Chapter 32
KENDALL
My father looks between us, his face cycling through emotions I’ve never seen directed at me before. It’s betrayal and disgust.
“You both make me sick,” he spits out before turning and leaving. He doesn’t yell.
The door doesn’t slam this time. The absence of his anger is so much worse than the presence of it would be.
Patterson reaches for me, but I’m already moving, pushing past him into the hallway. My father’s back is retreating toward his office, and my heels click too loudly on the floor as I jog to catch up.
“Dad. Dad, wait. Please.”
He doesn’t slow down and ignores me completely.
“Let me explain,” I tell him.
He stops at his office door, hand on the handle, and turns to me, livid. The fluorescent lights catch the gray in his mustache, the lines around his eyes that weren’t there when I was a kid.
When did he get so old?
“Have you lost your fucking mind?” he asks, opening the door and letting me walk in.
I sit in the chair in front of his desk, one I used to sit at when I was growing up.
Not much has changed here. His office always smells like coffee and the wintergreen mints he keeps in his desk drawer and eats like candy.
Championship photos line the walls, and motivational quotes he’s collected over thirty years are in cheap frames between them.
On his desk, facing outward so visitors can see it, sits a framed picture of me in my skating costume.
I was young, naive, and Olympic-bound. That was the year before I got injured, and my entire life changed.
I used to love that photo. Now it feels like a version of me that never existed.
My father moves behind his desk, but doesn’t sit.
He crosses his arms—a position I’ve seen him take with players a thousand times.
This is the disappointed coach pose. The you fucked up, and now you’re going to hear about it stance.
I’ve had my fair share of ass chewings over the years, but I have a feeling this will be the absolute worst.
“It ends, Kendall. Right now. You’re not to see him again,” he demands.
“I can’t agree to that,” I say.
“What about Jameson?” The words come out low.
“It was fake,” I tell him, refusing to lie. There is no denying what we were doing.
My father glares at me, realizing Patterson and I have been seeing each other for longer than he thought.
“This has been going on for months.” He says it with disdain. “You’ve been sneaking around with one of my players for a few months. I don’t know who you are anymore, Kendall.”
“I was going to tell you. After the season, after—”
“Don’t.” He holds up a hand. “Don’t sit there and tell me you had planned to lie to me.”
“To protect you. To protect him. Dad, if—”
“I said, don’t. But apparently, you can’t follow rules.” His palm slaps the desk, and I flinch. “Don’t pretend this was about protecting anyone but yourself. You wanted to have your fun without facing consequences. That’s what this was.”
“You think this is a fling?” I question.
“Yes.” He comes around the desk, getting closer. “Wait until your mother finds out about what you’ve done. You’re selfish.”
The words land like a physical blow. I actually feel them in my body, a hot, sick twist beneath my ribs.
“I’m happy.” I don’t look away from him. “Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?”
“He’s one of my best players, Kendall. One of the best in the league.” He says it like I’m stupid, like I somehow missed this obvious fact. “You knew exactly what you were doing. And you know how these men are. You’ve seen it with your own eyes.”
“Patterson isn’t like that.”
“Yes, he is.” He’s close enough now that I can see the broken capillaries in his cheeks from stress.
“Every single one. I’ve watched it happen a hundred times.
Pretty girl catches their eye; they chase her until they get what they want, and then they move on to the next.
You’re Coach Hart’s daughter. A trophy. A conquest. Something to brag about in the locker room. ”
“He has never treated me like a trophy.”
“Then why the secrecy? Why the sneaking around?” He throws his hands up. “If this is so real, so pure, why didn’t either of you come to me? Because you knew it was wrong.”
“No, it’s because you would’ve acted unhinged, like this!
” The words explode out of me. “You would’ve lost your mind and threatened his career and treated him like shit.
I asked that we hide it because you’re overprotective, and look”—I gesture at the space between us—“here you are, proving me right.”
“Don’t you dare blame your scheme on me.” He laughs bitterly. “It’s not my fault you’re a liar.”
Those words hurt. Liar. He’s never called me that before.
“I’m sorry I lied. I’m sorry I hid it. But I’m not sorry I fell in love with him. I won’t apologize for that.”
“End it right now, and we can all walk away from this, and I’ll forget it ever happened,” he says.
I stare at him, waiting for his face to break into a smile. It doesn’t.
“I can’t,” I mutter. “I won’t.”
“No?” His eyebrows rise.
“No. Absolutely not. Patterson is a nonnegotiable for me.” I stand from the chair because I can’t have this conversation sitting down, looking up at him like a child. “We don’t get to choose who we love.”
His face shifts—shock first, then something harder settling in.
“But you’d choose him over your family.”
“You can’t be serious,” I whisper. “You’re forcing a choice that doesn’t need to exist.” I step toward him. “I can love Patterson and still be your daughter. I can have him and have you.”
“You can’t. This relationship will affect my coaching.”
He turns away from me, facing the window that overlooks the practice rink. The same rink where I learned to skate, holding his hand while he guided me across the ice. I’ve always been so proud to be his daughter.
“I should’ve never made this commission happen,” he says to the window.
“Dad—”
“I should’ve never trusted you to be in this building every day,” he admits. “I thought I was helping your career. I thought I was being a good father.” He presses his palm flat against the window. “This is my fault.”
For one second, I see it—the crack in his armor. Then his shoulders straighten, and it’s gone. I don’t respond as he stands there with his back to me, hands tucked into his pockets. My father has always been so warm, and watching him push me away hurts.
“Your access to this facility is being revoked,” he says. “I don’t want to see you at any games. I don’t want you to be within five miles of my players.”
“Dad, please—”
“I can’t look at you right now, Kendall.” His voice breaks on my name as he walks to the door and opens it. “I need you to leave.”
“Daddy.” The word rips out of me, raw and childlike. I haven’t called him that since he carried me off the ice after my ankle shattered, since he held me in the hospital while I sobbed into his chest. “I love him.”
He stops in the doorway. His back is to me, but I can see his shoulders tense.
“I’m in love with him,” I confirm, and my confidence slightly grows. “And I know you think that makes me naive, like every other girl who fell for a hockey player. But what we have is real. And I need you to realize that, even if you can’t accept it right now.”
Silence stretches between us.
“You should’ve never made me choose between my players and you,” he says.
“You’re choosing your pride over your daughter,” I say.
“Get out,” he says gruffly, moving back to his desk, ignoring me. “We’re done here.”
His indifference shatters an edge of my heart into fragments so small that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to piece it back together.
This was my biggest fear. I’ve officially lost my dad’s respect—something I’ve worked my entire life to gain. I wipe my face with the back of my hand and walk out of his office, trying to be strong.
Patterson rushes toward me in the hallway.
“Kendall.” He reaches for me, and I let him take my hands. “What happened?”
“He’s banning me from everything.” Saying it out loud doesn’t make me believe it anymore. “I never thought he’d do this.”
“He can’t do that.” Patterson’s jaw tightens.
“Yes, he can,” I whisper, growing more upset. “I can’t do this right now.”
He pulls me into his arms and holds me so tight that I can barely breathe. I bury my face in his chest and let myself fall apart. I feel the grief and the rage and the terrible relief of finally being honest with ourselves and everyone else.
An assistant coach passes us, and I step away from Patterson.
“I need to go.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“You can’t.” I cup his face in my hands.
“I’ll quit the team,” he whispers. “Say the words.”
“No.” I press my lips to his. “Don’t you dare. I’ve already made a big enough mess of this. I really have to get out of here. We’ll talk later,” I say before I completely break down.
I pull away and rush down the hallway. My legs are like gelatin. The portraits I painted hang on the walls, watching me leave—Callan’s determined stare, Hunter’s cocky grin, Patterson’s intensity.
Behind me, I hear my father’s office door open and slam shut so hard that the sound echoes through the empty corridor.
It’s followed by yelling. My father’s versus Patterson’s.
I keep walking until I’m outside, sucking in fresh air.
The sobs come out ugly, followed by gasps. I press my hand over my mouth to muffle them, but they keep coming, wave after wave. All I see when I close my eyes is my father’s disappointment. He couldn’t even look at me.
I chose this. I knew it might cost me everything, and I did it anyway. Nothing could prepare me for feeling this.
My phone feels like it weighs a hundred pounds when I pull it from my dress pocket and call Addison.
She picks up on the second ring. “Weird. I was thinking about you.”
I try to speak, but all that comes out is a sound I don’t recognize.
“Kendall? What’s wrong? Where are you?”
“Can I come over?” I manage.
“Of course. Do you want me to meet you?”
“No. I’m coming.”
The ride there is a blur. Streetlights smear through my tears. By the time I’m dropped off in front of her building, I’m numb. Before I can knock, she opens the door.
“Oh my God. What happened?”
“I … I …”
She guides me inside and leads me to her couch.
I curl up in the corner, knees drawn up, with mascara painting black rivers down my cheeks.
Addison has a box of tissues in her lap, and she hands me one after another.
She doesn’t ask questions or demand I explain myself. She waits patiently while I fall apart.
When the worst of it has passed, when my breath comes in hiccups instead of sobs, I look at her.
“Did you and Jamie break up?”
“I need to tell you something. And I’m so afraid you’re going to hate me,” I admit, crying again.
Addison’s expression shifts from concern to something more guarded. But she doesn’t look away or pull back.
“Never. Now, tell me everything.”