CHAPTER SIX
One frustrating day until Anniversary
WARD
Frustrated sounds came from Sia’s office as I strode past on my way back to the ice.
I’d already run a training session today, but we were up for video reviews in half an hour, and I wanted to set the room up before anyone else arrived.
This close to the game, the players were locked in their heads.
Some were chatty, while others preferred not to talk at all.
That was their head space. I was simply there to support.
Even the club’s hallways were muted, less crowded and rowdy than sustaining their usual heavy traffic.
A sharp voice floated through the partially opened door I passed. Someone was in fine form, and it wasn’t my wife, for once. Not that Sia raised her voice often.
Not unless we were playing, and even then I had ways of ensuring our sessions went unheard.
Teasing ther ever loving fuck out of both of us the day before in the boardroom had been both unplanned and risky as hell, but oh so worth it.
The way she shuddered for me afterward, struggling to pull herself together even as she sassed me, her body still straining for an orgasm that would never come…
Just like her.
Hell, she was beautiful.
The memory of Sia’s heat as she rested her weight against me, trusting me, left my cock thick and heavy in my pants. I growled low in my throat as I stormed away from her office. One more day, and I could play with her all I damn well liked. But until then, I had a team to coach and payoffs to win.
I slammed the door to the AV room open, halting when I realised I wasn’t the only person in it. My stained daydream featuring Sia died a short death.
Hux and Solace’s bulk filled half the space near the front of the room where the Chimera’s captain and ex-goalie talked quietly.
“Solace.” I nodded to the retired player I had the utmost respect for, usually. “Hux. Is this the right headspace for you to be in today?” After the review, it was stretches and home time. The boys knew their diet and what the hell they were doing.
“I’m good.” Hux rested the backs of his thighs against the front row of seats in the tiered theatre room. “How’s your morning been?”
“Fucking fantastic. Solace. It’s great to see you.” I nodded to the best defender the Chimeras ever had. Even Valentine struggled to put up stats that good, though he came close, but Solace’s knee wouldn't allow him to play any longer. “Are you commentating tomorrow night?"
“Yes, sir. I’ll be in the box.”
Solace’s quiet demeanour had always played well alongside Hux’s settled character, and Shannon’s more impulsive nature. Now I had Valentine in the mix, and Knox was still fairly new to me even after playing with us for the last five games. Good value, but unknown. Untried.
“We’ll miss you on the ice, but the team has to prepare. Get out.”
“Yes, Coach.” Solace dipped his head, hugged his friend and strode forward, heading across the front of the broad room toward the exit.
Hux let me inhale a single breath, and didn’t wait for Solace to leave before he picked holes in my technique. “She’s really pissing you off, huh?”
No secrets amongst players.
I pivoted away from him, loading up a selection of videos from my phone to the laptop. “That obvious?” What was the point of denying it? Everyone, including the shareholders for the club at this point, likely knew the ins and outs of my relationship with Sia.
Or, my not-relationship, because fucking my wife into oblivion once a year didn’t really count for shit. We enjoyed it, even when we hated each other for the rest of the year.
Lie.
Pity that door didn’t swing both ways. The arguments we had early on lasted weeks. Months. Eventually I moved out and the silence grew past the length of time we fought for.
Years.
Then suddenly, we were done. That hurt more than anything fucking had in my life.
Our relationship died while I coached a team I spent more time with than I did her, and she got the promotions we both worked for together for her because I knew that’s what she wanted.
Yes, she did all the work and I didn't claim a damn thing, other than beyond her support crew and cheer squad all the way there. But we’d done it together and suddenly we were apart.
Because somehow, we still broke. Irrepareable, yet unable to make a clean break at all.
The voice I spent the morning listening to and trying to avoid followed me along the hallway.
Sia’s was the sharp tone this time, her arm extended into the room without her head appearing.
I frowned as her hand opened, showing two boxes, close to identical to each other.
One looked a helluva lot cheaper though, as she gave all of us in the room a chance to study them.
Then, with deliberation, she tipped her hand upside down and tossed them.
Right into the trash.
I smirked. Sia knew exactly where everything was in the rooms I used. Hell, she helped me set up most of them, and I hadn’t moved anything since. Hadn’t seen the need to move anything.
Everything was perfect just the way she set it up.
The hand retracted, and Lewis’ softer, higher voice darted after my wife as she vanished into the maze of corporate weather funding the Chimeras’ rise to fame.
A deep growl emanated from my chest, and a heavy hand landed on my shoulder.
“Easy, Coach.” Solace’s voice shattered my furious haze. “Want me to make sure he doesn’t leave the parking lot?”
I shifted my attention from the open doorway where nothing stood at all, to Solace’s stoic face.
He wasn’t kidding now, not any more than he had been the night he found a fool destroying Hux’s car after some other property destruction around the club.
That man got a short ride in the boot, his body dumped a decent distance away.
Solace wasn’t a man to trifle with, and he’d always had the club’s best interests at heart in his own strange way.
Our visions aligned on that. It was one of the reasons I had selected him in the first place.
That, and the fact he’d been a damn fine goalie before his injury took him out earlier in the year.
“Not today, Solace. But thanks for the offer.”
I clasped the man’s hand, letting him know I appreciated his thought. Lewis wasn’t that annoying…yet. If he touched Sia— I breathed out hard. That’s not gonna happen. The poor kid was an intern, for fuck’s sake.
“When you need it. I’m out this time.” He nodded to Hux and left, pulling the door slightly shut behind him.
Hux held his silence for as solid four minutes as I set up the plays I wanted us to go through for the day.
I wouldn’t interrupt the player’s time watching during this session.
We’d all been through the videos several times, picked them apart.
There was no new material at this point.
If someone had an epiphany we hadn’t covered in the last week of prep, then they were welcome to share it.
Our set up might be slightly different from other clubs, but for us, it worked. Today’s viewing was about making sure we understood where each of us individually needed to be tomorrow night.
In Sia’s room, tormenting the fuck out of my wife.
I shook myself, and glared at Hux. “Don’t you have a head space to get yourself in?”
He held my gaze, unflinching as the team filtered in, chattering quietly. The perfect foil between me and them, exactly where he should be.
“Yes, sir.”
My teeth creaked as Sia’s heels clattered past my door once more, steady and resolute. Lewis’s soft, too-fast step pattered in her wake like a homeless puppy begging for scraps as Hallie sneaked in my door, her arms full of printed team stats, her cheeks stained, and bearing coffee for the team.
Every one of those things had Solace’s mark all over them.
“Thanks, Hallie.” I gave her a one armed hug.
Someone whistled from the back row. “Gonna earn yourself a death mark, Coach,” Knox called.
I shot the new player a look. “I can pass that right on,” I held the two way forward’s gaze when he cocked a grin at me. “Solace knows I’ll never hurt his girl.”
Hallie squirmed in my hold. I knew one of her kinks was being talked over like an object, and I’d pass this little interlude right along to Solace in a message shortly. “Today’s viewing is to get us in the right headspace for tomorrow night. No snacky snacks until afterward, gentlemen. Settle in.”
A few groans echoed around the large space, but after a moment the room was mine. Quiet. Listening.
I smiled and lowered the lights.
As it should be.