Page 48 of Her Coach

I straightened up. Adjusted the bag. Pushed my glasses up my nose.

This was a lunch. In a hockey arena. With my mother’s head coach. And I was here to gather information.

Sure I was.

Then I walked in and started setting up the food on his desk before he could see me hesitate.

20

COLTON

The food was already on my desk by the time I finished changing my shirt.

Texas Roadhouse. Takeout bags, everything still steaming. She’d set it out like she knew what she was doing: peppercorn sauce on the side, loaded sweet potato in its own container, the kind of setup that said she’d done this before, thought about it, cared about the details. I stood in the doorway for a second longer than I meant to.

“You could’ve just said where you wanted to go,” I said.

She looked up from rooting around in one of the bags. “I had a craving. Also I panicked a little.” She held up a container of extra butter. “Do you want this? I wasn’t sure.”

“Yeah.”

“Great, me too.” She set it between us like she’d just solved something.

I pulled my office door mostly closed and sat down across from her. She’d pushed some of my paperwork aside to make room, which should’ve annoyed me. It didn’t.

She handed me a fork and didn’t make a thing of it.

We ate for a while without talking much, which was something I hadn’t done with a woman in longer than I wanted to think about. Most dinners I’d sat through in the last few years were performances — careful conversation, someone always managing the impression they were making. Brynn just ate her food. She made a small sound when she tried the steak, closed her eyes for exactly one second, then went back to cutting.

“Good?” I asked.

“Obscene,” she said.

I got us drinks from the stadium stand — root beer for her, the same for me once I tasted hers, and when I came back she’d kicked one foot up onto the edge of the chair like she’d been sitting in my office for years.

“Your mom get settled this morning?” I asked.

“Mhm. She’s got back-to-back calls until two, so.” She stabbed a piece of roasted vegetable. “You’ve got a few hours before she comes looking for anyone.”

“I wasn’t worried about that.”

She glanced up. “No?”

“No.”

She held my look for a beat, then went back to her food. There was something careful in the way she did that, not shy, just deliberate. Like she was deciding something.

“You watched practice this morning,” I said.

“I did.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“I know.” She took a pull of her root beer through the straw. “Jett’s faster than he looks when he’s not showing off. I don’t think he knows that about himself yet.”

I looked at her. “You clock that just from watching?”

She shrugged. “My dad played for the Vipers back when they were still minor league. When he retired from playing he moved into coaching, and Mom bought the team so he could keep doing what he loved. I’ve been watching hockey since before I could read.” A pause. “I know what good looks like when it’s trying too hard to prove it.”