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Kent wants to vomit. Kent wants to vomit because there’s absolutely nothing certain about him going in the first round, let alone going second. Kent wants to vomit because he hasn’t spoken to Jack in about three days and he hasn’t seen either of Jack’s parents. Kent does vomit but he thinks that’s because of the chicken he had eaten the night before.
Despite clear signs of food poisoning, Kent knows that he needs to eat or he’ll probably pass out during the draft so he follows his parents and sister tiredly to a nearby restaurant where they sit in the middle of the room, surrounded by French-speaking Canadians waiting for their lunch to be served.
Virginia keeps hitting his hand to get him to stop tapping his fingers against the table but it only stops him for a minute or two before he starts again.
“Are people talking about us?” she asks and Kent nods.
“They’re talking about me.”
“Yeah?” She looks around discretely, trying to read facial expressions. “What are they saying?”
“Hockey stuff,” he answers vaguely because he doesn’t really understand. What he does understand is that they know who he is and why he’s in Montreal but he can’t work out what their opinions are. His French isn’t as good as it should be because he’s always relied on Jack to lead the conversation and translate when he’s had to. Kent’s really good at understanding his coach’s French but beyond that he’s easily lost.
Halfway through their meal, Kent’s phone starts to vibrate in his pocket. His hand moves to it instantly and he’s standing up and leaving before his mother even has the opportunity to scold his lack of manners. He’s outside the restaurant before he looks down at his still vibrating phone. The name on the screen doesn’t say ‘Jack Zimms’ like he was expecting, in fact it doesn’t have a name at all – just a long string of numbers Kent doesn’t recognise.
“Yo,” he answers with a disheartened sigh. “This is Parse.”
“Parson, this is Gary Bettman. Are you free to talk?”
Kent has met Bettman before but Bettman has no business calling Kent for anything. Kent is 18 for eight more days and isn’t even in the NHL yet – there is literally no reason. That’s why panic runs through his veins and the want to vomit returns.
He tries to play it cool.
“As long as you aren’t about to ban me from the NHL.”
There is a slight pause before Bettman asks, seriously and sternly. “Is there any reason I should ban you from the NHL?”
“No, sir,” Kent answers hastily. He straightens his posture instinctively, as though Bettman were standing behind him and judging his every movement.
“Of course not. Are you able to come speak to me?”
“Right now?”
“As soon as you can, yes.”
“Okay, um, yeah, I’ll meet you in the hotel lobby in like ten minutes?”
Bettman hangs up with a simple, “See you then,” and Kent stands in spot for what feels like hours as he tries to come up with all the possible reasons that the NHL Commissioner wants to speak to him. He comes up with nothing.
He shoots Jack a text – Bettman wants 2 speak 2 me fml – before heading back inside to tell his family that he has to leave. His mother isn’t happy and his dad isn’t impressed either but Virginia distracts them long enough so that he can slip off.
Kent’s brain is working faster than it has since the Memorial Cup and that, combined with walking in the heat, has him sweating grossly through his shirt – if he wasn’t meeting Bettman he’d run up to his room and change but he doesn’t want to piss off the Commissioner before he has even begun.
Bettman is standing off to the side, waiting for Kent, which is a sure sign that this isn’t a casual meeting. Kent moves slowly, hoping that whatever is about to happen won’t if he takes too long. It’s made even worse when Bettman leads him off to a private room off of the lobby and Kent really begins to think he can’t believe.
“Are you alright there, son?” Bettman asks, his hand coming down tentatively on Kent’s shoulder. “You don’t even know what I’m going to say yet.”
“I just know that it’s going to be bad and, like, I haven’t spoken to Jack in for-fucking-ever and you might be about to give me a reason for that and I don’t even know if I want one because if I ignore it maybe it’ll just blow over and nothing will be wrong and-”
“Okay,” Bettman says, his hand squeezing Kent’s shoulder, cutting Kent’s train-of-thought short. “It is about Jack but only from last night, so I don’t know what’s been happening in the past few days.”
Kent, despite already being out of breath from his run-on sentence, can’t force himself to take a breath, he just stares at Bettman and waits for the punch line. The one that comes is dark and the farthest thing from funny Kent thinks he has ever heard.
“Jack overdosed last night.”
“No,” Kent says with a disbelieving shake of his head. “No fucking way. You’re lying.”
“His parents found him in the bathroom of the hotel room. He’s – he’s okay, he’s in the hospital.”
Kent’s head continues to shake. “‘Okay’? How can he be ‘okay’ if he tried to kill himself?”
“Kent, son, we don’t know if it was intentional or not. Until he tells us himself we are assuming that it was accidental and that he took a few too many anxiety pills to prepare himself for tonight’s draft.”
Kent goes silent and he breathes in slowly and deeply. Anxiety pills. “Jack never said anything,” he says slowly, looking to Bettman in search of answers. “Nothing. I need – I’m going to go.”
Bettman doesn’t release his shoulder, though. “Jack’s not going to go into the draft this year. You need to know that and you need to know that that means you’re almost guaranteed to go number one in his place.”
Kent knows that he shouldn’t want it but the hurt and confusion in his veins is being replaced by anger so loud and vile that he thinks Good. I fucking deserve it.
To: Jack Zimms
How fucking dare u do this 2 me
Weve been best friends 4 years n u never said anything
I fucking loved you
How fucking could you
Kent’s name gets called by the President of the Las Vegas Aces. He doesn’t stop smiling and he doesn’t feel bad about it.