Across the bench, Kira groaned. “I give it a week before someone complains to administration.”
Auri smirked weakly. “Good. Maybe then we’ll get a coach who doesn’t think we’re prepping for the Olympics.”
I looked down at my hands, red from lacing, calloused in all the right places. “I hope he doesn’t.”
The room fell quiet for a beat, enough for my words to settle. Someone muttered, “Figures,” but I didn’t care.
If Calder Shaw thought he could break us, he’d learn I was built for drills that felt like war.
Whatever this was, I’d survive it—every whistle, every glare—until he had no choice but to see me the same way I saw myself.
Chapter 8
Calder
The door slammed behind me hard enough to rattle the frame. The office still smelled like stale sweat from drills and the ghost of my own bad decisions. I threw the whistle on the desk, clipboard clattering beside it, paper curling at the corners from rink humidity.
“Goddamn,” I muttered, sinking into the chair that felt too new, too clean for someone like me.
I dropped my head into my hands. My scalp still prickled with leftover cold. I raked my fingers through my hair until they caught at the roots.
“What the fuck are you doing, Shaw?"
The question echoed against the walls. No answer came back.
This was insane.
I’d been through enough wreckage to know trouble when it stared me in the face—and she had those exact eyes. Trouble, wrapped up in focus and a stride too sharp for college hockey. Of all the rinks in Michigan, of all the damn jobs Gideon could’ve thrown me,shehad to be here.
What were the chances?
My jaw clenched. A number skated through my head—none. That was what the odds were. None. But fate didn’t care aboutmath. It just shoved you into collisions and waited to see if you’d get up.
She hadn’t looked at me once after practice. Not even when I barked at her. Kept her chin high, blades cutting like she was slicing the ice for blood. Maybe that was better. Maybe ignoring it made it real professional.
Or maybe she was already planning to use it.
The thought punched a hole right through my chest. I’d earned every headline—“enforcer loses control,” “suspension for assault,” “anger issues.” The league didn’t need one more story about Calder Shaw sleeping his way into another disaster.
I squeezed the bridge of my nose. Didn’t matter how careful I played it, something this bad could end me faster than any right hook.
And still—still I cared.
It hadn’t been just a night. I told myself it was, walking out of that bar with her, but the moment she looked at me like shesawsomething worth touching, the story changed. I felt it. The way she didn’t flinch, didn’t feed me lines. It was like breathing after months underwater.
Now it’s a goddamn time bomb. Tick. Tick. Tick. Waiting to blow the only scrap of career I’ve got left.
I should file it, contain it, whatever HR term they used now. Pretend it never happened, treat her like any player. Keep distance, stay quiet, and maybe the earth wouldn’t crack open beneath us.
Control the situation before it controlled me. Handle it like a professional, not a punchline.
I looked at the clipboard, names scribbled in my writing. Her name stared back—Donovan, B. Forward. Fast. Aggressive. Smart. The kind of player a team could build around, if the coach didn’t burn it all down first.
I leaned back, spine creaking.
Yeah. Handle it. Before scandal number fifty-eight made the rounds.
She came out of the locker room in clean sweats, hair still damp, mouth curved around a laugh she didn’t sound like she believed in. The sound hit me harder than it should have—it was too normal. Too sweet for everything twisted between us.
