Chapter 1 #2
That question made my stomach clench as a feeling of dread immediately started to brew. But I didn't even get the chance to wallow in the feeling.
As if the universe had heard that question and read my mind, the doors swung open, and right there stood the herald of our impending doom.
Coach Dean Gunner stood in the open doorway, arms relaxed at his sides, his sharp blue eyes scanning the room with a measured calm.
He was broad-shouldered, built like he could still throw on some pads and take a hit if needed, but there was nothing aggressive about his stance.
If anything, he looked resigned; like a guy who’d already had one too many headaches this week and wasn’t looking forward to adding another.
Poor you . I thought, because I simply couldn't find it in me to give him even an iota of sympathy right now. He and his stupid team were the ones giving us a mountain of headaches, not the other way around.
Behind him, like a goddamn human wall of muscle, stood the Rink Runners. I was pretty sure they were the source and sum of his headaches, too.
Tall. Big. Built like they’d been raised on raw meat and pure arrogance.
The whole damn lot of them. Their helmets were off, their bags slung over their shoulders, their faces an infuriating mix of blank disinterest and barely contained amusement.
Some of them were lean and wiry, built for speed, while others were built like they could probably bench-press my entire team without breaking a sweat.
The sheer size of them was almost enough to make my stomach clench— almost . But not quite.
Because intimidation? Not happening. Not in my rink. I wasn't some flimsy girl with ribbons for arms, either. Sure, I couldn't go against the guys pound for pound, but there were other ways to intimidate a bunch of assholes.
So, I held my ground, squared my shoulders, the whole works. My team did the same, twenty-four strong—a defiant unit standing between them and what was ours.
Yeah, this was a freaking face-off, and I didn't feel the least bit bad about any of it.
Coach Gunner stared at our formation for a long second before he let out a long, slow breath, his lips pressing into something that was almost a smile. Not quite, though. Because it would've pissed me the hell off if he found any of this the least bit funny.
“Well,” he said, voice steady and with his hands on his hips. “This is going about as well as I expected.”
I didn’t take the bait. Just lifted a brow. “That bad, huh?”
“Oh, worse.” His mouth twitched like he was trying not to laugh. “But I’ll take what I can get.”
At least he wasn’t being an ass about it. I could respect that. Didn’t mean I had to like any of this, though.
Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. The air hung thick between us, charged, but not outright hostile. Not yet, anyway.
Then, one of the Rink Runners—Mason something, a defenseman, I think—huffed out a low chuckle. “Shit, you’d think we were invading enemy territory.”
This little prick. So what if he really was built like a tank? He probably had a tiny dick. Tch.
“You are . And don't you ever forget it.” Zoe shot back before I could.
Damn, was he looking for a fight? We were all already on edge here; did he think we were going to shine our damn teeth at his lame joke? The nerve of him to even say that after the shit they'd pulled.
"Alright, knock it off." Coach Gunner turned to glare at his offending player before turning back to face us, a soothing smile breaking out over his face. "Look, we aren't here to start a fight. I'm sure your coach must have told you what brought all this on?"
The bare bones of it, yeah, but that was enough. It wasn't like I needed to hear in-depth about the stupid thing they must have done to cause that "unfortunate accident".
I nodded once, my movements sharp and controlled. "She did." I said and turned to look at Gina. "Hey, go tell Coach they're here—"
"That won't be necessary." Zoe said and gestured with her jaw. I turned to see Coach Hawkins walking briskly across the floor towards us.
She looked like a warrior queen heading right into the heart of the battle.
Coach Hawkins didn’t waste any time. She strode right up to Coach Gunner, her sharp eyes scanning each member of his team behind him before flicking back to his face.
Her expression was unreadable, but I knew her well enough to see the tightness in her shoulders, the flicker of restrained frustration in her gaze.
Coach Gunner, for his part, held his ground with the same steady patience he’d shown since stepping in. When Coach Hawkins extended her hand, he met it with a firm, businesslike shake, a quiet exchange of authority between two people who, in another universe, might have actually gotten along.
“Coach Hawkins.”
“Coach Gunner.” Coach replied, her tone tightly reined in to project the veneer of civility.
A brief pause. A beat of silence. Then they both released the handshake and turned to face the assembled teams.
Coach Gunner was the first to speak.
“Alright. Let’s get this out of the way.
” His voice was steady, but I caught the subtle way he braced himself, like he was prepared for impact.
“I know this situation isn’t ideal for any of us, and I won’t stand here and pretend like you have to be happy about it.
But the fact is, our rink is out of commission, and until repairs are done, we don’t have anywhere else to practice at. ”
Yeah? Whose goddamn fault was that? Like he didn't already know how hard it had been to get the campus to give us our separate rinks. As if we hadn’t spent one whole year before that fighting tooth and nail just to get our own damn ice.
A murmur rippled through my team, the irritation thick in the air.
“Not our problem,” someone muttered, too low for him to catch but loud enough that the girls around them nodded in agreement.
Coach Gunner exhaled through his nose, folding his arms over his chest. “I’ll cut to the chase. There was an accident. The boards on the north end collapsed, the ice took damage, and long story short, it’s not safe to skate on. We’re looking at at least a month before it’s fully repaired.”
I narrowed my eyes. An accident? Please. Nothing about this screamed ‘accident’.
And apparently, I wasn’t the only one thinking it.
“An accident, huh?” Zoe’s voice rang out, sharp and dripping with skepticism.
All eyes turned to look at her. She stepped forward, arms crossed tight over her chest, her glare cutting straight through Coach Gunner like she was daring him to try and sell her some bullshit excuse.
“Would you mind telling me, Coach, if this was the same kind of ‘accident’ your dumbass players pulled last year?”
Oop. The whole rink went deathly silent.
I felt, more than saw, the way the Rink Runners bristled, their casual indifference vanishing in an instant. Even the ones who’d been smirking before were suddenly all sharp eyes and clenched jaws.
Ha, now they were all pissy, were they? What, just because we'd gone and brought up ‘the incident that must not be mentioned’?
Coach Gunner’s expression didn’t shift much—just a slow, careful blink—but his silence was enough.
Zoe pushed on, her voice rising. “What was it this time, huh? Another drunken rave? Did they get trashed and think, ‘hey, let’s body-check the damn boards and see if they hold up’?
” Now, Coach Gunner's brow arched up. “And now, y'all want to share our rink? Yeah, right, because, you know, that worked out so well for us the last two years.”
Tension snapped through the air like a live wire.
The Rink Runners weren’t quiet now. A few of them had straightened up, shoulders squared like they were ready to fire back, but Coach Gunner lifted a hand, a silent command to hold their tongues.
It didn’t matter, though. The damage was already done. Zoe had gone and ripped the bandage off of the festering wound that'd never quite healed between our two teams. And it wasn't like she'd said anything false, either.
Last year, the Rink Runners had pulled their biggest bullshit move yet: an unsanctioned, all-night “celebration” that left the ice we'd shared with them totally wrecked before our first game of the season. Because of those bastards, we’d lost what should’ve been our first real shot at the Frozen Four.
Our predecessors had clawed their way there once, years ago—but my team’s chance, my chance as a new Captain, was ripped away before we even touched the ice. All thanks to the fucking Rink Runners.
The worst part? The school almost swept it under the rug.
Northgate University was a pretty competitive college, and it prided itself on excellence.
Boasting over seven different sports programs, it was the kind of school that churned out Olympians, NHL draftees, and All-Americans like it was an assembly line.
Its reputation was everything, meticulously curated, polished to perfection, and fiercely protected.
And when it came to sports, it placed big priority on the programs that raked in the money.
The Northgate Monarchs—their golden-boy football team—were the crown jewel. But hockey? Hockey was the next biggest gem in that glittering, money-stuffed crown.
The Rink Runners weren’t just a team—they were the team.
Dubbed Northgate University’s Winter Gods, they were pretty much untouchable.
Their team legacy was of back-to-back championships, fat sponsorships, and a dynasty that the university flaunted at every possible opportunity.
The Rink Runners were its golden boys, the kind of athletes the school bent over backward to protect because they brought in money, press, and recruits.
And my team?
We were the afterthought.
The women's hockey team was still fighting for everything: funding, ice time, respect, even after two years. We still had to ride on the back of the Rink Runners’ success like cargo, some feel-good project kept around for Title IX compliance.
And just when we'd clawed our way up from being a footnote to a contender, they'd taken it from us.
And the school, unwilling to risk its precious reputation, did what it always did when the Rink Runners messed up: it covered for them.
They'd called it an ‘unfortunate accident’, and straight up refused to acknowledge what really happened.
If it hadn't been for very pissed-off alumni throwing their weight around, we'd still be fighting for our own space.
And now, a year later? These same guys were back, standing in our space, acting like their latest mess up was just one of those things, expecting us to welcome them with open arms?
Screw . Them .
Coach Gunner finally exhaled, slow and controlled, before looking back at our team.
“No,” he said, calm but firm. “It wasn’t a drunken rave.”
A heavy beat passed.
“But I won’t stand here and pretend like we don’t have a history,” he added.
“I know how last year played out. I know why there’s bad blood.
And I also know that, whether we like it or not, we’re stuck in this situation together.
So we can either spend the next month trying to make each other miserable, or we can figure out a way to coexist without someone ending up in the ER. ”
His words settled over us, but the tension didn’t break.
“If the school had any other option, they would’ve taken it,” he continued. “Believe me, this wasn’t a decision they made lightly. But repairs take time, and we don’t have it. We have games coming up, same as you.”
My jaw clenched.
Of course they had games coming up. So did we. Sure, the season was still a few months out, but that wasn’t the point. This was the point: somehow, we were always expected to be the ones who compromised. The ones who had to shift, to accommodate, to make room .
All this realization served to do was rub it in our faces that we really had no choice in the matter, and that only pissed the girls off even more.
This time, it was Gina who scoffed, her mouth parting to say something scathing, no doubt, but that was the end of Coach's patience.
“That’s enough.” Her voice cut through the tension like a blade—sharp, no-nonsense, with just a hint of "do not test me" underneath.
The team fell silent.
Coach Hawkins took a step forward, leveling a hard look at all of us before turning her attention back to Gunner.
“We all know this isn’t ideal,” she said, her tone clipped.
“But it’s happening. And I expect both teams to handle it with professionalism.
” Her eyes flicked toward my girls—toward me, specifically.
The message was clear: I better get a handle on the girls, or else. It was already telling how I hadn't even tried to stop Zoe from that outburst earlier. I was totally going to pay for that, but I really didn't care at this point. I was going to take whatever punishment she would give me for this.
Gunner nodded, like he’d been expecting her to step in. “Agreed.”
“Well,” Gina muttered under her breath, barely loud enough for me to hear. “That’s two people who agree.”
I fought the urge to snort. Because yeah. That made two of them.
There was a faint lull that prophesied a coming storm. I could already feel it in my bones. That feeling was proven correct when, in the next second, a deep, too-casual voice cut through the tension like a blade wrapped in velvet.
“So,” the voice drawled, lazy and playful, like he had all the time in the freaking world. “What did I miss?”
Ugh . You have got to be kidding me.