Chapter 6 #2
“Yeah, they are. Sometimes, they’re prouder than I am.” He laughed. “My mom still has every newspaper clipping from when I scored my first hat trick in high school. She’s got this whole scrapbook.”
The image of Adan’s mother carefully cutting out newspaper articles and pasting them into a scrapbook had warmth spread inside me. It was such a normal, loving gesture, and so different from the way achievements were documented in my world. “That’s wonderful. She sounds very supportive.”
“She is. They both are. Sometimes, I think that’s more pressure than if they were expecting me to fail, you know? Like, I can’t let them down because they’ve invested so much.”
We worked in comfortable silence for a while, the rhythmic process of assembly creating a sort of meditative calm.
Adan was surprisingly good at this: patient, methodical, good with his hands.
He approached the project the same way he approached hockey drills: with complete focus and determination to get it right.
“Hand me that cam lock,” he said, pointing to one of the small metal pieces.
I passed it to him, our fingers brushing briefly in the exchange. Even sick and distracted, I was aware of the contact, the warmth of his skin, the way he handled the small components with surprising delicacy for someone with such strong hands.
“You know what’s funny?” Adan said as he secured another connection. “I’m better at this than I am at most of my classes.”
“You’re majoring in business, right?”
“Yeah.” He made a face. “Most of it’s pretty boring. Marketing principles, accounting, organizational behavior—it’s all so theoretical.”
“And you prefer hands-on learning.”
“Exactly. Like this.” He gestured at the furniture taking shape between us. “I can see what I’m doing, see the progress. It makes sense in a way that reading about market segmentation strategies doesn’t.”
“Perhaps you’re more of a kinesthetic learner. Some people need to physically engage with material to understand it fully.”
“Is that a real thing or are you being nice?”
“It’s definitely a real thing. People process information differently. There’s nothing wrong with learning better through doing rather than listening.”
“Huh.” He seemed to consider this. “That actually makes me feel better about struggling with some of my professors. There’s this one guy who talks at us for an hour and expects us to absorb everything.”
“What subject?”
“Economics. Professor Henley. The man could make winning the lottery sound boring.”
I laughed despite my lingering nausea. “I had a similar professor for statistics. He had this monotone voice that could put an entire auditorium to sleep.”
“See, that’s what I don’t get about college. Half the professors act like they don’t want to be there, but then they get mad when students don’t pay attention.”
“Teaching is a skill separate from expertise in a subject,” I said. “Unfortunately, not all academics develop both.”
We were building one of the interior shelves now, a process that required us to work closely together, Adan holding pieces steady while I secured the connections. The proximity should have felt awkward, but instead it felt natural, like we’d done this before.
“So what was university like for you?” he asked. “Was it different from what you expected?”
The question made me pause. How much could I safely share without revealing too much? “It was an adjustment for sure. The academic culture was different from what I was used to in Sweden. More competitive, though from what I understand, not as competitive as the US.”
“Were you homesick?”
“Terribly, at first. Everything was different: the food, the social customs, even the way people talked about hockey.”
“How so?”
“In Sweden, hockey is respected, but it’s seen as one path among many. In Canada, it felt like hockey was everything. Players were celebrities on campus.”
“That must have been weird for you.”
“It was. I wasn’t accustomed to that level of attention.” Which was both true and ironic, given my actual background.
“I bet you handled it better than most guys would. You seem pretty level-headed about that stuff.”
If only he knew. “I tried to focus on the hockey itself rather than everything surrounding it.”
“Smart approach. Some guys get caught up in the party scene and forget why they’re there.”
“Did you? Get caught up in parties?”
Adan laughed. “Me? Nah. I’m too focused on hockey. Plus, my parents would kill me if I was blowing my scholarship on partying. They’d probably like you, actually. My mom always approves of coaches who push me to be better.”
The casual comment shouldn’t have meant anything, but something about it—the idea of meeting Adan’s parents, of being approved of by people who mattered to him—made my pulse quicken in a way that had nothing to do with being sick. “That’s very kind of you to say.”
“I mean it. You’re different from other coaches I’ve had.”
“Because I’m younger?”
“Yeah, but also more patient. And you don’t act like you know everything.”
“I’m only seven years older than you.”
“Yeah, but some of the other coaches act like that’s a lifetime. Like they’ve forgotten what it’s like to be learning something new.”
We fitted another piece into place, and I could see the cabinet finally starting to take shape. Something that had seemed impossible a few hours ago was becoming real, functional, useful.
Adan tested the stability of what we’d built so far. Apparently, he was content, because he continued. “Do you ever think about what you’d be doing if you weren’t coaching?”
The question caught me off guard. In my real life, I had a very clear path laid out: royal duties, state functions, eventually taking on more responsibility within the Swedish monarchy. But that wasn’t something I could share.
“I think I might enjoy teaching, perhaps at university level. There’s something appealing about helping people understand complex concepts.”
“You’d be good at that. You have that way of breaking things down that makes sense.”
“What about you? If hockey weren’t an option, what would you want to do?”
“Honestly? I have no idea. Hockey’s been my whole life for so long, I don’t know who I am without it.” He paused in his work, looking thoughtful. “I wonder what it would be like to travel… See places that aren’t hockey rinks.”
“Where would you go?”
“Europe, maybe. I’ve never been anywhere outside North America. It seems so different from here—all that history, all those different cultures packed together.”
“It is quite different. But perhaps not as exotic as you might imagine. People are people, regardless of geography.”
“Still, it would be cool to see. Sweden, Norway, all those places.” He grinned. “Maybe you could give me a tour of your country. Show me your stars.”
The casual suggestion hit me like a physical blow. The idea of showing Adan around Sweden, of seeing my homeland through his eyes, of showing the stars to someone who was starting to matter more than he should… God, it sounded both wonderful and completely impossible.
“That would be nice,” I managed, hoping my voice sounded normal.
“There.” Adan secured the final connection on the main frame. “How’s that look?”
I stepped back to admire our work. The cabinet stood complete and stable, looking exactly like it was supposed to look, like the picture on the box, like something a competent adult might own. “Thank you. I would’ve been working on that for weeks if you hadn’t helped.”
“No problem. It was actually fun. Way better than Professor Henley’s economics lecture.”
He was sitting back on his heels, looking pleased with our accomplishment, and something about his expression—satisfied, relaxed, completely at ease in my space—made my chest tighten with a feeling I absolutely could not afford to have.
He started to gather up the leftover packaging materials. “You know, this is the most relaxed I’ve seen you since we started working together.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Usually, you’re so professional. Controlled. Like you’re always thinking three steps ahead.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“No, not bad, but this is nice. Seeing you as a regular person instead of as my coach.”
The observation was more perceptive than I’d expected, and more dangerous than he realized. Because he was right. I did feel different here, in my own space, working on something that had nothing to do with hockey or hierarchy or maintaining appropriate distance.
I felt like myself. Like Nils, not Coach Anders.
And that was exactly the problem.
“I should head out.” He stood, brushing off his jeans. “Let you get some rest. But seriously, thanks for letting me help. It’s nice to do something useful with my hands for once.”
“Thank you for the soup and for this.” I gestured at the completed shelving unit. “You’ve been incredibly kind.”
“Anytime, Coach. Feel better, okay?”
“I will.”
After he left, I stood in my living room looking at the new cabinet and trying to process what had happened. Adan had come to my house, brought me soup, helped me assemble furniture, and made the entire experience feel so natural that I’d almost forgotten why it was problematic.
Almost.
But now, alone again with the scent of his cologne still lingering in my living room and the memory of his hands working beside mine, I couldn’t ignore the truth anymore.
I was falling for him. Not the physical attraction I’d been trying to rationalize away, but something deeper.
I liked his kindness, his work ethic, his dry sense of humor.
I liked the way he approached problems with determination and refused to give up until he’d figured them out.
I liked his stories about his family, his dreams about traveling, his honest confusion about life beyond hockey.
I liked the person he was when he wasn’t trying to prove anything to anyone.
And that was exactly what I couldn’t afford to feel.
I was playing with fire. Every boundary I crossed, every personal moment I allowed, and every time I let myself enjoy his company beyond our professional relationship was all leading toward something that could destroy everything I’d built here.
But as I looked at the cabinet, solid and functional and somehow beautiful in its simplicity, I couldn’t bring myself to regret this afternoon.
Even if I should.
Even if continuing down this path would eventually force me to choose between my growing feelings for Adan and everything else in my life.
Even if I was starting to suspect which choice I might make.