His lip turns up in a smirk, gaze moving between the two of us. “Wilder played in the NHL for ten years. Boston for a handful of them. The guys on the team say he’s alegend. The GOAT, as they like to say.”
I fight back the urge to scoff.
A legend who’s been let go from his team because he’s a “liability.”
I’m a fuckingliability.
Ten years in the NHL, ten years of sacrifice, three Stanleys, rookie of the year… all to be summed up and dismissed as a goddamn liability.
Fuck that, and fuck them.
It’s simple. They turned their back on someone who gave his entire goddamn life to their franchise. It was more than just a slap in the face. It was them pissing on my grave after trying to bury me six feet under.
I was never a liability when they used my volatile temper and my aggression to their advantage. I only became a liability when they could no longer control it.
Maisie’s eyes drag to mine, not that mine ever left, and she chews on the inside of her cheek. “I don’t follow hockey, so I wouldn’t know. Sorry.”
So she’s either lying, or maybe she had no clue who I was that night, but it still doesn’t change the shit storm we’ve found ourselves in.
“Well, I guess you do now,” Coach muses, shoving his hands in the pockets of his pants, offering her a wink. “I have full confidence that Coach Hawthorne is going to take care of you, and if you need anything, you know where to find me. Wilder?” he says to me with a nod. “I’ll leave you both to it.”
My throat feels tight, too tight to even speak, but somehow, I push out the words “Yep. Thanks, Coach.”
I swallow thickly as her eyes find mine again, as we stand there in heavy silence that might suffocate us both.
What the fuck am I supposed to say?
How am I supposed to handle this?
She shifts from one foot to the other, and I force myself to keep my gaze on her face, not dip any lower at the tight little dress she’s wearing. The fabric that molds to her waist. The little fucking bow that’s tied at her chest.
I clear my throat. “Let’s talk in my office.”
The things I need to say aren’t something I can say to her out here, surrounded by my players and the coaching staff that would immediately rescind the position they just gave to me if they found out just howwellI knew her.
“Sure,” she says when I trail off, nodding. “Uh, yeah, that would be great. Thank you.”
Neither of us says a word as we walk, her uncomfortably following behind me.
I don’t trust myself to say anything right now, not when I feel like I’m going to lose my goddamn head and the entire arena has a front-row seat to the shit show.
The ice I’m skating on is already too thin.
Maisie brushes past me as I stand in the doorway to my office. It sounds formal and stuffy as fuck to say that I even have an office, something I’m still not used to despite being here for a few weeks now.
The last thing I ever thought I’d end up is the guy who sits at a desk and pushes paperwork, who’s coaching these kids whose parents probably paid for them to be here. Trading in my jersey for a fucking whistle and a clipboard after the career I’ve had feels like the worst form of humiliation I could face.
Coaching at my alma mater in a city I swore I wouldneverfucking return to. A place that has haunted me since I was a child.
But per usual, the hand that I’m dealt is the shittiest in the deck.
I can’t ignore the sweet smell of vanilla that surrounds me as she passes, a scent that has my pulse pounding and my dick stirring in my pants as my body recalls the last time I was this close to her.
But I push it down, letting my anger that’s been simmering beneath the surface rise, boiling over.
Flattening my palm against the door, I roughly slam it shut and turn to Maisie. “What the fuck?” I grind out. “Tell me the truth, did you know who I was? Don’t lie to me the way you did with Taylor. I want the fucking truth.”
“Are youserious?” she says, whipping around to glare at me as I rake a hand down my face, then back up through my hair, trying to keep my shit under control. “Of course I didn’t know. How dare you accuse me of lying?”
