It’s a life in motion.
Carefully, I slip out of bed and pull on my jeans, grabbing my shirt from the floor and heading toward the kitchen. The windows are open, letting in cool air that smells like pine and damp earth. The kind of air that tells you winter has finally given up.
Coffee first. Always.
The kitchen is small but efficient. There’s a calendar on the fridge, crowded with handwritten notes and color-coded blocks—lodge bookings, youth hockey events, school deadlines, reminders I recognize instantly as the kind that come from managing everything yourself.
I pour a cup and lean against the counter, staring out the window at the yard. There are a couple of chairs pushed to one side like someone meant to sit in them later.
She’s built something here. And I know she can do so much more.
I open the notebook I brought with me—not because I planned to work, but because the ideas won’t leave me alone.
I don’t sketch anything fancy. Just rough notes. Possibilities.
Small summer clinics.
Youth development weekends.
Off-season conditioning that doesn’t feel like punishment.
A place players can come without cameras or expectations.
A place that feels like this.
“You’re up.”
I turn to find Gina in the doorway, wearing an oversized T-shirt and leggings, hair pulled into a messy knot that looks suspiciously like she didn’t fight it very hard. She looks softer this morning. Less guarded.
“Old habit,” I say. “Hope it’s okay.”
She nods, stepping farther into the kitchen. “Scottie went back to sleep. Miracles do happen.”
I smile. “I didn’t wake her, did I?”
“No.” She pours herself coffee, glancing at the notebook. “Are you working?”
“Thinking,” I correct again.
She peers at the page, reading upside down. “That looks like work.”
“Occupational hazard.”
She huffs a quiet laugh and sits across from me. The sunlight hits her face just right, and for a second I forget what I was going to say.
“You didn’t have to stay last night,” she says, not accusatory. Just stating a fact.
“I know.”
“And you didn’t have to bring your job into my kitchen.”
“I know that too.”
She waits.
I take a breath. “I’m not trying to turn your life into something it’s not.”
“I know,” she says slowly.
