He exhales slowly, like he’s letting out steam.
“Here’s the thing, Reid,” he says. “Nothing about what Rylan said surprises me. He’s been riding the line since September. Mouth always going. I’ve been waiting for it to catch up to him.” He leans forward, elbows on the desk. “What surprises me isyou.”
I hold his gaze. “Yes, Coach.”
“You’re supposed to be the anchor,” he says quietly. “The one who doesn’t bite first. I told you to stay away from her because all I had in front of me was damage and your hands around someone’s throat.”
He scrubs a hand over his face, the first crack in the iron control. “Then I get the rest of the story, and suddenly it’s not so simple.”
My pulse spikes. “Coach—”
He holds up a hand. “You don’t get a free pass because your motives were better than I thought. You still crossed a line. You still put your hands on a teammate. You still lied by omission.”
The words land like hits I deserve.
“But,” he adds, voice dropping, “I’m not going to turn you into a monster for protecting my kid.”
The wordmonsterhas teeth. Hearing him push it away from me instead of into me feels wrong in my ears. My father would weaponize it. Beatrice would romanticize it. Coach just… refuses it. For the first time all week, someone in charge looks at the whole picture and doesn’t decide I’m only the worst thing I’ve done.
His eyes sharpen. “You hear me?”
“Yes, Coach,” I say, hoarse.
“I am not happy,” he says. “I am not impressed. But I am… clear.” He grimaces, like the word tastes wrong. “Rylan is scratched indefinitely. He’s off my ice until I decide otherwise. You are back at practice starting today. You’ll dress for Saturday if I like what I see.”
Relief and guilt slam into each other hard enough to make me dizzy.
“You benched me,” I say. “You sure that sits okay with Admin?”
“Admin wanted your head,” he says bluntly. “I told them I’d deal with it internally. They don’t know about Talia. They don’t get to. That’s between you, me, and the four people who already heard too much.”
He leans in, eyes hard. “You ever lay a hand on my daughter, I end you. You know that.”
A flash of the dorm doorway hits me—my arm braced above her head, our mouths a breath apart. The heat of her skin. The scent of peppermint. The agonizing pull to cross the line.
If he knew how close I already came, this conversation would be a whole different kind of ending.
“Yes, Coach.”
“But I also know,” he says, “that if she were stuck in a dark parking lot with the wrong guy, you’d be the one I’d trust to get her out of it.”
The breath goes out of me in a sharp, silent exhale. That’s more trust than my own father’s given me in twenty-two years. More faith than Beatrice’s ever offered me that wasn’t wrapped in ownership.
“She was at Genny’s Saturday night,” he adds, almost conversationally. “We grabbed lunch yesterday. She mentioned it. Said she left late.” His gaze needles into me. “Anything I should know?”
Guilt hits me like a physical blow.
The truck. Her hand on my sleeve. The way I waited for her like a predator in the cold. The way I told myself I was protecting her while knowing damn well I just wanted to be near her.
I look him in the eye and lie to the only man who’s treated me like a human being all year.
“I was in the lot,” I say. “Happened to be in the area. I made sure she got to the door before I left.”
It’s close enough to the truth to pass, but it omits the most damning part: she was in the cab with me.
His jaw ticks. He doesn’t look surprised. “Of course you did.”
He studies me for another long beat. “Here’s where we are, Reid. I know you’re wound tight. I know your old man’s on you. You’ve been playing with a live wire wrapped around your neck since August. I should’ve seen it sooner.”
