“Reporters don’t watch tape the way you do.”
“No, they don’t.”
His gaze held mine a beat too long. I looked away first.
He didn’t know who I was, and he was looking at me like I was a regular person. That look was the tricky part. I was going to have to tell him soon, before this became a problem I’d have to deal with at work.
My dad continued moving, working the tables, shaking hands, and checking in. But his trajectory was angled in our general direction, and I knew that walk and the route he’dtake. The people he’d stop to talk to. The amount of time each conversation would take.
I had maybe thirty seconds, but I did nothing with them.
Tolrek was still looking at me. I doubted he saw my father approaching, not until my dad’s hand landed on my shoulder.
“I see you’ve met my daughter,” Dad said.
Tolrek’s face didn’t move, and that was the worst part. I didn’t find anger or betrayal or surprise there. He stared at me, and the interest that had been in his eyes a moment ago disappeared so completely I wondered if I’d imagined it.
“Tolrek,” my father said. “Good to have you with us. Haley’s your best resource on tape. She’ll have a package ready for you before the first week of training camp is over.”
“I’m sure she will,” Tolrek said. Such a flat, polite, empty response.
My father moved on.
I remained beside Tolrek.
But he didn’t look at or speak with me again.
CHAPTER TWO
TOLREK
Iarrived at the rink early.
New team. New city where I knew four street names and none of them well. Early meant I could learn the layout without anyone watching me figure out where the bathrooms were or which entrance led to the locker room instead of equipment storage. Small things that mattered when you were trying not to look like you’d just been traded away from the only organization you’d ever known.
The parking lot was empty except for a handful of cars that probably belonged to the coaching staff who also arrived before anyone else to set up the day. The building itself was newer than my last rink, cleaner, with that particular smell new construction kept for the first few years before sweat worked its way into the walls.
I stood outside the main entrance and studied what I could see on the back of the building. Multiple stories, sprawling. Two separate entrances, one marked for players and staff, the other for public access. Loading dock around the side. The ice would be regulation, but every surface had its own personality. Soft spots. Places where the cold didn’t hold as well. I’d learn it the way I learned everything else.
Last night had gone differently than planned. That was all I let myself think about it.
The sound of footsteps on pavement pulled my attention left. Haley came around the corner from the far lot loaded down with enough gear that she should’ve made two trips.
She had an equipment bag over her left shoulder. A laptop bag on the right. Coffee in one hand and a paper bakery bag in the other. She managed it all the way a person did when they’d done it a hundred times and stopped noticing the weight. Her head was down, her attention on not spilling her coffee, and she walked straight into me as if she didn’t see me at all.
The bakery bag slipped.
I caught it. Reflex, the same way I’d position myself between a forward and the net. The bag was light, barely anything, and I was holding it before she’d even registered what happened.
Looking up, she had to tilt her head back to see my face. I was suddenly aware of how small she was. Human-sized. Breakable in ways that had nothing to do with hockey and everything to do with the fact that I could palm her shoulder and my fingers would wrap most of the way around.
She stared at me.
I handed the bag back and she took it.
My hand was steady. Hers wasn’t.
“Good reflexes,” she said.
