little. Maybe even crack a smile.”

  “Of course,” David says. He thought that was what he was doing.

  “Your folks here?” Dave asks.

  “Yeah,” David says.

  His parents are avoiding one another, but David’s not surprised by that. This must be the first time they’ve been in the same room since his father moved to Calgary five years ago. His mother didn’t want his father to come, and honestly, David didn’t really either, but his father said it was his right to be here, and so he is. When David sits down it’s in an empty seat between them, a barrier.

  “You good, Dave?” his father asks.

  “That’s my agent,” David says, instead of ‘please don’t call me that’, and his father laughs like it’s a joke.

  The Commissioner takes the stage, and every muscle in David’s body goes tense, tight, as the audience erupts in boos, the standard response to his presence. He waits it out with a little smile on his face. David has no idea how someone can endure abuse with a smile. Practice, maybe.

  When the boos finally peter out the Commissioner thanks their host city for their hospitality with more than a little sarcasm, getting scattered applause in response.

  “Quite the event,” his mother says under her breath. It isn’t a compliment, he knows. She thinks it’s overblown. She’s never been quiet about how ridiculous she finds the salaries of professional athletes, the devotion of sports fans. She’d always seemed faintly mystified by his interest in hockey, and the mystification only grew as he grew older and more serious about it.

  She didn’t stop him, though she never went to his games, his nanny taking him when he was young, then teammates’ parents. She could have, especially when it meant at sixteen he was moving 500 kilometres away to play in the QMJHL, but she didn’t. David thinks she was a little relieved to have the apartment to herself. “You’ll be going first?”

  “Or second,” David says, mouth dry. “First or second.”

  The Panthers management team takes the stage, and David’s hands go white-knuckled on the arm rests. He wishes, fleetingly, that his mother would reach out, take his hand, but he knows she won’t, and it’s fine. It’s something he’s accustomed to. Only focus on the things in your control. He set records. He won Gold. His combine results were stel
lar, and he did well in the interviews. They’ll make the right decision.

  David waits for them to say his name.

  They don’t. They don’t say it.

  *

  David watches, numb, as Lourdes hugs his family, taking his time before walking down to the stage, like everyone’s there to see him, like there aren’t twenty-nine more people to be drafted in this round alone. He dons the Panthers jersey, the Panthers hat, and seeing him wearing the jersey David should be wearing, the numb feeling recedes, replaced by a surge of nausea.

  David has the sudden fear that the Islanders will pass him over too, that everyone will, that he’ll go undrafted, will have to return to Québec City in disgrace. He knows it’s irrational, but he’s still almost surprised when the Islanders GM says his name. He stands, accepting a perfunctory kiss on the cheek from his mother, a slap on the back from his father that lands as hard as a blow, and makes his way to the stage almost on auto-pilot, only remembering Dave’s advice when he’s halfway there.

  He smiles. He doesn’t want to. It doesn’t feel right on his face. But Dave said to smile, so he smiles. He thinks if it was the Panthers who took him — he thinks he wouldn’t have needed to force it if it was the Panthers who took him, but it doesn’t matter, because they didn’t, so he does.

  David does an interview with Sportsnet as soon as he leaves the stage, now wearing an Islanders jersey, another with NBCSN shortly after. He has no recollection of what he said to either network, but he’s been trained well enough to know he probably said the right things: that it was an honour, that he was excited, that he can’t wait to play for the Islanders. He thinks he smiled the entire time.

  After his interviews, one of the NHL staff herds him over to where Lourdes is waiting backstage, and David suddenly remembers the picture they always take with the top draft picks. He can barely look at Lourdes right now, needs more time to compose himself, but he knows he isn’t going to get it.

  “Hey,” Lourdes says. He’s grinning. Of course he’s grinning. He just got everything he wanted, so of course he’s grinning. “Congrats.”

  Anything David could say in response would come out like bile, so he doesn’t say a thing.

  “Jake, can we get you in the middle?” the photographer asks, and they rearrange themselves, David on Lourdes’ left, Cory Erskine, who went third, on Lourdes’ right. Without being asked, Lourdes puts an arm around David’s shoulders, another around Erskine’s, like they’re all good friends. Lourdes’ arm is heavy, and David wants to shrug it off, but he can’t, not in front of the cameras.

  “Can we get a smile from you, David?” the photographer asks, and David tries his best. He always does. But the photographer is frowning behind his camera like David still hasn’t gotten it right, and he’s pretty sure that his best, once again, isn’t good enough.

  CHAPTER TWO

  David starts strong, or at least, that’s what the media is saying.

  He has a busy summer. He trains hard, harder than he’s ever trained before, terrified the Islanders will send him back to Québec for another year to develop more. He’s NHL ready, he knows he is, but he has to prove it. He thinks he makes progress on that at prospects camp, feels like he’s performing head and shoulders above the other prospects, possible future teammates, current competition. He thinks he’s doing well. They tell him he’s doing well.

  Still, walking into training camp feels different than it ever has before, more overwhelming. There’s hurdle after hurdle he has to clear: make it past the first round of cuts, the second, make it to the preseason, clear the preseason. There are so many people there — all people who think they have a shot — and so few spots available.

  The nerves vanish when it becomes obvious that as long as he shows up every day, he’s going to make the roster. He knew the Islanders weren’t a good team — good teams don’t get high draft picks — but the games he had watched in preparation, while bad enough, didn’t accurately indicate just how terrible they are.

  Some of that is unfamiliarity, David’s sure. They ripped the roster to shreds over the off-season, and he’s far from the only new face, far from the only player who struggles to connect passes with players he met all of a day ago. The scrimmages are no tighter than the games of pick-up shinny David played as a child. Their captain Kurmazov is stern and thin-lipped all week, which David considers fair, since he’s one of the few players consistently performing, and he’s just locked himself in for another five years captaining this team.

  David does his best with what he’s given. The coaching staff tells him that’s good, tells him he’s playing well, living up to expectations. David finds that faintly insulting, considering he’s not particularly impressed with his own play.

  But David gets better. He picks up the easy saucers from Levesque, the bone-jarring slap passes Farmer has a tendency to dish, learns that waiting out Knutsen and letting him hang himself is the best way to get the puck in the back of the net.

  When training camp is over, the team’s marginally tighter, and David is still there, earning chirps and grudging admiration from some of the veteran players. There’s frantic, premature speculation from the local media that he’ll be the difference maker for the team, especially when the preseason starts and he’s averaging over a point a game, more assists than goals by far.

  There’s no question of sending David down at the beginning of the regular season; it’s become clear that they don’t have the depth in the roster they’d need to give him time to develop. When the puck drops in October, he’s standing on the ice during the anthem, feeling faintly nauseated. Maybe he looks it, because Kurmazov tapped him hard on the helmet when they were heading out of the locker room, nudged him forward with a pat on the ass, more gentle than usual.

  David doesn’t think he makes much of an impression in his first game, but he knows he does in the second, tunes out the jeers from the Newark crowd and gets a pass from Farmer that just needs a gentle nudge, a hard-angled side of the net tap-in that Gloucester never even sees. The puck ends up in his hands after the game, the date sloppily written out in silver sharpie, and David can’t stop touching it, the Devils’ logo smooth under his thumb.

  David may start strong, but the Islanders don’t. They only eke out two wins and two additional loser points in their first ten games, a streak of games so ugly they’re lucky to have managed that. But they’re scoring, at least. Their first two lines are good enough offensively to bandage some of the defensive failures, and the bottom six are throwing hits that rattle bone, Brouwer leading the league in that category.

  If you look at anything but the final scores, anything but the defence, anything but goaltending, they’re doing fine. David’s doing fine, more than fine, has seven points in his first ten games, not the one-for-one pace he’d set in the preseason, but these games actually mean something, so he’ll take it.

  But if David starts strong, Lourdes starts like a bullet. The Panthers aren’t playing much better than the Islanders, the same defensive gaps, the same weakness in net, but the Panthers go out in flames every time, tally endlessly, just to give up more. There’s no point even trying to switch up their goalies when one lets four in; his replacement will just let in the fifth.

  They are a brutal, glorious disaster, and Lourdes fits in perfectly there, because Lourdes doesn’t play clean, Lourdes doesn’t play careful. He’ll shovel the puck in for filthy, ugly goals, he’ll take out a star winger at centre ice and look startled when he gets called for interference, he’ll sulk like a child when he boards someone and lands up in the box for it. But no one awards prizes for pretty goals, and no one takes points away for brutality, and he just keeps racking up the points, until people are murmuring about the Calder a month in, as if that isn’t grossly premature.

  When David has a two-point game, he’s asked afterwards if he saw Lourdes notch four points in a blowout against Toronto. When David lands in the box for the first time, he’s asked if he’s adapting to Lourdes
’ playstyle. Lourdes plays cheap. It’s hard to watch. David doesn’t know why everyone’s crowing about it. A goal’s a goal, maybe, but David refuses to be the sort of player who hacks his way to the Calder. He’d rather sit where he is, and know that at least he doesn’t play the way Jake Lourdes does.

  They host the Panthers on the 19th of November, and the amount of media David faces before the game is absurd. They have a game against the Rangers in two days, a better team, a harder team to face, a divisional rival, and the team’s focused on that, just like they should be, but the media is more interested in the supposed rivalry between Lourdes and Chapman.

  David didn’t realise how much they’d made of their little storyline until every single question that he fields before the game is about Lourdes. How David feels about finally playing Lourdes. How David feels about going second in the draft. How David feels about Lourdes being first again, sprinting past the other rookies in points.

  David says the usual polite nothing Hockey Canada drilled into him, the non-committal, boring responses that no one’s looking for but everyone’s expecting, and then the truth, which sounds as non-committal as everything else: he’s going to play his game, and that doesn’t change just because Lourdes is on the ice.

  The game is a disaster, even though the scoreboard may not say so. Knutsen shows up to play, and it’s a good thing he does, because the rest of the team collapses in front of him. They spend all their time in their own zone or frantically trying to get out of their zone, just to fall back whenever someone on the Panthers nudges it right back in.

  At the end of the second it’s still tied at zero, but the Panthers have 28 shots to their pitiful 10. Coach Bauer rides them like they’re in the middle of a blowout loss, which is what they deserve, as much as they deserve the look on Knutsen’s face, tight jawed and determined. He’s not talking to anyone but his back-up, trying to stay in the zone so he can keep bailing them out.

  David’s sore, took a check — from Lourdes, of course — that’s messed up his shoulder, and he feels tense, tight, furious. He’s taking it personally, maybe because everyone keeps telling him to take it personally.