“I’ll tell you after you give me the line,” she said, totally meaning it too. “And smile.”
We went through it a few times. I forgot my name, butchered rote responses to possible talking points, and when I got tired of feeling like a clown, I started using humor to deflect.
“Save the adlibs for when you’re doing stand-up,” she said, stopping me short. “Or when you’re comfortable enough to hold your own out there.”
I groaned, running a hand through my sweat-damp hair. “You’re relentless.”
“I’m trying to save you from looking like an oaf on national television,” she shot back, but somewhere behind her defenses was the hint of amusement.
I threw myself back into the sofa with a dramatic sigh. “Yeah, okay, fine. You win. But if I die of brain-fry before the flight, it’s on you.”
“You’ll need a brain to fry,” she deadpanned.
I gaped at her, and once I saw her lips curve into a smile, we both started laughing. It struck me. Not that she could chill out like an actual human, but that she looked so good doing it. Comfortable now, natural, and the contrast between the professional Holly I knew and this easy version was… something else.
“Don’t get distracted,” she said with some amusement, and I realized I’d been staring. “Focus. Let’s run it again.”
I raised my hands in surrender. “Yes, ma’am.”
We went through the lines again. And again. I stumbled over a punchline. She corrected me. I mispronounced a name. She corrected me again. Exhaustion was setting in—my shoulders sagging, my brain fuzzy—but there was a rhythm developing. A pattern of playful tension and soft reprimand, laughter between corrections, her smirk softening when I threw a particularly bad inflection back at her for fun.
“Eyes forward,” she said, tapping that ever-present tablet. “And smile. This isn’t amateur hour.”
I shook my head, laughing, rubbing my eyes. “More like exhaustion-hour.”
She didn’t smile outright, but there was the faintest lift of the corner of her lips. “Keep your focus. We’re almost there.”
I believed her, and settled into another go-around. Minutesstretched. We recycled the same lines, the same phrases. Each repetition loosened something between us. The friction softened into a rhythm that felt collaborative, instead of combative.
I watched her move around the room, gathering notes, sliding her tablet from hand to hand, adjusting her posture, kicking off her socks. She crossed and uncrossed her arms, leaned over the couch, untucked the edge of her shirt slightly. The line of her bra peeked again, subtle but noticeable. It shouldn’t have mattered. But it did.
“You’re ridiculously meticulous,” I said in a mix of fatigue and admiration, raiding the minibar to distract myself from that damn bra under her shirt.
“Meticulous keeps you from making a fool of yourself,” she said lightly, without looking up. “Now again.”
I stifled a yawn, and cracked a bottle of whiskey. “Okay, but try not to look like you’re enjoying this so much.”
She glanced at me then, the smallest flicker of amusement in her eyes. “I don’t enjoy seeing you flail. I enjoy seeing you get it right.”
I groaned, but couldn’t deny that here in this small hotel room, Holly was becoming more than the force controlling my every move off the ice. She was someone I could end up tolerating.
We worked through the last round of lines, her corrections precise but not cruel. What’s more, her patience seemed endless. And maybe it was the tiredness setting in, but she even managed to crack a few jokes.
“Okay,” I said finally. “I think we’ve officially beaten this into my skull.”
I was three bottles in, and the burn of whiskey had settled into my chest. It left me feeling loose, and my eyelids heavier than ever. Not drunk, just soft around the edges. Pleasantly unfocused.
And more than a little out of my depth with Holly hovering over me with her tablet and the next instruction.
The tension that had built all day shifted into something lighter,something easy in the back of my mind, as if the game, the club incident, the endless travel, all of it could wait for a few minutes.
I plopped back onto the edge of her bed, bottles discarded, and let her direct me through the next round of lines.
“Eyes forward,” she said. “And remember why you’re doing this. Focus on the reason you play the game.”
Her words caught me in a way I hadn’t expected. Not just the line about the interview, but the reminder that there was a purpose behind all this. My mind drifted away from hockey and interviews for a second.
“I haven’t thought about my dad in years,” I murmured. More to the bed than her. And when I looked up, expecting her to course correct me back to total focus, the look on her face made my heart stutter.
