“Not good enough,” he called.
My stick slammed against the ice before I could stop it. The crack echoed up into the rafters. The noise made him pause but not soften. He skated toward me, gliding with a masculine grace I almost hated him for.
“You want to break something, Donovan?”
“Already did,” I shot back. “My legs, three drills ago.”
He stopped a few feet away, close enough that I could see the scar along his jaw, the same one I’d almost traced with my fingers. His eyes stayed fixed on mine, unreadable, but the line of his mouth twitched—like he wanted to bite back more words than he could afford.
“Again.”
My gloves creaked around the stick. “You’ve got a full team out here, Coach. Maybe try breaking someone else.”
“None of them can handle it.”
The rink went silent. Even the scraping skates behind me stopped. His voice carried, low and rough, sliding through the chill straight under my skin.
He meant it as discipline; I knew. A challenge. But the words hit like something else entirely.
I shoved the puck forward and skated another line. Harder. Faster. The edges of my blades screamed across the ice. I fired. Hit the net clean enough to rattle it.
“Again,” he said.
“Get someone else.”
“Again.”
We stared at each other across the space between us—the ice shining like a wound neither of us could close.
My breath came hard, lips stingingly cold. “You punishing me, Coach?”
His jaw flexed. “I’m making sure you remember what you’re here for.”
I took in the distance between us; the heat fighting through the cold, the eyes of half the team burning holes in the back of my neck.
And still, my hands tightened around the stick. “Oh, I remember,” I muttered.
Then I skated off the line and hit the drill again, daring him to call me out one more time.
The puck ricocheted off the goalpost and slid past my skate. Another miss. Another whistle.
Calder’s voice cut through the ice. “You losing focus, Donovan?”
My chest heaved. Sweat stung my eyes even though the rink air was freezing. “You want me to draw blood before you’re satisfied?”
He ignored the jab, tossed another puck toward me like it offended him. “Again.”
I stared at the puck instead of him. Every muscle in my body thrummed with anger. He’d spent the whole hour riding me hard enough to humiliate me, and every girl on this sheet knew it. Even Reese had stopped smirking.
“Maybe if you spent less time trying to skate me into the ice and more time coaching,” I shouted, my voice cracking through the cold, “the team would actually improve.”
The words echoed, sharp and clean. Sticks froze midair. The rink went still except for my breath.
Calder turned, slow. “You want to test me, Donovan?” His tone dropped so low it scraped something inside me.
“No,” I said, boots biting into the ice as I squared to him. “I want you to stop taking out your guilt on me.”
A few gasps slipped from the line behind me. Reese mouthedholy shit.
