"You sound more like a general manager than a marketing director."
"I understand hockey. That's my job."
He pushes off the equipment rack, his posture shifting from casual dismissal to sharp attention. His eyes narrow, tracing the line of my jaw as if he's seeing me for the first time. The weight of his focus lands on my sternum, and my pulse stumbles.
"Most suits I deal with," he says, his voice lower now, "couldn't tell a forecheck from a face-off."
"I'm not most suits."
He leans in—not to intimidate, but to close the distance. His height, his heat, the subtle scent of soap and something sharper wrap around me like a net. There's a pale scar alonghis forearm I hadn't noticed before, and now I can't look away.
"Fine," he murmurs. "I'll do the training."
The tension in my chest loosens, sudden and disorienting—my lungs remember how to work again. But before I can exhale, he adds, "But I'm only doing it with you. No one else."
My breath catches. It's not a concession. It's a provocation.
"That's not how this works. We have a whole media relations team—"
"Then I guess we don't have a deal."
He starts to brush past me, and I don't move. We're close enough now that I can count the gold flecks in his irises, feel the heat radiating from his skin. This is exactly the kind of proximity Coach Kowalski warned me about. The kind of dynamic that gets staff reassigned, demoted—erased.
"Why?" I manage, voice tight.
A smile—barely a curve—ghosts across his mouth. "Because you actually get it. Most people in your position don't." He clears his throat, the sound rough in the quiet aisle. For a moment, his gaze darts away, down the row of equipment, before locking back on mine. The easy arrogance is gone, replaced by something more focused. More real.
Then he moves past me. His shoulder brushes mine—intentional, unhurried—and the contact ignites something low in my spine, crawling up vertebra by vertebra. I catch another hint of his scent, something that makes my pulse stutter.
"Looking forward to it," he tosses over his shoulder, leaving me standing alone in the narrow aisle.
3
Garrett
The leather of the steering wheel is warm under my hands, sun-heated from sitting in the arena garage for the past ten minutes. I haven’t turned the radio on. The engine clicks softly as it cools, the only sound beneath the low hum of fluorescent lights overhead.
She had invited me to a meeting called "Media Synergy & Brand Strategy Session." Corporate for: “Fix your attitude, or we’ll find someone who will.” The phrase makes my jaw clench—but not because of the threat. I’ve faced worse pressure than a marketing exec trying to polish my public image for sponsor money.
What gnaws at me is how she handled it.
Sloane McKenzie didn’t lead with buzzwords or fake charm. No tight smile, no shallow flattery. She walked straight into my territory and called me out. Told me, point-blank, what my behavior was costing the team. Told me why it mattered—to the locker room, the franchise, the bottom line.
Twelve million dollars. Northstar Bank cares. Your teammates are carrying your weight every time they step in front of a camera. The depth players who make your stats look so good.
She did her homework. Knew the figures, understood the dynamics. Most suits focus on the star players and have noclue how important the rest of the guys who fill out the roster are, but Sloane? She gets it.
She’s not most suits.
I shift into drive and pull out of the garage, muscle memory guiding me through the familiar streets toward home. The city's quiet at this hour—past rush hour, before the dinner crowd. Just the way I like it.
The thing that's really grinding at me isn't that she was right about the media stuff. It's that she didn't flinch. Not when I crowded her space in that narrow equipment room aisle. Not when I used every inch of my size to intimidate. She just tilted her chin up, looked me in the eye, and dismantled my argument piece by piece.
Made me feel like a rookie again. Getting read the riot act by a coach who actually gives a damn.
My phone buzzes on the center console.
Lucas Martinez
