I never should have agreed to move into the brownstone. The player-coach relationship the two of us have been forced into will be hard enough. I’ve spent the better part of a decade fighting this impossible crush. And for the past four years, I’ve put in extra effort. Even if my marriage has always been a farce, I tried for Avery. Giving up on Adeline and the future I thought we’d have almost killed me though.
And now I’ll see her almost daily and travel with her weekly. We’ll have to go over tape and work out together. There was a time when being on the ice with her felt like foreplay. Nothing, and I mean not a goddamn thing, has ever gotten me as hard as Adeline running drills with me. For years, she was my favorite distraction. Always the best player on the ice. Her tenacity and determination and her goddamn grit made her that way. She refused to give up. Refused to cut corners. Ignored the voices—and there were many—telling her that she didn’t belong out there with us guys.
She’s the reason I’m the best goalie in the NHL. The reason I won the Calder Trophy my rookie year and the Vezina the last two years.
If Adeline had signed with an NHL team, I’d bet anything that those awards would have been hers.
She’s better than any of us. I’m lucky that she’s back on the ice with me.
But between that and living with her, every moment of my life is about to be torture. A fucking disaster.
When my phone buzzes, I welcome the distraction, turning toward the window as I unlock it.
Tabitha: I told you I needed time. Tell your attorney to stop harassing me.
I can’t help the scoff that flies from my lips at my future ex-wife’s demands.
Wife. Fuck, I hate that the woman ever held that title. That she still does. I guarantee the only reason she’s holding on to it is because of the prenup. The one that states that if we stay married for five years, she walks away with a million dollars—and if we divorce before then, she doesn’t get a dime.
My parents are stupidly rich, so by default, I’m stupidly rich. Not one of us was delusional enough to believe Tabitha actually loved me. She was a puck bunny and she didn’t even try to hide it. But I never would have thought that she wouldn’t love her daughter either.
That’s the part that kills me. Avery deserves the world. And that’s why I’m putting myself through this torture with Adeline. It’s why I moved into the brownstone. My little girl deserves a family, and I’ve done a shit job providing that. So long as I play hockey, my schedule is intense and the planning is out of my hands.
With Tabitha disappearing completely two weeks ago, I’m in a bind. Though it’s loosened a bit since Beckett Langfield swooped in and saved the day. Just like he did all those years ago when he brought me into his home at a time when I needed the support.
“Everything okay?”
I give a jerky nod, my phone squeezed tight in my hand.
“You sure?”Her voice is soft. So familiar and yet so foreign these days.
I refuse to let it comfort me. She’s only being nice to me because of Tabitha. Since Avery was born and Tabitha became a true fixture in mylife, Adeline has kept a professional distance from me. I’d do well to remember that and keep a healthy distance from her too.
“I’m fine.”
There was a time that she would immediately know I was lying. When she wouldn’t have allowed it. I have no idea if she believes me now because I no longer know her and she definitely doesn’t know me. We aren’t best friends anymore.
Hell, we aren’t friends at all.
She’s my coach and my roommate and nothing more.
THREE
ADDIE
“You coming?”
“Yeah,” I say to JJ, frozen in front of the door to the arena. “Go get changed. I’ll see you out on the ice.”
He lets out a light laugh like it’s really clicking for him, like it is for me, that I’m his coach. That I don’t need to head to the locker room. That today is the beginning of a new era. “See ya out there.”
I don’t watch him step inside. Instead I focus on the words above the door.
Bolts Arena.
My cheeks grow warm and my chest expands. I did it. I’m really here.
“Big day.”
