Li shoves his friend. “Give it a rest, man. Sometimes, men and women are friends. It doesn’t have to be anything more.”
“I’m not saying itismore,” Larsen protests. “I’m saying, Kane wants it to be, with Coach, which is a recipe to have your ass traded twice in one season. Which would essentially be the death of his old-ass career.”
There are snickers around the room, and I roll my eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I’m old. Got it.”
Volkov stands, only partially undressed. Even without his goalie gear, he’s a huge motherfucker, and now he looks like he wants to pummel every single one of us. “She’s a damn good coach. We all know she’s what our team needs. But she will be gone if they think the fact she’s a woman is distracting toanyof us.” He looks me dead in the eyes. “You weren’t here last season, Kane, but she got interim not because of her last name and who her dad is, like the press says.”
As much as I want to do something, to argue thatI just agreed she was a badass, I don’t. Because this is the first time I’ve heard anything abouthowQueenie got her position. I need to know what the Russian has to say.
“We, as a team, went to White and Peterson and said we wanted Coach Blake. They were going to get someone external, but we said no. That Blake was who we wanted—who weneeded.She had helped every one of us while she was an assistant, and we knew she was the right person for the job. They warned us of the optics. Of a young woman coaching men. We said we didn’t care. She was too good a coach to pass over. And just like they said there would be, there was chaos in the media. A lot of hate.”
He looks around the room, and the players who were on the team last year all nod gravely.
“But not in our fucking house. We did everything she said. She was nothing more than a coach to us.Nothing. We are better because of her as our coach, andno oneis going to fuck that up.”
He looks at me, and I give a subtle dip of my chin.
“Good.” The large Russian sits back down after what is certainly the most words I’ve ever heard him say at one time, maybe in total.
“Yeah, what he said,” Larsen says, already bobbing away from the jab I throw half-heartedly at his chest.
I drop my head into my hands. “I just agreed with Larsen that she’s a badass. I didn’t ask him to officiate our wedding.”
An image pops into my head uninvited, one of Finley walking toward me in a long white dress, her dark hair curling gracefully past her shoulders.
Volkov groans. “No wedding.”
“I saidnota wedding!”
“Leave the old man alone,” J.D. cuts in on my behalf. “He had a hell of a game tonight, and I’m sure he has about an hour’s worth of cooldown still to do. Let the man get home to his…” He trails off, clearly trying to figure out what I have waiting for me at home.
Nothing.
Now that my dance practices with Coach are done, the answer is nothing. And I refuse to acknowledge the sinking sensation that causes behind my rib cage.
“Plants?” he finally asks.
I shake my head, and J.D. lets out a little grumble. “I’m getting you a dog for your birthday. It’s just too sad.”
“So they can spend half their life in doggy daycare?” I ask. “No, thank you.”
I slowly undress, my adrenaline from the game completely gone after the roller coaster Larsen just took me on.
Li is the last one in the locker room with me, and just before he reaches the door to leave, he turns back to look at me like he has finally made up his mind to say something. “Larsen’s an idiot, but he’s not wrong. You can’t treat Coach like you would any other coach, because, to the rest of the world, she’s not. And she’s finally getting the respect she deserves,” he says. “I know you two are just friends, but it doesn’t matter. If people have any reason to think there’s something more, it could mess up her entire career.”
Li and I have slipped into an easy pairing since I joined the team. He’s easy to read and is learning how to trust his gut a little more when he’s on the ice with me. Besides Finley, he’s the closest thing I have to a friend, well, him and Larsen, I guess.
And, based on the way I’ve seen him around Doctor Pearce, I know he’s spent more time thinking about the ramifications of having feelings for a coach than anyone else on this team.
“I’m her partner in the competition,” I remind him. “What would you do?”
Li looks at me, his gaze finding that kernel of something in my soul. The roots of something more that I can’t seem to kill. “I don’t know. But I would do everything in my power to make sure my feelings didn’t fuck things up for her.”
Fuck.
“And maybe don’t dance with her anymore,” Li suggests before walking out the door, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
They didn’t say anything I don’t already know. Thiscan’tbe anything. I just don’t know why it suddenly feels like it already is.
