He looked up briefly. “No crunching. If it crunched, we’d have a problem.”
“Good to know.”
He nodded once and reached for an ultrasound wand. “Hold still.”
As he worked, the door opened and Coach Kinkaid stepped in, followed by the rest of the team in increments. I returned greetings as they all arrived. Coach gave Cinder a short nod.
“Doc?”
I'd heard Cinder correct Coach a few times by insisting he wasn't a doctor, but he gave up when he realized Coach referred to everyone on the medical team as "Doc."
“Minor contusion,” Cinder replied. “I’ll send the report.”
Kinkaid grunted approval and dimmed the lights, pulling up the clips.I braced myself for the breakdown, the lecture, the disappointment. It would be hard in front of everyone. Instead, he clicked to the moment of my mistake, paused it, and didn’t speak for a good ten seconds.
“You were on fire,” he said finally. I glanced at him, distracted by his choice of words, and I didn't know what to say.
"Hell, yeah," Max responded approvingly, and I blinked in shock. I'd expected them to all lay the loss at my door.
Kinkaid wasn’t done. “When you’re focused, Armstrong, you burn steady. Controlled. Useful.” He tapped the screen. “At the game, you were burning everything in sight.”
My throat tightened. He couldn’t know. It was impossible. “I’m fine,” I said quietly.
Kinkaid gave mea long, assessing look—the kind a man gives when he already knows he’s being lied to but won’t call it out directly. “Everyone’s got something they’re fighting,” he murmured. “Some things swallow a man whole if he faces it alone.”
Cinder stepped back at that moment, placing the ultrasound wand down with a soft click, but his eyes stayed on me—sharp, perceptive, not afraid.
Kinkaid went on, still studying my face like he was sorting puzzle pieces.
“You play better when you’re anchored,” he said. “Whatever you’ve got in your life that steadies you? Keep it. Hold onto it.” He looked around the room. "That goes for all of you."
Phoenix’s face hit me so hard I nearly stopped breathing, and the murmurs of the team fell away. We watched the full video debrief, then the players moved to leave. Coach came over just as I was going to do the same.
“Armstrong?” Kinkaid said, tone dropping so none of the others heard him. “Your father’s influence only goes as far as I let it. The sponsors…that’s politics. I don’t care for politics.”
I gaped.
Kinkaid continued, “I coach the man in front of me. Not the man someone else is trying to control.”
My heart thudded.
The message was clear. He knewsomething. Not what. Not how much. But enough to know I wasn’t just a hotheaded player spiraling from a bad hit.
And he wasn’t going to throw me to the wolves.
Cinder handed me a neatly wrapped ice pack. “Fifteen minutes on, fifteen off,” he said. “Don’t skip it.” His quiet confidence settled me more than the ice ever could.
Kinkaid clicked off the screen. “Get some rest, Armstrong. And whatever’s going on?”A meaningful pause. “You’re not alone in this locker room.”
I swallowed hard. “Thank you, Coach.”
I walked out with the ice pack pressed to my ribs…and Phoenix’s warmth pressed somewhere much deeper.
I barely cleared the hallway before I saw him. Evan Marks—all sharp suit, sharper smile, and that self-satisfied gleam he always got when he thought he was about to gift me something I didn’t know I desperately needed.
“Cole,” he said, stepping away from the wall like a vulture leaving its perch. “Perfect timing.”
“I’m not in the mood, Evan. We lost.”
