I think about Mackie sitting on my couch with her laptop open, typing something about the PWHL with the face she makes when she’s writing something she cares about. Going toe-to-toe with her own father about what she wants most in life. About her following me to every city I play in, sitting in suites and stands and being supportive and never getting what she actually wants. How does she even know that this is the life she wants if it’s the only thing she’s ever known? I could swallow her. All of the ambition she has, the person she could be. I don’t think I would do that. Smother her until there was nothing left except a trophy wife and a mother.
He’s still talking.
“Chloe wanted to be a vet. Then she called me and told me she was pregnant while I was on a road trip and everything changed like that.” He snaps his fingers in front of my face and I flinch back.
“You want her like that? You want Mackie like that? You want her twenty-six with a kid on each hip while you’re in another city celebrating after a win. Or in the suite at thirty-five counting down the seasons.”
He breaks off, breathing hard.
“End it with her. Get your head back in this game. You’re not special and you’re letting a fling sink your career. We’d be one game away from a Cup win instead of a loss if it wasn’t for you being an absolute failure to this team.”
I stop breathing for a second before my brain catches up, every moment from the past months flashing like a highlight reel in my head.
Mackie at the arena asking me questions for her journalism class, turning her phone recorder off and saying,that was just for me to know. Laying in my bed and playing truth-or-dare whichwas really just twenty questions. Cheating at mini-golf, grinning at me as she kicked my ball, already planning how she was going to deny it.
Mackie in my driver’s seat, opening it up on a stretch of road with her head back, screaming with laughter and looking like the most alive person I had ever seen. She built me a routine so the anxiety doesn’t eat me alive on game days. She told me I who I could be before I believed it myself. She’s not smotherable. I’d have better luck asking the sun to stop shining than I would asking her to stop being who she is.
“No.”
Jack blinks.
“What?”
“No. I won’t.”
“Almardon–”
“I love her. I love her and I’m not going to stop seeing her. Not tonight. Not for the series. Not after. You want Barrett to pull me? Tell him that. You want the team to trade me? I’ll give you my agent’s number. I’ll give you whatever you want, except that.”
Jack stares at me for a moment as if he can’t believe what I’ve just said, then he pivots and walks to the door. Ripping it open just as Barrett walks through. He shoulder checks him on the way out and Barrett looks around the room. At Brody, now sitting with his mouth open staring at me. Dex, still with his hand on Rodriguez’s arm. Roman, stoic as always, but with an eyebrow raised like he wasn’t expecting what just happened.
Barrett stumbles a half-step and looks back at the door Jack just went through.
“What the fuck.”
Dex stands and rolls his shoulders. “Family meeting, Coach. You missed it.”
Barrett drags his hand down his face. “Please tell me Jack didn’t find out aboutthe bowline.”
“What’s a bowline?” Rodriguez asks.
“It’s a knot,” Dex whispers.
“Why are we talking about knots?”
“We aren’t,” Barrett says. He pinches the bridge of his nose and looks at me. “Almardon. I don’t even know who to be mad at right now. I’ll circle back.”
He walks out and I sit down hard on the bench, running my hands through my hair and blowing out a slow breath.
“So that happened,” Rodriguez says. “You got any more cookies?”
Brody laughs. “‘I’ll give you my agent’s number.’ You just offered him your agent’s number, Z.”
“I was making a point.”
“You made it. The point is very made.”
“For what it’s worth, Almardon, you handled that about as well as a guy can handle getting screamed at in his underwear,” Dex says, picking at the tape on his stick.
