"This is it." I'm out of the truck before she can respond. Need distance. Need air. Not her scent.
She follows me to the side door, those bare feet now shoved into sneakers she didn't bother to tie. Her ponytail swings with each step. I watch the way her ass moves under that hoodie and remind myself that I'm thirty-two years old and not a teenager who can't control himself.
Doesn't help.
I unlock the door and flip on the lights.
The rink sprawls out before us. Empty bleachers. Fresh ice. Banner from our championship hanging crooked because nobody's fixed it since Martinez graduated.
"Wow." Jessica steps past me onto the rubber matting. Her head tilts back, taking it all in. The fluorescent lights catch the curve of her throat. I want to put my mouth there. Want to feel her pulse jump under my lips.
"Equipment room's this way."
I walk. Don't wait to see if she follows. I know she does. Can hear her footsteps. Can smell her scent trailing behind me like a promise.
The equipment room is chaos. Sticks piled in corners. Helmets scattered across shelves. Skates in bins that haven't been sorted since last season.
"I need inventory." I grab a clipboard off the wall and shove it at her. "What's broken. What needs replacing. Everything documented."
She takes the clipboard. Our fingers brush. Heat shoots up my arm and straight to my groin.
Her breath catches. She felt it too.
I step back. Put space between us.
"Practice starts at seven. Team arrives in forty minutes."
"Got it." She's already scanning the room, that sharp brain of hers clicking into gear. I can almost see her sorting everything into mental categories. "Helmets first?"
"Your call."
"My call?" She looks at me, surprised.
"You're running this. I'm coaching. Two different jobs."
Something shifts in her expression. The uncertainty fades. Her shoulders straighten.
"Okay." She pulls a pen from somewhere—the hoodie pocket, maybe—and starts writing. "I'll have preliminary numbers by practice."
I nod and get out of there before I do something stupid. Like tell her she's magnificent when she's focused. Like admit that watching her take charge does things to me that have no business happening at six in the morning.
The team arrives in waves.
Connor first, because the kid has no concept of fashionably late. Then Tyler and Marcus together, shoving each other through the door. Danny Wheeler last, dragging his bag like it weighs more than he does.
Seventeen boys. Ages fourteen to eighteen. Loud as hell and twice as obnoxious.
I love every one of them.
"Morning, Coach!"
"Practice in twenty. Gear up."
They scatter toward the locker room. I head to my office to grab the practice plan, and that's when I hear it.
Laughter.
Not teenage boy laughter. Something warmer. Softer.
