Poe sat licking his front paw, his yellow eyes not revealing a hint of guilt. He paused with his paw in midair as if to say,“What? It wasn’t me who just smacked you in the face a minute ago?”before resuming his morning grooming routine.
I pulled myself out of bed, the sheer discipline of a decade in professional hockey giving me the push I needed to get my ass in gear.
I set my sights on the kitchen to get the furry black overlord fed and off my back.
“Come on, buddy. Let’s get your breakfast. Since you waited so patiently.”
The sarcasm in my last few words was lost on Poe. But he knew our routine well, so with a disgruntledmeow, he raced ahead of me to our new kitchen.
I needed to get last night out of my head if I was going to have a chance in hell at pretending like I knew what I was doing in this assistant coaching job.
Spoiler alert: I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.
It’d been more than a decade since I was on this side of the clipboard, not having coached in any real capacity since working at some local hockey clinics in Niagara Falls when I was a teen.
Second spoiler alert: there wasn’t a single goddamn piece of paper attached to the clipboard I hugged to my chest.
I stood beside Zane as he took stock of the twenty-nine players currently skating the warmup he’d had us all show up for at flipping 8:00 a.m. The rest of the teams in the league had practices that were mid-morning—a.k.a. they were humanely scheduled.
“If we’re just going to watch them skate in circles, why the hell couldn’t we have done that at ten? You know, like every other damn hockey team on the continent?” I muttered at Zane out of the side of my mouth.
I kept my voice barely above a whisper. Just because I’d woken up with a paw in my face, and hadn’t had a chance to gulp down enough coffee to face the fact that I had no idea what I was doing, didn’t mean I wanted to undermine my best friend and his head coach status.
Zane had gone from a career-ending knee injury to head coach of one of the most promising AHL teams in under two years.
Could you have made something like this happen for yourself if you were in Zane’s position?
My shoulder twinged with that uncomfortable thought. I gave it a quick roll to attempt to loosen the tight muscles that felt tighter each day.
“I saw that,” Zane chuckled, eyes locked on the ice in front of us. “Shoulder not as ‘ready to go’ as you’ve been telling the trainers and medical staff at the Titans?”
“You didn’t see a fucking thing,” I snapped, my frustration letting my volume get the better of me. “You didn’t even look in this direction.”
“Just because my knee is fucking shot doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with my peripheral vision,” he countered.
“Can we just get back to why the hell we’re here at the crack of dawn watching grown men skate aimlessly around the rink? Is there going to be some coaching happening at some point, or can I go back across the street and nap until you’ve got a plan?”
My tone had an aggravated edge that had nothing to do with Zane’s coaching and everything to do with him zeroing in on my shoulder pain.
“Someone’s crabby as fuck. I’d forgotten about your grumpy-as-fuck attitude before eleven a.m. Maybe I should get you out on the ice with the guys. You know, skate off some of that old man ‘get off my lawn’ energy.” Zane let out a sharp whistle.
He rotated on his skates so that he was half-facing me and brought his hand up to my shoulder to give it a squeeze.
“Serious, Ace. You okay to do this?”
He kept his hand where it was as he focused his gaze on mine.
I rolled my good shoulder to dislodge his hand.
“I’mfine. I already said that. I just can’t standstandinghere and doing nothing.” I held his gaze as I dropped my voice. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t take it out on you. I’m just on edge with everything. And feeling out of my depth here, if I’m honest.”
I reached up behind my head with my non-injured arm to rub my neck, no longer making eye contact with Zane.
“Ash, listen,” he started. My stare flew back to his face when he used my first name. I couldn’t remember the last timehe’d done that. He’d always used “Ace” in a teasing tone when addressing me.
“I’ll tell you a secret. Most of us. . .” He raised a hand and gestured to the entirety of the space around us. “Haven’t got a fucking clue what we’re doing. You’ve become so good at the captain thing with the Titans that you’ve forgotten how to be shit at something. Well, here’s your chance. All you can do is channel those great coaches we had over the years and try to emulate them.”
Something warm settled in my chest at his reassurance. I’d forgotten how good it was to be part of a team with Zane. He was the perfect mix of humor and knowledge of the game. And it appeared coaching was now part of his repertoire.
