11. Break the Ice #2
I also know this because she just deked me out of my skates on the very first play.
“That’s one!” Emma shouts, the puck already nestled in the back of the net. Her arms are raised in celebration, that same gesture from the home opener.
“Your left shoulder dipped before the move,” I tell her, skating to retrieve the puck.
“And yet you’re the one picking the puck out of the net.”
“Just making a coaching observation.”
“You’re making an excuse.”
She’s grinning, loose hair wild around her face, cheeks flushed from exertion and victory.
Yeah, whatever comes from tonight, staying was worth it.
“Again,” I say, dropping the puck at center. “My possession.”
This time I come at her differently. I’m not as fast as I used to be (my knee makes sure of that) but I’ve still got hands, still got the hockey IQ that made me a first-line forward, still got the ability to read a defender and find the gap before it fully opens.
I try a toe drag that used to freeze defenders in college.
She reads it. Pokes the puck clean off my blade.
“Nice try, old man. ”
“I’m twenty-five.”
“Your knee says thirty-five.”
Low blow. Accurate, but low.
She has the puck now and she’s moving, and I’m backchecking with everything I’ve got, knee screaming in that familiar way that means I’ll pay for this tomorrow. But right now I don’t care because Emma’s cutting to the left circle and I know what’s coming.
The snapshot. Top shelf.
I commit to the block. Lunge with my stick extended, throwing my body into the lane.
She fakes the shot, pulls the puck to her backhand, sidestepping my dive, and roofs it over my shoulder. I realize that I’m an idiot, playing one-on-one against a player who’s going to make the Olympic team.
“TWO-NOTHING!” She skates a victory lap while I’m still lying on the ice, knee throbbing, dignity somewhere in the Zamboni bay. “Best of three, Anderson. I believe that’s game.”
“That was a lucky goal.”
“Both of them?”
“Absolutely.”
She skates over and extends her hand. I take it, which is a total mistake because the contact sends electricity up my arm that has nothing to do with static and everything to do with the fact that her fingers are warm and sure and she holds on so much longer than a handshake requires.
“I won,” she repeats. Quiet now. The competitive fire banked to embers, replaced by something warmer. Something patient.
“You won.”
“So I get my question.”
My heart rate, which should be settling, spikes instead. “That was the deal.”
She doesn’t ask immediately. Just holds my gaze, and I can see her choosing. Sorting through whatever arsenal of questions she’s been stockpiling, testing each one for the right combination of honesty and devastation.
I brace.
“Thanksgiving night,” she starts, “when everyone was saying goodbye. Mom hugged you and you held on like you were afraid to let go.” She pauses. “What were you thinking in that moment?”
Not what I expected. Not “do you want me” or “when are you going to stop pretending” or any of the direct, aggressive questions I’d prepared for. This is surgical. A question that bypasses every defense I’ve built and goes straight for the thing underneath.
The truth is simple. The truth is also the most dangerous thing I could give her.
“I was thinking,” I begin slowly, “that your mother’s house is the only place that’s ever felt like home. And that I’m terrified of losing it.” I swallow. “Of losing all of you. Because of what I—”
I stop. Redirect. “Because of choices I might make.”
Emma absorbs this with a quiet intensity that people mistake for aggression but is actually just attention. Complete, undivided attention. The kind most people are too scattered or too self-involved to give.
“You’re not going to lose us, Luke.” She says it like a fact. Like the score of a game that’s already been decided. “You couldn’t if you tried. And trust me, you’ve tried.”
The laugh that scrapes out is shocked. Trust Emma to always be honest.
“We’ve got an early start tomorrow,” I manage, because one of us needs to end this before I close the gap and ruin everything in the best possible way. “And you need sleep before you destroy Boston.”
“I’m not tired.”
“Liar. You yawned during your victory lap.”
“That was a battle cry.”
“That was a yawn, Cole. A full, jaw-cracking yawn. I have eyes.”
“You have obsessive attention to detail about everything I do, which is a different thing entirely.” But she’s smiling as she says it, skating slowly toward the boards. “Walk with me?”
“To your house?”
“I mean, if you want,” she teases. “But I meant to the bench. Unless you want to leave here wearing your skates.”
She steps off the ice first. I follow, and my knee buckles slightly on the transition from blade to rubber mat. It's a small betrayal from a joint that’s been betraying me for four years but usually has the decency to do it in private.
Emma notices.
“Your knee.”
“It’s fine.”
“You’re limping.”
“I’m walking with character.”
“Luke. ”
“It’s fine, Emma. Ice and ibuprofen. Standard protocol.”
She studies me for a moment with that analytical gaze she uses during film review. Then, “You pushed yourself tonight. For me.”
“I pushed myself because I’m competitive and you challenged me and my ego couldn’t handle—”
“You pushed yourself for me.” She says it again, quieter, like she’s setting down a truth between us that needs to be handled with care. “Don’t lie about that. You can lie about everything else, but not that.”
I don’t lie about it.
We gather our things in silence. Emma pulls her jacket on. Swaps her skates for sneakers. Shoves her hair back from her face with a motion that’s so unconsciously graceful I look at the floor.
“You’re not walking home, Em.”
“I don’t recall asking for permission.”
I stare at her. She stares back. Neither of us blinks.
“I’m driving you.” It’s no longer an ask.
“That’s very authoritarian of you, Coach.”
“Consider it a wellness check.” I hold the door open.
Emma rolls her eyes but walks through the door. Small victory. I’ll take it.
Emma fills the walk to my truck with a running commentary about Sloane’s latest antics that serves as a buffer against the intimacy of what just happened on the ice.
“—so she tells the sophomore that she, quote, ‘doesn’t believe in neutral zone turnovers or bad first dates,’ and the girl just stares at her like she’s been handed a new religion—”
“Kowalski’s going to either be the best player I’ve ever coached or the reason I develop an ulcer.”
“Both. Definitely both.”
I unlock the truck. She climbs in, and the cab suddenly feels half its actual size.
My truck is not small. It’s a full-size pickup that comfortably seats five adults.
But with Emma in the passenger seat, pulling the seatbelt across her chest, settling into the leather with a sigh that sounds like a homecoming, the walls close in.
The engine turns over. Heat kicks on. I pull out of the lot and onto the campus road that connects the athletic complex to the residential side.
Five minutes. I can survive five minutes.
“That penalty last night wasn’t stupid,” I say, because hockey is safe. Hockey is the bunker I retreat to when the proximity alarm starts blaring.
“Is this a coaching evaluation? Should I take notes?”
“I’m serious, Em. Your instincts are sharper than your self-assessment gives you credit for. Yes, it was aggressive. But the instinct behind it was right. You saw Sloane breaking and you eliminated the only defender who could’ve caught her.”
“They scored on the power play.”
“And then you blocked a shot on the kill that saved another goal. Risk and reward. That’s what separates good players from the ones who get scouted.”
She’s quiet for a moment. In the glow of the dashboard lights, I can see her processing. Weighing my words against whatever internal calculus tells her she’s not enough.
“You really think I can get scouted?”
“I think scouts are going to be fighting over you before the season’s over.
” I say it with more conviction than I usually allow myself, because it’s late and my guard is down and she needs to hear this from someone who isn’t just being nice.
“You’re the most complete player I’ve coached.
Possibly the most complete player I’ve played with, and I played with your brother. ”
“Don’t let Gray hear you say that.”
“Gray knows. He’s known since you were fourteen and started beating his records.”
In my peripheral vision, I can see her expression. It’s soft, open, stripped of the bravado and the strategy and the campaign she’s been running against my willpower for three months.
“Thank you,” she says. “For being there tonight.”
“I’m here for you, Emma. And I’m not going anywhere this time.”
The words leave my mouth with zero clearance from the rational part of my brain. The part that’s supposed to vet these statements for subtext and plausible deniability.
I’m not going anywhere .
A confession that hangs in the warm cab like smoke .
“Good.”
It’s few beats of silence later when I feel it.
Her head on my shoulder.
Neither of us say anything. Just continued rhythmic breathing as we both look forward.
At least until hers slows. Gets deeper. The unmistakable pace of a body that’s been running on anxiety and adrenaline for a week and has finally, in this truck, in this quiet, beside this person, found permission to stop.
She’s asleep.
On my shoulder.
And we’ve got another two minutes.
I turn down the heat so the fan doesn’t wake her. Adjust my shoulder angle so her neck isn’t bent at a weird position. Keep driving at exactly twenty-two miles per hour because the speed bumps on Morrison are brutal and I don’t want any of them to jostle her.
She shifts in her sleep. Her hand finds my forearm—not gripping, just resting there. Fingers curled loosely against my jacket sleeve like she’s holding onto something she’s been reaching for.
I look at her in the light of passing streetlamps. The shadows play across her nose, her cheekbones, the curve of her mouth that I think about constantly and will never, ever stop thinking about.
She looks exhausted.
She looks peaceful.
She looks like everything I’ve ever wanted and nothing I deserve.
I pull into the hockey house driveway but don’t kill the engine. Just sit, listening to Emma’s breathing. Hear the distant sound of a campus party and my own heartbeat doing something I’d need a cardiologist to explain.
And memorize exactly how this feels.
The weight of her. The warmth. The absolute trust implied by falling asleep against someone. The biological surrender of consciousness, the body saying I’m safe here. I don’t need to be on guard.
Nobody falls asleep next to someone they don’t trust completely.
Emma Cole trusts me completely.
The thought breaks something open that I’ve been keeping sealed for years. Not desire (that’s been unsealed since the moment I realized what I felt for her wasn’t brotherly concern). Not even love, though that’s been leaking through the cracks since those 2 AM phone calls.
Something deeper. Something that feels like purpose .
Like maybe the reason I’m here… At Silver Pine, in this truck, on this specific night isn’t just about coaching.
Isn’t just about a second chance at hockey.
Maybe it’s about being the person she falls asleep on.
The one she trusts. The one who’ll sit in the dark for as long as it takes, because waking her up feels like breaking a promise neither of us has actually made yet.
One more minute.
I’ll give myself one more minute. Of this. Of her. Of the version of my life where I get to have this.
Then I’ll go back to being just her coach.
Probably.