Chapter 7
CHAPTER
SEVEN
WILDER
“Eyes. You didn’t look,” I bark, shaking my head. “Again.”
We’ve been at this for far too long for a team that won the Frozen Four last year. Sure, the kid’s still young, but this is shit they teach you day one of being a defenseman.
He’s making the same sloppy mistake and losing the puck before he ever even touches it.
I blow out a sigh and skate back so I can watch the play from a bigger angle.
Our first game is in four days, and we’re not ready. And unsurprisingly, I have no idea how the hell I’m going to get them ready. I’m not sure what made Coach Taylor ever think that I’d be cut out to be a coach of a bunch of college kids.
I might have a decade of experience playing professionally, but that still doesn’t make me a coach.
“Stop.” I skate over to where he’s standing, leaning against his stick, chest heaving from exertion.
He’s tired, but so am I after the number of times I’ve seen him repeat the same things.
“Here’s what you’re going to do. I don’t give a shit if you think it’s a waste of time; it’s about creating a foundation.
A habit because we’ve found a weakness, and now you’ve got to unlearn this. Watch. Pay attention.”
I skate toward the puck but don’t make contact with my stick. “Before you ever touch the puck, I want you to shoulder check once. And again. Your stick better never touch that puck unless you’ve checked twice.”
I glance over my shoulder once, then again, before I tap the puck with the stick.
Turning back to him, I say, “The worst thing you can do is react before you even know what’s happening, all to get to the puck.
Sure, you get it, but then what? You’ve lost it before you even touched it.
Your job isn’t to react. It’s to predict.
First read should be a habit. Every single time. Without hesitation.”
“I didn’t have tim—”
I shake my head and cut him off. “Excuse. The earlier you look, the more prepared you are. Let’s go, Savoy.”
I skate to the red line in the center of the ice after grabbing a puck and rim it behind the net to him. This time, he checks as he skates toward it, but before he can touch it with his stick, I call out, “Pause.”
He halts, ice spraying up from his skates.
“Where’s the pressure at?”
“Middle.”
I nod. “Again.”
We repeat the drill over and over until I start to see it sinking in, the way his awareness is changing. He’s reading before reacting.
I move to the hash marks and dump the puck down the boards, watching as he checks and slows in anticipation.
“Pressure?”
“None.”
Tapping the end of my stick on the ice a few times, I nod. “That’s it.”
Well, fuck, I guess… Maybe I just taught this kid something.
He’s drenched in sweat and probably hates my fucking guts right now, but what he doesn’t know is I only know how to correct this, to unlearn a bad habit, because I was in his shoes once before.
“Glad you didn’t give up.”
Savoy smirks as he spits out his mouth guard and then squirts water into his mouth and all over his face. “Not a quitting kind of guy, Coach.”
“See you tomorrow.”
I go to skate off the ice, and hear my name called over my shoulder, so I glance back. “Uh, thanks… for helping me with that.”
“It’s my job.”
The last thing I expect to find when I get back to my office after an almost two-hour-long practice is Maisie sitting on the floor beside the door, legs crossed, her long, silky blonde hair hanging around her in a curtain as she’s bent over, reading a paperback that sits in her lap.
She hasn’t come back to my office since that first day over a week ago. Or maybe she had, but if so, I wasn’t here. I only stay on campus for as long as I have to and not a second fucking more.
I was surprised as fuck to see her in the stands at practice the other day, but from what little I’ve gathered, her friend’s dating my captain, Devereaux, or something.
The less I know, the better.
Not that being ignorant about her was going to stop her from occupying my head.
I know that much because as much as it aggravates the fuck out of me, I just can’t stop fucking thinking about her.
I clear my throat, and her head whips up at the sound, her endless blue eyes widening as she slams the book shut in her lap. My gaze drops to the front cover, noticing the couple tangled together on the front.
When I drag my eyes back to hers, her cheeks are bright red, her blush creeping down her neck as she scrambles to get up from the floor and put the book into her bag at the same time.
“Oh, hi. Uh, sorry, I didn’t hear you come up,” she stammers and tugs her pillowy pink-glossed lip between her teeth.
The gloss she’s painted on reminds me of the one she was wearing that night. Of how swollen her lips looked after I kissed her until she was sucking in air by the mouthful, panting into my neck.
I shove my hands deep into the pockets of my sweats before I do something fucking stupid like continue staring at her lips.
“What can I help you with, Miss Delacroix?” The words are flat and abrasive, and her expression flickers with something, like they stung, before she plasters on a strained smile and lifts her folder between us.
“I emailed you…” she says, narrowing her eyes. “A couple of times, about setting up a meeting, but I didn’t get a response, so I figured that this would be the best way to get you. “
Clearly, annoyed that I didn’t respond.
She’d be even more pissed if she knew I saw each of them come in and ignored them because I’m avoiding her.
Trying to purge her out of my damn head.
“Busy week.”
A tense, heavy silence stretches between us as she nods, because neither of us knows what to say.
I sure as fuck have no idea how to handle this, how to handle being around her, how exactly we’re supposed to move on like that night never happened.
“Well, now that I’m here, can we discuss plans?” Maisie says, her soft voice drifting through the thoughts running on overtime in my head.
“Sure.”
I pull my keys out of my pocket and unlock my office door, then hold it open for her to step through.
She quickly ducks under my arm, and my molars grind when I get a whiff of how goddamn sweet she smells.
Like the ultimate temptation.
It takes me back to that night, and I fucking hate myself for it. Everything reminds me of the way she felt in my hands, the way her skin tasted, and that is never happening again.
It’s done.
If only my dick would get the goddamn memo.
I round the desk and sink down into my office chair, my knee bouncing as she stands across from me, her throat bobbing as she swallows.
“Okay, I know you’re busy, so I won’t take up much of your time,” she murmurs as she places the open folder onto the top of my desk and pulls out a piece of paper.
“I have a few ideas for the first event and how we can focus on building relationships with the guys, as well as highlighting the importance of literacy for the kids.” She turns the paper around, rising on her toes in order to push it across the length of the desk toward me.
In doing so, the folder slides, bumping against the still mostly full cup of coffee beside it and causing it to tip over, dousing me in still lukewarm liquid from this morning. “Fuck,” I hiss, shooting up from the chair as it soaks the front of my shirt, sticking to my stomach.
“Oh my God,” Maisie cries. “I’m so, so sorry. I-I didn’t mean to do that. I—”
I blow out a breath and lift my eyes back to hers. “Don’t worry about it. It’s fine.” The words are muttered through clenched teeth, even though it’s not fine because now I’m covered in goddamn coffee.
Her face crumples, and she continues rambling. “No, it’s not. God, you’re covered in coffee. I’m so sorry, Wilder.”
“Coach,” I grunt, pinning her with an icy gaze. “Hawthorne. Coach Hawthorne, Maisie.”
She nods. “Sorry. Coach Hawthorne. Sorry. I’m just… Now I’m flustered, and I really am sorry. It was an accident.”
My stomach knots when I see her bright blue eyes shining, like she’s two seconds away from crying or something.
Fucking hell.
Now I feel like an asshole.
Realization suddenly rushes me when I think about the fact that I’ve never given a fuck whether I was an asshole or not.
Until now, apparently.
Until the pretty little blonde standing across from me looks like I just kicked her dog.
I blow out a sigh and push down a rough swallow.
“I said it’s fine, Maisie. Don’t worry about it.
I’ve got another shirt.” I tear my gaze from her and walk over to the cabinet where I shoved the box of T-shirts, jackets, and other Hellcat merchandise that management gave me when I started.
The only time I was planning on wearing this shit was when I’m here, doing my job.
Not like I needed the over-the-top amount of it in the first place.
I wrench it open and swipe a T-shirt out of the top of the box, then reach behind to the collar at my nape and pull the soiled shirt off before balling it up to clean off the sticky residue left on my stomach.
There’s an audible hitch of breath, and I turn, my eyes landing on Maisie’s as she stares at me, her throat working.
Her eyes trace over the midnight ink carved into the muscles of my arms, my chest, and lower to my stomach, where she pauses on the line of dark hair beneath my belly button that trails beneath the waistband of my sweats.
Her tongue peeks out and slides along her bottom lip, and I know, I just fucking know, that she’s thinking about the same thing I can’t seem to forget.
Our eyes meet, the air between us charged with suffocating tension, both of us frozen in place.
Until the sound of voices from the hallway drifts through the door, and it has me jerking, snapping out of whatever trance we were in.
Christ.
I hastily throw the fresh T-shirt over my head and drag it down my body, then shut the cabinet behind me and stalk back toward my desk.