My eyebrows lift.
“So what the hell is he doing here? Don’t tell me he just loves the vibe. Or the weather. Or the distinct lack of professional heat protocols.”
“Family stuff.” Coach’s mouth twists. “His mom got sick during senior year, and he came home to take care of her. He never left again.”
He shrugs, but it’s heavy; the motion doesn’t quite sit right on his frame.
“Some people say he blew his shot, but Beau? He’ll tell you this is exactly where he’s meant to be.”
I glance over at him again, where he’s still projecting all the emotional availability of a brick wall. His alpha scent is dampened by pain and ice, but it’s still there; dark and stubborn at the edge of the room.
“A guy who gives up the NHL for a little place like Iron Lake?” I murmur. “That’s not just hometown loyalty. That’s borderline martyrdom.”
“Nowthat’sBeau,” Coach huffs. “Loyal to a fault, and stubborn enough to drive a snowplow uphill just to prove it can be done.”
I try not to frown as I watch Beau shift slightly in his seat. He winces, but continues to sit in silence as if pain is a thing he owes someone.
As though this is just what alphas do: absorb, endure, and shut up.
“How bad is it?” I ask.
“Dislocated shoulder, possible rotator cuff tear. We were just waiting on the MRI to confirm. But he’s pushing himself harder than he should—pretending he’s fine, like that’ll make it true.” Coach leans back, arms crossed. “Which is exactly why we called you.”
I blink.
“I thought I was replacing your strength coach.”
“You are,” he says, then adds, “but Beau needs someone who knows what they’re doing, and who won’t back down when he inevitably tries to take over his own rehab and drive it straight into a wall.”
“So, basically… you need someone who can out-stubborn a six-foot-something glacier with a martyr complex, an alpha ego, and a god-tier pain tolerance?”
Coach cracks a smile, dry and knowing.
“That’s one way to put it.”
I exhale through my nose, watching Beau’s profile. That carved-from-granite jaw, the rigid set of his shoulders, the way he hasn’t looked over even once… He’s the kind of patient that comes wrapped in warning labels.
The golden boy who can’t stand to be sidelined.
“Sounds like a fun challenge,” I say finally, even as my body screams for a nap—and maybe a life where I don’t keep taking on broken things like I can fix them.
Coach raises an eyebrow. “You up for it?”
I wrap both hands around my mug, letting the heat bleed into my fingers.
“I’ve worked with worse,” I say, though I’m not so sure it’s the truth. “At least this one doesn’t seem like the type to hit on his therapist.”
“Probably not. Well: unless you show up on the ice holding a pair of skates and a six-pack,” Coach snorts.
“Noted,” I say. “Guess we’ll find out.”
Before Coach can respond to that, Bev reappears in the way only women who’ve run small-town diners and entire lives can manage: sliding a plate full of food right in front of me without so much as a word of warning.
“There,” she says. “You look like you could use some starch, and a little hope.”
I blink at the plate. It’s filled with pancakes the size of snow tires, scrambled eggs, hash browns so golden they look cursed, and two strips of bacon arranged in a slightly deranged smiley face.
It’s nearly five p.m., but apparently Iron Lake operates on the sacred rule that breakfast is a feeling, not a time slot.
