“You did well at practice today.”
“I’m excited to be part of the program.”
I raise an eyebrow, daring him to keep lying to me. “Is that so?”
“The Yeti have a lot of potential.”
“You were traded from the number-four-ranked team to one that is having trouble finding its footing after the season has already started,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest. “I might not have played professional hockey, but I’ve been around long enough to know that, unless you hated your old situation for some reason—in which case there would’ve been feelers out there that we would’ve run into when we started looking for a veteran defenseman—you arenotpleased about a mid-season trade. Don’t bullshit me, Kane, we have a culture of accountability here.”
“Fine,” he replies, crossing his arms and widening his legs, a mirror of my stance. “Even though I knew it was possible to be traded mid-season, I never thought it would happen to me. I, like every other professional athlete, have enough of an ego to think I was far too critical to the Cyclones to be so easily removed. It’s not the best feeling knowing that I was wrong—that I wasn’t needed. But I’m here now, so I’m planning to make the best of the opportunity.”
He holds my gaze, something most of the younger players avoid. I’ve been told the icy blue of my eyes—the one that is so close in color to Yeti blue—can be intense. Though I’m pretty sure it’s because the guys don’t know how to turn off their inherent need to flirt with anything that isn’t an asexual blob, so they make the wise decision not to look at me.
“Good.” I tap his chest once before quickly pulling away. Fuck. “Because youareneeded here.”
He nods once, his hand moving to rub the spot where I poked him.
“Now, go read your damn PR brief, like you were supposed to before you met with those reporters. I want you in my office at three to talk about your role on this team and what, exactly, it is that I need from you.”
“You’ve got it, Coach,” he answers, still standing there as I turn to walk away. “But for the record, I read every single thing they gave me. I just don’t agree with the strategy. I’m playing for you. I’d mention the coaching staff in that answer onanyother team. I’m not going to change that because you’re a woman.”
My heart skips a beat at the sincerity behind his words. I truly believe Beckett Kane doesn’t see this as anything other than him playing for a new coach. Unfortunately for him, he’s wrong. The club has paid a lot of money for a marketing team—one that specializes in the psychology of change—to figure out the best way to pull professional hockey into a new era.
And that way is to control the narrative. Control the optics. Control everything.
It works out well since I’mverygood at control.
“I’m not asking you to change it because I’m a woman, Kane. I’m telling you to change it because I’m your fucking coach. Now, don’t you have a meeting with the team doc to get to?”
I sigh. Why must the men in my life make everything harder?
Chapter 5
Beckett
“I’mnotexactlyworriedabout that hip flexor,” the doctor says, clicking on the tablet as he scans through the files the Cyclones sent over. “But it does seem like your range of motion isn’t what it should be.”
“I get by just fine,” I reply, not lying, but not telling the whole truth, either. Over-the-counter pain pills may be my best friend, but I’m a thirty-four-year-old hockey player. It’s a price I’d gladly pay for the ability to keep playing the game.
Doctor Lowell gives me an appraising stare, one I meet with a slight glower of my own. “I’ve been working with professional athletes for almost as long as you’ve been alive, Kane. You can bluster and bullshit me all you want, but I’ve learned you lot are the least reliable patients in the world—and I have to tell you, basically everyone lies to their doctors.”
I nod toward the screens on the walls, the ones showing my data from all the sensors and monitors I’ve been hooked up to since I got here. “A lot harder to lie when you know how manybreaths I took in the last twenty-four hours because my stats are lighting up your walls like a stalker’s wet dream.”
Doc lets out a chuckle. “The team does love data. I’m not sure what Dr. Pearce does with it all, but she comes up with some pretty amazing results from her models. I know you’re new around here, but you’ll see soon. We’ve got young players, and not everything can be solved through data analytics, but the Yeti are on the cutting edge, and it’s going to start paying off here in a year or two.”
NowthatI can get behind. I don’t know that I feel one way or the other about all the monitoring—Li made a pretty sound argument for it this morning when he noticed I had biometric monitors taped to various parts of my body—but I’ll take whatever help I can get to make sure I can still play the next couple of years.
When I was out on the ice with my new team, I saw the potential the doc is talking about. With the way they’realmostwhere they need to be to be great. And I’m going to be there with them. Holding the Cup over my head while wearing that C patch on my jersey.
Doc looks through my records one more time before turning his stare back to me. “You sure you don’t have any pain you want to tell me about?”
“I’m sure.”
“Because you don’t have any, or because you don’t want to tell me about it?” he asks, sitting on the stool next to the bench I’m on.
I decide to be at least a little bit honest with him. “I’m thirty-four and a professional hockey player, Doc. Thirty-four-year-olds have pain. But you saw my routine. I’m prepared to manage it, and it’s not going to slow me down on the ice.”
I walk out of Doc’s office a few minutes later, moving past the PT tables and into the weight room, where the rest of thedefensemen and a few of the forwards are getting their workouts in for the day.
