“Oh fuck,” Lexi whines, “admitting it out loud is?—”
“Well, considering I went toe to toe with the ex-wife last night,” Kylie says, and I swear this is better than the soap operas my grandmother used to watch. I wait for the next update as if my life depends on it. “And met his parents who, by the way, are assholes.” She takes a sip of the wine and I have so many questions. “So, she literally put her hands on him to stop him from moving. I swear to everything, I was this close,” she puts her thumb and forefinger together, “to fucking throat punching her.”
“The tea is piping hot!” I squeal with glee. “Wait, so she put her hands on him,” I finally ask cocking my hip, “and you were going to throat punch her?”
“Well, not throat punch her, per se,” Kylie admits. “I would never do it with the kids there, but I did use a firm voice.”
“Got it.” I nod. “I don’t know if I would be as mature. I’d be like ‘Bitch, you want a piece of this?’” I puff out my chest like I’m going to chest bump her. “‘You are going to get a piece of this.’”
“And this is why no one is paying for you to go to Europe,” Ariella retorts to me as the girls laugh and I roll my eyes.
The roar of the crowd goes nuts and we know the guys have taken the ice. I smile as the memories of my father skating into the arena when I was younger come back to me. Those were the best nights, and some of my best memories. “I forgot how loud it can get,” I say.
“It gets louder.” Kylie’s voice goes louder. “So what are you doing now that you have graduated?” I see the girls starting to walk out of the suite toward the seats and I have no doubt they are going to stand by the boards. It’s where all the fun things happen before the games. I still remember I had a whole duffel bag of pucks I collected one year, and I used hockey tape to write down who gave them to me. It’s still in my closet at home, in the corner collecting dust. I refuse to throw them out.
“I don’t know yet,” I answer her honestly. “I have a couple of options, but nothing has jumped out at me just yet.”
“What’s your degree in?”
“Marketing,” I reply. “I worked with an ad agency back in Dallas, but it’s not really my thing.”
“Well, what are you looking for?”
“Obviously I’m good at social media,” I tell her and she laughs at me, “but then I love doing market research. Finding out the trends before they happen. Helping create the brand and then driving brand awareness is what I love most about marketing.”
“Well, if you want.” Kylie starts, taking a drink of her wine, “we could use the help with the foundation we are running. You could take over the social media, which has been put on the back burner since I don’t want to do it, and Lexi is too busy doing other stuff. We also were looking at starting an after-school program, which could really be huge if we had the right marketing behind us.”
Lexi comes back without Jagger and walks to us. “This meeting looks like it’s secretive.” She sticks her head in. “What are we talking about?”
“I was offering Victoria the social media job we talked about having someone take over,” Kylie fills her in and Lexi nods her head. “Why don’t you come by the office this week when you are free and we can talk it over?”
I smile at both of them, and I don’t know why I say it, but I do, “I’m pretty much free as a bird.” I shock even myself. “Why don’t we exchange numbers so we can schedule it?”
They share a look that screams excitement. “I can’t wait,” Lexi says. “I think you’ll be perfect for the job.”
I smile at them while my head screams, What the hell are you doing? “I look forward to hearing about it.”
two
Zane
I lace up my skates before I get up and snatch my helmet then walk out to the ice, grabbing my stick along the way. I slide onto the ice, going over to the coaches who are in a huddle at the side.
“Okay, we’re going to get this going,” Martin, the head coach of the LA Warriors, declares. “We will work on the same plays we talked about yesterday.” He looks at the five of us. “You two,” he points to Cam and me, “work with the defense.”
I nod at him, turning and skating toward the other side of the ice. “Defense.” My voice booms out and the defensemen come my way. Jaxon, who is the team captain, is the first one to me.
“What’s up, Coach?” He gives me a chin lift.
I look over at Cam. “You want to lead this?” I ask him because he’s been here longer than I have. He’s also older than me. I mean, at forty years old, I’m the youngest on the coaching staff and everyone likes to remind me of this constantly. They call me the rookie and even though it’s annoying, it just makes me want to do better.
“Nah.” He shakes his head and puts his arms on his stick as he watches me. “You can do it; you’re the young one.” I roll my eyes, waiting for the rest of the defensemen to join us.
“Are we missing anyone?” I ask the group and then look over to see two more guys coming onto the ice and heading toward us. “We don’t have all fucking day,” I snap at them. “When it says practice at ten,” I tell the guys who just showed up, “it means be on the fucking ice at ten.” I see them look down. “Not five after ten.” I shake my head. “Next time, you’ll make the whole squad do suicides for fifteen minutes.”
“Sorry, Coach,” they both say, and I accept it.
We work hard and do the drills that Martin set up. I’m the only coach skating side by side with the defensemen. Pushing them when I think they can do better, playing the puck with them, and frustrating them when they think it’s going to be easy. Jaxon is heaving by the time practice ends and he looks over at me. “Next time, go work with the forward line,” he wheezes between pants. “Knox needs someone to push him.” He motions with his chin toward the forward players, who are all huddled around Martin, and not one of them looks like they are going to vomit.
