24. Next Steps
Chapter twenty-four
Next Steps
Luke
I enter the locker room with Addison and everyone goes quiet. There’s still an energy, excitement about tournament games that will start next week, a buzzing of women who have created something from nothing.
“Great game,” I tell them. “Way to finish. You all earned our record. Our position.”
A cheer. Sticks hit the floor.
I do a sweep of the room, connecting with each woman, showing my pride in what they’ve accomplished. Then I find where Emma and Sloane are sitting next to one another.
“Cole, Kowalski.” Every head turns to them. “Twenty minutes. Conference room.” My eyes linger on Emma’s, say what I can’t yet. I love you. I’m so proud I can’t breathe. Now put your game face on because Walsh is waiting.
“The rest of you should celebrate,” I encourage as I take a step towards the exit. “Practice resumes Tuesday.”
The conference room is the same one I signed my contract in six months ago.
Now it contains the love of my life, her best friend, my boss, and three representatives from the US Women’s Olympic Hockey Association.
Same dry erase marker smell. A different feeling entirely.
This time, I’m at the head of the table. Technically present as their coach but really just trying not to stare at Emma as if I didn’t spend yesterday afternoon memorizing her body. Want to do it again after the game she just played.
Professional. I can be professional if it means Emma has a better shot at her dream.
“First,” Jennifer Walsh begins, “congratulations on an outstanding game. You both demonstrated the level of play we’re looking for in our development program.”
Sloane grins. I notice she and Emma are holding hands beneath the table. Excited. Happy.
It makes something go warm inside me, knowing they’ve got each other for this.
“We’re here to formally interview you for our summer development camp.” Walsh opens a folder, precise and organized. “It will take place June first through mid-August. Training facility in Lake Placid.”
Sloane makes a sound that might be a squeak. Emma glances at me.
“The camp is an evaluation period for the national team,” her assistant Hector adds. “No guarantees of roster spots, but it’s the primary pipeline for Olympic consideration. We’ll be evaluating fifty new-to-us players and have room on the final roster for approximately five rookies.”
Five out of the fifty they’re inviting.
Ten percent.
“What are the requirements?” Emma asks, and her voice is steady even though I can see her pulse hammering in her throat.
“Complete your season in good standing. Maintain your current level of performance and conditioning through the spring. We’ll send formal invitations with full details within the next few weeks, pending committee approval.
” Jennifer pauses. “I should also mention, if you do make the team you’d both be forfeiting your remaining NCAA eligibility. In case that changes your decision.”
When ( not if ) they make the team, Emma would be giving up her senior year. Not earth-shattering considering she’d planned on declaring for the PWHL after this season .
But Sloane? Sloane would be giving up three years.
“It’s not a problem,” Sloane comments immediately. “It’s a dream of ours.”
Jennifer glances back at me for just a second before her gaze returns to the women across from her. “Good. What we want to hear.” She rearranges her folders into a neat stack. “Now let’s talk more about both of your backgrounds, shall we?”
The interview lasts forty-three more minutes.
I know because I watch every second tick by on the conference room clock while the three members of Team USA ask questions designed to assess character, resilience, coachability. The kind of psychological profiling that separates athletes who can handle pressure from athletes who crumble under it.
Emma answers with the composure of someone who’s been preparing for this her entire life. Sloane answers with the unfiltered enthusiasm of someone who hasn’t learned to be afraid yet.
They’re perfect. Both of them. Different wavelengths of perfect.
“One last thing,” Walsh says, closing her portfolio. “We’ll need references. Coaches, teammates, academic advisors. Standard protocol.” Her eyes find mine again. “Coach Anderson, expect a call from our committee. We’ll want to discuss both players in detail.”
My stomach drops through the floor.
A call. An official reference call. Where I’ll be asked to assess Emma Cole’s abilities, her work ethic, her potential for national team contribution. Where every word I say will be scrutinized for bias, favoritism, anything that suggests my judgment might be compromised.
Where I’ll have to talk about the woman I’m in love with as if she’s just a player.
As if I haven’t spent weeks learning the exact pressure point on her hip that makes her gasp.
As if I don’t know she takes her coffee with too much cream and talks in her sleep and has my number tattooed on her body.
“Of course,” I manage. “Happy to provide whatever insight would be helpful.”
You absolute idiot. You’re going to have to lie to Olympic scouts now. Add that to the list of people you’re deceiving for love.
Walsh stands. Extends her hand to Emma, then Sloane. “We’ll be in touch. Congratulations again on an exceptional season.”
They shake. Professional. Appropriate. Emma’s holding it together so well that if I didn’t know her—didn’t know the way her left eyebrow does that microscopic lift when she’s suppressing emotion—I’d believe she was completely calm.
But I do know her. Know every tell. Every microexpression.
She’s screaming inside.
Same, Em. Same.
The hallway outside the conference room is chaos.
Sloane takes off for her family and all I want is a minute alone. With Emma.
It doesn’t come because Grayson’s already got her lifted off the ground.
“Did they say it? Did Walsh say you’re going to camp?”
“Gray—” Emma’s laughing, trying to breathe. “Put me down.”
“Not until you tell me.”
“They said they’ll be in touch. Formal invitations in a few weeks.”
He sets her down. Grabs her shoulders. “But it’s happening. You’re going to the Olympics.”
“It’s development camp. Not the Olympics.”
“Same thing.”
“It’s literally not the same thing—”
“Semantics!” He pulls her into another hug, and over his shoulder, Emma’s eyes find mine.
Help me , they say.
Can’t , mine respond. Your brother’s having a moment. Let him have it.
Jeanette appears next, moving through the crowd with the focused determination of a mother who’s been waiting twenty-one years to see her daughter get this opportunity.
She doesn’t grab Emma the way Grayson did.
She frames her face with both hands, looks at her for a long moment, and then pulls her into the kind of hug that contains every coaching lesson she booked, every extra shift she took, every sacrifice that hockey has demanded from this family.
“I’m so proud of you, baby,” she says, and her voice cracks. “So, so proud. ”
Emma’s crying now. The quiet kind. The kind she thinks nobody notices.
I notice.
I always notice.
Sienna hugs Emma next. Says something I can’t hear that makes Emma laugh through tears.
Then Chase appears with Sky, both of them grinning, and suddenly there’s a whole crowd of people celebrating Emma’s future while I stand ten feet away with my hands in my pockets, trying to look appropriately coach-like.
Trying not to show that watching other people hug her when I can't (or shouldn't), is its own special kind of torture.
“Luke!”
Grayson’s spotted me.
He crosses the distance in four strides and pulls me into a hug that smells like expensive cologne and genuine affection. “Must feel good, man. Olympic camp. Good conference seeding.”
It does feel good.
It also feels like I’m the worst person alive. Like I’m betraying you every second I don’t tell you the truth. Like I’m so proud of your sister I can’t breathe and so terrified of losing her I want to stop time.
“They earned it.”
He pulls back, hands still on my shoulders. “I know you’ve had a rough few years. The injury, the career shift, all of it. But look at what you’ve built. Look at what you’ve given these women. Given Emma.”
“She’s special,” I say, because it’s true and safe and won’t get me punched.
“She is.” He releases me, turns to look at his sister, who’s now being hugged by half the men's hockey team. Fan-fucking-tastic. “I’m glad she has you. Glad you’re the one coaching her. I trust you with her.”
The confession lands like a gut punch. One I deserve.
If he only knew exactly how I’ve been taking care of his sister. The ways I’ve touched her. The sounds I’ve learned to draw from her throat. The tattoo on her hip that I’ve traced with my tongue.
“I’ve got her,” I tell him, and it’s the truth wrapped in a lie wrapped in the truth again. “Always.”
“I know you do.” He claps my shoulder one more time. “Now come on. We’re taking this celebration to Giuseppe’s. Mom’s buying. Sie’s already making a reservation. ”
Giuseppe’s. The pizza place we used to go to when we played together. After games and parties and nights we believed we were invincible.
“Actually,” Emma comments from where she’s standing with Sky, “the girls are throwing a party. At the house. Didn't tell us they were planning it until just now. I might need a rain check on the family celebration. But the four of you should go.”
The four of us. Without her.
More time I don’t get her one-on-one.
But you got her all day yesterday, my brain reminds me. Don’t be greedy.
Except I am.
Want to be.
Want to congratulate her in ways only our bodies know how to do.
Emma’s eyes meet mine, apology and promise written in them.
Later , she mouths.
Later , I agree.
Because there’s no way in hell I’m making it through tonight without celebrating that girl.