Chapter Fourteen
Delusional
Shane
Present
Watching my star goalie puke had me wanting to do the same.
The poor bastard had barely made it over to the bench before he was forfeiting his pre-game meal, the fans sitting above us so they could peer into the tunnel as the players went in and out getting more than they bargained for.
I heard the grimace ring out over the distinct sound of Will Perry’s heaves, and I cursed under my breath.
It was only the third game of the season, and I didn’t have full faith that Ben Sandin was ready to take on the beastly offense of the Baltimore Railers — who had won the Cup last season.
But we had no choice.
He was up.
Fucking hell.
“All right, Perry,” I said, patting his back sympathetically as he spit the last of his vomit out on the floor and wiped his mouth with the back of his glove. “Go home and get some rest.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
“I’m good now.”
“You’re dehydrated with food poisoning, at best, and going to get the rest of the team sick with a stomach virus, at worst,” I combatted. Then, I shoved his helmet into his chest and pointed at the locker room. “Go. Now. I’ll check in with you after the game. I mean it, Perry, I need you gone.”
He was pissed, and he had no problem showing as much as he swiped his helmet from me and stormed down the tunnel to the locker room with trainers on his heels. Immediately, staff was cleaning up his sick, and I was launching into action.
There was no time for deep sighs. We had a game to win.
“Sandin, you’re in.”
He hopped off the bench immediately. Fortunately, we weren’t far into the first period — he should have still been warm from warmups.
When Sandin nodded at me that he was ready, I could have sworn I saw his gaze slide up to the suite Nathan Black was in.
Our new general manager had been getting cozy with quite a few players — particularly the younger ones.
If I were being a calm, rational coach, I’d see it for what it was.
He was getting to know the team, earning their trust, convincing them that Tampa was a great place to call home, and this team would be all they’d need in their career.
He wanted them to play hard and win for us, so of course he was investing time in them.
But the side of me that couldn’t help but be suspicious wondered at it, at why he was so attentive to some players and virtually invisible to the others.
I didn’t like the way my stomach twisted as Sandin dropped into the crease for his first play, like my body knew something my brain didn’t.
That feeling only intensified as the game played on.
Sandin was completely erratic, and not in the “backup goalie nerves” way I’d expected.
One shift he was hyper-aggressive, charging out of the crease to poke-check a puck he had no business going after, leaving the net wide open and making the entire bench gasp.
The next, he was late to track a shot he should have swallowed up without blinking — like his eyes were half a second behind the puck.
Twice he froze when our defense shouted for him to cover it, letting play continue when any goalie instinct would have smothered the rebound.
And then, just to keep me from yanking what little hair I had left, he’d make some impossible, physics-defying save purely by accident — like the puck hit him because he wasn’t squared to it.
Every shift was a coin toss.
Heads: miraculous.
Tails: disastrous.
The Railers didn’t know how to read him, and honestly? Neither did I.
I kept glancing up at the suite, feeling my jaw tighten every time I caught a ghost of movement through the tinted glass. I didn’t know what I expected to see. Nathan holding up flashcards? Signaling plays like a damn third base coach?
Ridiculous.
And yet…
I couldn’t shake the unease crawling under my skin.
But hockey is a cruel game — sometimes chaos works.
And somehow, we clung to a one-goal lead through the third period.
The final horn blared through the arena, the crowd roaring, stuffed fish flying onto the ice as was tradition, and the scoreboard flashed a win we had absolutely no business earning.
Sandin skated to the bench like he hadn’t just given me a cardiac event for sixty straight minutes.
The boys slapped him on the back, helmets knocking, gloves thumping. I congratulated them, gave Sandin an extra look I couldn’t help — part suspicion, part genuine relief — and then ducked into the tunnel, my pulse still misfiring.
I took a second in my office, breathing deep before dialing Perry.
He picked up on the first ring.
“Well, that was a shit storm.” His voice was croaky and worn.
“You’re supposed to be resting.”
“I am.”
“He’s not. He’s been pacing and vomiting into a trashcan this whole time,” I heard in the background. Chloe, his wife.
“Yeah, Daddy is bad at being sick,” his daughter Ava echoed.
I chuckled. “How are you? Feeling any better?”
“No,” he groaned. “I don’t know what happened. I was fine, and then suddenly…” He trailed off, swallowing. “I just wasn’t. I don’t know, Coach. I’m sorry. I didn’t see it coming.”
Again, that twist in my gut, like there was something afoot that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
“Nothing to be sorry for. It happens, and this was just one of those times you couldn’t play through it,” I said. “I’m glad you’re home. Get fluids. Sleep. Text me if you get worse.”
“I’ll be back for the next game.”
“I have no doubts. Rest,” I reiterated. “I’ll check in tomorrow.”
We hung up, but the call didn’t do what I’d hoped. If anything, the pit in my stomach deepened. Perry getting sick out of nowhere. Sandin’s bizarre performance. The way his eyes had flicked to Nathan’s suite. The win that felt more like a warning than a triumph.
Something was off.
I didn’t know what yet.
But the ice wasn’t the only thing that felt slippery tonight.
The boys filtered into the locker room for the post-game talk, and I went through the motions — praising work ethic, highlighting key plays, calling out what needed tightening before our next matchup. They were buzzing, smiling, chatting with media, riding the high of a win.
And I tried to match their energy. I really did.
But the whole time, the wrongness gnawed at me.
Once the meeting wrapped and I dismissed them, I took care of my post-game to-do list as quickly as I could — including the world’s fastest press conference — before I grabbed my jacket and started down the tunnel toward the parking lot, ready to get the hell out of my own head.
But as I passed the friends and family room, something made me slow.
A flash of long golden hair. A familiar silhouette.
Ari.
I never stopped in the friends and family room, mostly because I never had a reason to. I didn’t have a wife waiting for me there. No kids were barreling out at the sight of me yelling, “Daddy!” I always slipped right by and out to my car, waving to players as they went left and I went right.
But tonight…
I stopped.
And I stepped inside.
“Coach!” Carter called out, his hair still damp from his shower. He gripped me in a big hug before pulling back and eyeing me cautiously. “What are you doing here?”
Fortunately, his new wife was holding their daughter just behind where he stood, the perfect excuse.
“Came to see my favorite girl, of course,” I answered, reaching for Lennon.
Livia Young, our team dentist and Carter’s unlikely companion, handed her daughter over with a serene smile.
I felt like motherhood had softened her — not in a weakening way, but quite the opposite, actually.
She seemed more at peace than I’d ever seen her, and the way she and Carter immediately reached for each other once her hands were empty, I knew they’d both found their person.
My chest tightened for a different reason then, a familiar ache squeezing my lungs as I wondered what that would be like.
It was hard for me to explain to myself, let alone anyone else, so I always kept it locked up — but I hadn’t ever moved on after Ariana.
I’d tried. I’d spent my fair share of nights with women who I thought could capture my interest, but they never lasted.
It was like there was unfinished business with Ari, and until I got that closure, I couldn’t move forward.
Even now, in this room, I had Lennon in my arms smiling and playing with the pin on my lapel as I chatted with Carter and Livia with apparent ease. But inside, all my focus was on where Ariana stood on the other side of the room, locked in conversation with Maven and Grace.
The apology I’d tried to give her, one too late and too little, had me rubbed raw. I wrestled with my guilt and frustration ever since she walked out of that room. If I were being honest, I felt helpless, because she was right here and yet I still couldn’t reach her.
It doesn’t matter, she’d said to me when we were finally alone.
It’s in the past.
It should have hurt, hearing her say those words. It should have knocked the breath from me, should have thrown me back to the cold hard ground of reality.
But it didn’t.
Because I simply didn’t believe her.
What we had… it was young and passionate, yes, but it was real. It was fucking everything.
And I just couldn’t accept that she never thought about it anymore, about me, about us — especially now that fate had thrown us back into each other’s lives.
She is fucking married, you dumb, egotistical prick.
To your boss.
But it didn’t matter. I was firmly in the land of delusion.
My common sense could try to reason with me all it wanted; the facts didn’t change in my mind.
We had too many words left unsaid for me to leave her alone now that I had my chance.
Besides, there was just something about Nathan that I didn’t like.
Ninety percent of the time, he seemed like the perfect gentleman.
I watched him sweetly kiss and hold Ariana, listened to him dote on her when she wasn’t in the room, saw the way they looked at each other when they thought no one was looking.