I leaned against the desk, hands gripping the edge until my knuckles whitened. “This can’t happen again,” I finally said. “No talk, no looks, nothing outside the ice. If someone finds out?—”
“No one will,” she cut in, voice flat. “You were a mistake. I don’t repeat mistakes.”
I almost smiled, but it wasn’t humor—it was recognition. She threw my own language back at me, the kind that came from the rink, from losing too often and learning to survive, anyway.
“Good,” I said. “Then we’re done.”
But I didn’t move. Neither did she.
For a second, the space shrank between us, charged with the memory of what I wasn’t supposed to remember—the warmth of her skin against mine, the sound of her laugh before she shut herself off. My chest tightened. I forced myself upright and looked away, breaking the line she’d drawn too perfect to touch.
She exhaled, a sound more tired than angry. “You think I don’t get it. You’ve been through the media grinder, the league—the system that crushes people like us before it asks why. I know exactly what’s at stake.”
Her voice softened, disappointment sneaking in behind the steel. “But don’t twist what that night was into something ugly just so you can live with it.”
I met her eyes again, slower this time. “You don’t know what I have to live with.”
Her mouth curved, not quite a smile. “Maybe not. But you don’t get to decide what it meant for me.”
The silence turned heavier, layered with too much truth.
She leaned forward, shoulders uncoiling, the fight draining into something steadier.
“I came here to play hockey. Nothing else matters. You don’t have to talk to me unless it’s about drills or ice time. I don’t want special treatment. I don’t want silence. I just want the shot I’ve earned.”
Her voice carried no tremor, no plea—just clean conviction. I’d spent twenty years reading people for weakness, waiting for the crack that gave me an edge. She didn’t have one. That same fire I’d watched on the ice burned here too, steady and unapologetic. No wobble. No game.
I felt it hit somewhere behind my ribs. Damn it, I believed her.
For a few seconds, nothing moved. The hum of the rink’s compressors filled the room, low and constant, like they were listening too. I tried to picture her as just a player—stick, stride, stat sheet—but my mind replayed light sliding across her collarbone. The memory cut sharp and uninvited.
I swallowed hard enough to feel it scrape. Nodded once.
“Fine. Then this never happened.”
Her jaw flexed, almost a smile but not quite. She straightened, tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Good. Glad we’re clear.”
She turned toward the door, hand already on the handle. “You’ll get your clean slate, Coach. Consider it done.”
The door creaked open, light spilling into the narrow office. She didn’t look back before leaving, only squared her shoulders like a soldier walking onto the ice again. The heavy rubber soles of her sneakers left soft marks on the tile. For a second, she slowed—just a breath—then pulled the handle and stepped out into the noise of the hallway.
The door shut.
I stood where she left me, listening to the echo of her footsteps fade into the hallway. The air still smelled faintly like her shampoo—mint and something sharp under it. I hated that I noticed.
I straightened the clipboard on the desk just to keep my hands busy. Professional. Distant. Nothing happened. That was the story I had to tell.
Only problem was—I’d already believed her more than I believed myself.
I dragged a hand down my face. The room smelled like cold metal and the faint citrus of her shampoo. I wanted to open the window, let the air bite some sense back into me, but I stood there instead, fists pressed to the desk.
Never happened.
Right.
Out on the ice earlier, I’d watched her weave through two defenders and bury the puck top shelf like she owned gravity. The announcers would’ve called it instinct. I knew better—it was hunger. Same look she gave me just now.
I shouldn’t have been proud. I was supposed to be detached, the professional disaster management hire. Yet that same fierce light that made me lose sense of my age, my career, my rules—that light was hers. And it was the best damn thing I’d seen on skates in years.
