I swallowed past the lump in my throat.
Mom didn’t need to know I’d been thinking about a certain coach’s hands on my hips, or that he pressed me against a hotel room door and kissed me. Then, less than a day later, he gut-punched me with a curb scene that snuffed out every warm, fuzzy thought I’d foolishly carried home with me.
“Are you okay?” Mom glanced over, her brow furrowed.
“I’m fine.” The answer came out on instinct. The same password I’d used since my teens, and just like back then, it wasn’t true.
“You’ve always been good at keeping it together, Mel.”
And I had to keep it that way,I thought prayerfully.
At home, I mumbled something about being tired and went straight to my room. I stopped unpacking halfway, kicked off my shoes, and collapsed onto the bed. I needed quiet, with a side of invisibility.
My phone buzzed, probably a team update. I turned it face down.
Late afternoon, a knock came on the door.
“Mel?” Sam’s voice ran out, tentative. She slipped inside and shut the door behind her. “Tell me everything about Alberta, minus the hurricane I see went through here,” she teased. “So, was it still cold?”
I gazed at her. “Hey.”
Her grin faded. She gave me a once-over with knit brows. “Are you okay? You looked like someone hit pause and forgot to hit play again.”
I let out a soft huff, half a laugh and half an exhale. “I’m tired, and allergic to chitchat right now.”
Sam dropped her tote and backpack by the bed and sat beside me. “I’m the antihistamine for that allergy.”
I didn’t answer, which for Sam was the same as ‘keep probing, starting with head-to-toe exams.’
“What happened?” she asked again, softer this time. Then she lowered her voice to a whisper. “Is it the luxury SUV guy?”
My annoyance grew. “Can’t a woman have a bad day without it being about a man?”
“Actually, no,” she said, dead serious. “Estrogen plus androgen is a universal emotional hangover. It’s science.”
I smiled and instantly felt a pang of how much I’d miss her when she left in a few weeks. She would be in the white coat for real, and both of our lives would shift. Was everything going to change all at once? Including my ability to avoid eye contact with my now potentially complicated boss?
“So, what happened?”
I told her about Sean, carefully avoiding who he was and his name.
“Damn,” she muttered when I finished. “Still…you can’t jump to conclusions based on one family-looking drop-off. A Tahoe West guy, a colleague, wouldn’t cross a line like that. Right?”
I stared at the ceiling. I didn’t realize it could stink this much seeing him looking at someone else the next day as if I were a background extra.
“No, he wouldn’t,” I said finally, trying to convince myself of that.
Monday passed in full avoidance mode, which, let’s be honest, was exactly what I needed. The second week of adminorientation gave me a built-in excuse to stay off the rink and far from Sean Murphy’s line of sight.
I kept myself busy.
I caught up with Paxton in the hallway, hoodie rumpled, and eyes fogged with sleep. He’d missed two lifts, so we sketched out a weekly schedule on the back of a nutrition flyer. The structure helped; he said so himself.
Sergei updated me on his new apartment. I flagged it in the housing file and followed up with the relocation coordinator. There had been no mystery smells this time, and the shower didn’t sound like a jet engine.
In the lounge, hunting for a snack, I found Porter, quieter than usual, staring at the vending machine. We talked. Reena, his fiancée, had been amazing, he said, but he felt as if he was juggling flaming skates trying to keep up. I listened. It was a tough life, but by his stats on my graph, he was killing it. I offered to try a mental performance coach, but he didn’t promise anything.
Catching up with players on their performance goals gave me a sense of accomplishment. I was doing something that actually mattered for them and the team.
