“Everything okay?” Mari asked.
“Yeah,” I lied, eyes still fixed on the other side of the room. “Everything’s fine.”
Mari kept talking, lips shaping words I didn’t catch. She laughed, touched my arm, traced the ink curling at my wrist. Every move rehearsed. Every cue as familiar as a face-off circle.
I knew the next steps by heart—lean in, match her rhythm, let the night slide into something physical and easy. That was the play. That always had been the play.
She was exactly my type. Sharp. Confident. The kind of woman who’d leave before sunrise and not expect breakfast. I should’ve been using the charm I’d sharpened over decades of bad decisions. Take her home, forget everything, drown the noise in skin and heat.
That was what should’ve been happening.
But Billie’s laugh snagged in my brain like a stick on bad ice. The memory cut through the noise, hot and cold all at once. I saw her in flashes—the way she’d cursed when her skate lace snapped during practice, the stubborn set of her jaw when I pushed her too hard.
One night. A mistake. That was all it was. It should’ve dissolved like spilled beer on this floor. Instead, it clung to me, breathing down my neck.
Mari leaned closer, breath brushing my ear. “You’re somewhere else, Coach.”
She wasn’t wrong. My pulse had gone uneven, my stomach twisted up in something that didn’t make sense. Billie Donovan was twenty-something, fierce, probably already halfway home. So why the hell did it feel like she still had a fist around my throat?
I forced a grin that didn’t reach my eyes. “Long week,” I murmured.
The lie tasted like metal.
I looked past Mari again, across the bar. Billie’s seat was empty now. Empty, yet the space hummed like she’d only just stepped away.
The crowd thinned enough for me to see her again. She was by the jukebox now, back half-turned, hood off, cheeks still flushed from the game. A guy had materialised beside her—too clean, too confident, plastic smile already in place. College haircut, Crestwood jacket, the kind who thought women came standard with gratitude.
He leaned in, said something I couldn’t catch. She hesitated, then lifted her drink in thanks. Polite smile. The mask.
I knew that smile. Hell, I'd worn the same one for cameras.
He pointed toward the small patch of floor somebody had declared a dance zone. The song was too slow for the room, allsyrup and yearning. His hand brushed her elbow, lingered when she tried to step aside.
Something in my chest went tight.
Billie laughed softly, the way people do when they’re trapped but don’t want to make a scene. He misread it, took half a step closer, voice low and confident.
I couldn’t hear the words, but I could read the body language fluently—weight shift, angled shoulder, the defensive tilt of her chin. She wasn’t enjoying herself. She was surviving the moment.
Don’t make trouble, don’t embarrass anyone, just smile until it’s over.
That look gutted me.
She’d done everything right tonight—played her guts out, lifted her team, even managed to exist in the same room as me without flinching. And now she was cornered by some frat-polished asshole who thought persistence passed for charm.
My hand locked around the glass until the ice squeaked against it. Mari’s voice blurred beside me, something flirtatious, maybe a question, maybe my name. I didn’t catch a word.
All I could hear was the hum in my skull whispering one word—Mine.
Not like ownership. More like a claim carved in bone before I knew it existed. Stupid. Dangerous. Real.
The guy leaned closer to Billie, tried to touch her shoulder again. She sidestepped, smile flat, eyes darting toward the door. My pulse picked up like the start of a fight. The muscle in my jaw twitched. Fists half-formed. Every instinct wanted me on my skates again, closing distance, throwing someone off balance.
I stayed put. Forced the glass to my mouth and swallowed the last of the whiskey until it burned slow. A reminder that I was still in charge of something—if only my throat.
The stool creaked under me. Mari said my name again, softer, testing. I gave her a nod that wasn’t an answer and set the empty glass down hard enough to rattle.
Control was a funny thing; you thought you had it until the wrong song played and memory started skating circles in your chest.
