Chapter ten #3
What? That my coach was interested in me? That a man in his fifties with decades of experience and a reputation to protect would risk everything for some twenty-three-year-old nobody who couldn’t even trust his own instincts on the ice?
I was an idiot.
Worse than an idiot—I was the same idiot I’d been with Antoine.
The same desperate kid who mistook self-interest for caring, who built castles out of scraps and then acted surprised when they collapsed.
Antoine wanted to control a threat. Theron wanted a better team.
Neither instance was about what I wanted.
I picked up my mug from the windowsill and took a drink even though the coffee had gone lukewarm.
My hands were shaking slightly, which pissed me off more than anything else.
I didn’t get to be upset about this. I didn’t get to feel rejected or humiliated or whatever this burning thing in my chest was, because nothing had actually happened.
Kincaid had stopped it before it became something.
He’d been the adult in the room, the professional, the one who understood boundaries even when I apparently didn’t.
It wasn’t fair comparing him to Antoine.
Theron was trying to help me become a better player.
Antoine just wanted to make sure I didn’t become better than him.
I set the mug down harder than I meant to. It made a sharp sound against the counter that echoed in the small space.
The apartment felt smaller than it had five minutes ago. The walls closer. The lack of anything personal suddenly glaring, like even my living space knew I wasn’t worth investing in, wasn’t worth the effort of making it feel like home.
I thought about calling Marco. Thought about calling my ma, hearing her voice, letting her tell me everything would be okay in that way mothers had of making you believe it even when you knew better.
But what would I say? That I’d tried to kiss my coach? That I’d misread every signal and made a complete ass of myself? That I was apparently incapable of maintaining professional boundaries or learning from past mistakes?
No. I wasn’t calling anyone.
I grabbed my bag, pulled out my phone, and stared at the screen for a long moment. No messages. No missed calls. Just the time—4:47 PM.
I should shower. Should eat something. Should do all the things that Cinder had told me to do to manage the concussion and the ribs and the general damage I’d accumulated over the last week.
Instead, I sat down on the edge of my unmade bed and stared at the wall.
Antoine had made me feel worthless by design—systematically undermining my confidence, rewriting my instincts, turning me into someone who second-guessed every decision until I couldn’t trust myself at all.
That had been deliberate. Calculated. Part of whatever game he’d been playing that I still didn’t fully understand.
The two months on the bench had compounded it.
This was different. This was me doing it to myself.
I’d built something in my head that didn’t exist. I’d taken professional concern and a few kind gestures and the fact that he’d stayed with me when I had a concussion—which was literally his job as my coach—and I’d turned it into evidence of something more.
Something that justified leaning in, closing that distance, trying to kiss him like I had any right to.
The humiliation was physical. I could feel it in my chest, hot and tight, mixing with the ache from my ribs until I couldn’t tell which pain was which.
He’d said mistake. Not we can’t do this, not this isn’t appropriate, not any of the things that might have left room for interpretation. He’d said mistake, which was clear enough that even I couldn’t misread it.
Coming up here had been a mistake. Letting me think there was something between us had been a mistake. Maybe even staying with me in Chicago had been a mistake, though he hadn’t said that part out loud.
I lay back on the bed, careful of my ribs, and stared at the ceiling.
The apartment building made sounds around me—footsteps above, a door closing somewhere down the hall, noise of people living their lives in close proximity.
Normal sounds. The sounds of a world that was continuing on like nothing had happened.
Nothing except me confirming what I’d suspected for two months: that I didn’t belong here. Not really. Not in the way that mattered.
The team had my back on the ice. Max had made that clear.
They’d come to my family’s house, eaten my ma’s cooking, treated me like I was one of them.
But that was professional courtesy. Team solidarity.
The kind of thing good teams did because it made them stronger, not because any of them actually gave a shit about Dante Russo beyond what I could contribute on the ice.
And Kincaid? Kincaid was doing his job. Protecting his investment. Making sure his players were safe and healthy and ready to perform when called upon. That was what good coaches did. It didn’t mean anything more than that.
And I mustn’t forget that ever again.