Would I get fired? Actually the question was would I be fired now, or when it became clear that the team had no interest in my ability to train them. Tears clouded my vision. I collapsed down on the sofa and put my head in my hands.
My phone dinged. My shoulders stiffened. Was the team’s owner firing me via text? I brushed away the tears and reluctantly reached for my phone. Seeing the message was from Eng I swiped to open it, expecting a demand to come over to his place for sex.
Eng: Ugwyll will not tell anyone. He is an honorable orc and I trust his word.
I checked the header again because this was not at all the text I expected fromEng. Instead of an invitation for sex, he was reassuring me that the orc who’d walked in on our kiss would keep the secret. That meant he hadn’t just shrugged the incident off or swaggered away to bask in his virility. Instead he’d confronted Ugwyll and extracted a promise to keep silent.
I stared at the message, absolutely conflicted. Then another text from him appeared on the screen.
Eng: I am not sorry for kissing you. I will never be sorry for kissing you. But I apologize for doing something that could have put your job at risk. Ugwyll will say nothing, and he knows you were not at fault. Anyone who implies otherwise will find my hockey stick rammed up their ass.
My heart filled and the tears in my eyes now were for a very different reason. This was something my friends, my familywould do. This was the action of someone who had my back, who put me first, who actually cared about my feelings and my dreams. This was the Eng I’d fallen in love with the week before he’d left town for the away games. This was the Eng I still was in love with. And I was terrified that this Eng was just an illusion.
My mind warred with my emotions. He’d not called or texted me when he was away. He hadn’t even known my name. He’d sauntered back after two weeks of silence and expected to pick up right where we’d left off. This could be some performative manipulation to get back into my bed, to reel me in then let me go under his own terms.
Or this could be the real Eng, pulling the curtain aside a little more to reveal the orc under the arrogant and cocky prince. It couldn’t have been easy for him to ask Ugwyll not to say anything about witnessing our kiss. He would have had to give the other orc some context, some background about our past, and that would have been painfully difficult for the private Eng so concerned about his image. He’d kept the axe-throwing target. He’d sent me a picture of his terrible failure at making French toast. Rather than propping up a wall and scowling, he’d participated today and worked as hard as all the other members of the team. And when I was upset, when I’d feared my job was on the line, he’d stepped in and done everything he could to make things right.
There was so much I wanted to say, but so much I was afraid to say. So in the end my reply was only two words.
Willa: Thank you.
I spentthe rest of the afternoon organizing my notes from the morning’s session and drafting up individual development plans for each orc based on their current position and the areas where I saw that improvement was needed. I wouldn’t be able to formalize these until I met with the new coach on Wednesday, but I thought it would be good to go in with a proposed plan and my initial evaluation. Then I tweaked the team workouts for the rest of the week, put it all aside and went for my own workout. The day flew by and I barely had time to pick up cannoli at the bakery before they were closed. I arrived home to find the entire contents of a florist shop at my door.
I liked flowers, but good grief there were a dozen different arrangements blocking my entrance and half the hallway. Long stem roses. Colorful bouquets of daisies and lilies. Several potted plants. It took me a while to get them all inside, and even longer to find the small card tucked into the leaves of a Monstera.
I didn’t know which you would like best, so I bought them all. I hope they brighten your day. Eng.
That night as I threw together a stir fry of leftover chicken breast, green beans and onions, I got another text from Eng.
This one was a video of him making his own dinner. It was a Hot Pocket—a ham and cheese Hot Pocket. Eng carefully read the directions out loud, then complained over the lack of markings to tell him what wattage his microwave was. The Hot Pocket dinner was more of a success then the soggy French toast, but the video still had me laughing over Eng’s running commentary and comparisons of the microwaved food to the meat and cheese pastries he’d enjoyed back home. At the end he declared it “edible, but just barely,” and said that he hoped my dinner was better.
That was it. Just a funny video that warmed me down to my toes.
The next morning I was up before dawn and at the arena by five thirty. Only three orcs had arrived that early, and one of them was Eng.
He smiled, greeted me politely, and grinned when I handed him his cannoli. He ate it right there, teasing the other orcs that they would need to step up their game if they wanted to beat him in his mission to winallthe prizes. The whole time I was setting up for today’s training, I watched him out of the corner of my eye. The Eng who stood in a corner and refused to participate or interact was gone. He still was arrogant and cocky, but the way he joked around with the other members of the team was new. Before he’d been an orc counting down the minutes until he could leave and return home. Now he seemed relaxed, as if he enjoyed being here in this human world, as if he was truly part of the team.
We began our workout with an outdoor run led by Ozar as I drove ahead to meet them at certain points for sprint laps, stairs, or balance exercises. When we returned to the gym we did tire flips, and quick direction-change drills. Today’s cannoli competition involved a pattern of deadlifts and bench presses. It was close, but Ugwyll edged out Ozar and Eng in the end, winning the pastry. Instead of anger or shrugging off the contest as if it didn’t matter, Eng congratulated Ugwyll and informed him that he would not win tomorrow.
“Before we finish for today, I’ve got a surprise exercise for you,” I told the team. “Get on your skates and grab your sticks, and meet me on the ice in ten.”
When the orcs came out of the locker room and onto the ice, I was once again surprised to see Eng. He was skating slowly and still hovering near the walls, but as I called them to the center, he made his way with the other orcs.
“This here is a cat toy.” I held up a three-inch mechanical mouse. “It’s fast and it changes directions without any warning.Your mission is to tap it with your stick.Tapit. Not send it flying into the stands or smash it into a million pieces. This is the only one I’ve got so be gentle. Each time you tap it, you get a point.”
The exercise wasn’t about puck control. I wanted the team to get used to making the quick directional changes we’d been practicing this morning on the ice instead of on solid ground.
I tried really hard to keep a straight face. The orcs chasing around after the mouse, sliding and falling on the ice as they tried to navigate turns and spins was downright hysterical. After a few minutes, the orcs were the ones who began to laugh. Suddenly I saw them as they were in their homeland—smart, with an easy sense of humor. Right in front of my eyes, I saw the orcs began to act as a team, shouting directions to each other as they all tried to lay a stick on the toy. Every time one succeeded, they all cheered and gave exuberant shoulder bumps.
I didn’t have to tally up the points. By the time I called the game, they knew exactly how many taps on the mouse each of them had gotten, and they congratulated Bwat just as much as they teased him for being their unexpected, breakout winner.
This time none of them stayed back as they headed for the locker room. I was no longer a human female to flirt with or propose to, or even get jealous over. I was their trainer, and they were a hockey team.
And that made me insanely happy.
34
ENG
