"Anytime, kid. That's what old men are for—dispensing wisdom nobody asked for and complaining about our backs. Just wait till you hit forty and 'getting lucky' means finding your car in the parking lot without using the panic button.
We both chuckle and as he leaves, I head for the ice bath, steeling myself for the shock of cold that never gets easier no matter how many times I do it. I think I once heard someone say pain is just weakness leaving the body.
I take a deep breath and step in, letting the ice close around me, shocking my system into full alertness. Maybe that's what I need in life, too—a wake-up call, a new challenge, something that forces me to be more than I've been.
I close my eyes and dip my head under, embracing the burn of freezing water that is literally breathtaking. Growth through discomfort. The story of my career. Maybe it's time to make it the story of my life, too.
Chapter 3
Reese
The Monday teacher workday should be my chance to catch up on grading and prep for the Blades visit, but instead, I'm procrastinating at Hill of Beans, my favorite coffee shop, hunched over student portfolios with a pen cap between my teeth. The place pulses with its usual mid-morning crowd—remote workers with their laptops, college students cramming, and a handful of other teachers I recognize with the same desperate look in their eyes. Two weeks until parent-teacher conferences, and I'm already drowning in documentation.
I take a sip of my rapidly cooling coffee and grimace. Too bitter. I head to the cream and sugar station, mentally rehearsing what I'll say when the hockey players visit. Should I be professional and academic? Casual and friendly? Every scenario I imagine ends with me saying something mortifyingly inane or tripping over my own feet.
My phone buzzes.
Elena:How’s your "research" coming?
I snort and drop my phone back into my pocket. After our dinner Friday night, she's been relentless with the hockey player teasing. I'm not about to admit I spent Saturday night watching YouTube videos of the Blades’ post game interviews playing myown version of “Shoot, shag or marry." It’s been so long since I’ve had any steamy action, every one of them wound up on either the shag or marry list.
"Focus, Reese," I mutter to myself, splashing cream into my coffee and watching it swirl. "They're just guys who happen to play a sport professionally. No need to get weird about it."
I stir in sugar, fixated on the dissolving crystals, running through tomorrow's playful math centers in my head. I need to finalize the counting games and finish the colorful charts for our number line?—
I turn, take two steps with my head down, and suddenly, I feel the world shift into slow motion; I can see the approaching figure, but my body's pre-coffee reflexes lag, and before I can stop—bam!
The impact knocks me off-balance. My coffee launches between us like a caffeinated missile. There's a split second—this perfect, suspended moment—where I watch the liquid arc through the air before gravity remembers its job.
Then chaos.
Hot coffee splashes across my white blouse, speckling it with what looks like what might be another hippo. More of it drenches the front of a dark blue sweater that's stretched across a broad chest. I stare straight into the chest in question, which is wide and apparently immune to the laws of physics because it didn’t budge.
"Oh my god," I gasp, horrified. "I'm so sorry, I wasn't looking?—"
"Whoa there," a deep voice says, hands steadying my shoulders. "You okay?"
I look up—way up—into eyes that shift between green and amber, framed by thick dark brows. A strong jaw with just the right amount of stubble. A mouth that's quirked in amusement rather than annoyance.
And I stop breathing, because I know that face.
Logan McCoy. Captain of the Chicago Blades. In the flesh.
Standing right in front of me, covered in my coffee.
The thin white fabric of my shirt has gone transparent where the coffee hit, clinging to my skin and revealing the outline of my bra. Perfect. Just perfect.
"I'm so sorry," I stammer, crossing my arms over my chest. "I should have been watching where I was going."
"Well, I gotta confess I saw you coming and didn’t move." He hands me the napkins in his hand. "Though, this is a new one. Usually fans just ask for autographs."
Is he... joking with me? I crouch beside him, wiping up the mess on the floor, adrenaline making my hands shake.
"I'm not—I mean, I know who you are, but I wasn't—" I stop, take a breath, and try again. "I'm actually a teacher. At Parkside Elementary."
His eyes light with recognition. "No kidding. The reading program?"
I nod, surprised. "You know about that?"
