Chapter 11
NILS
Monday morning arrived with a clear blue sky and frost on the ground.
The leaves were beginning to turn, painting the Buffalo landscape in shades of gold and red that weren’t so different from Swedish autumns.
As I drove to the arena, I tried to focus on that similarity, on the comfort of familiar seasons and predictable change.
I needed something predictable this morning.
The weekend had been an exercise in overthinking.
Every moment from the bus ride home replayed in my mind with uncomfortable clarity—the way Adan had sought out my company, how I had tried so hard to keep him at bay only to cave when he’d clearly been hurt, and then the easy conversation that had developed between us.
The memory of waking up briefly to find him still there, quietly watching the dark countryside roll past, had made something warm and dangerous flutter in my chest.
That warmth was exactly the problem.
I’d spent the whole of Sunday reminding myself of all the reasons why Friday night’s bus ride couldn’t happen again.
Professional boundaries. The trust Coach Brennan had placed in me.
The potential consequences for both Adan’s career and my position at Millard.
The fundamental fact that I was supposed to be his coach, not his friend.
Certainly not whatever I was slowly becoming instead.
Today’s session would be strictly professional.
Technical instruction, skill development, measurable improvement.
No personal conversation, no casual touches during demonstrations, no moments of comfortable intimacy that had nothing to do with hockey.
I had to retreat into professionalism, or I would respond in a way I’d come to regret.
There was only so much a man could take, after all, including me.
I could do this. I was a professional coach, focused on fostering appropriate relationships with players.
The fact that Adan was different—smarter, more engaging, more genuinely kind than anyone I’d worked with before—didn’t change my responsibilities.
Nor did the fact that his smile made my belly go all weak.
The arena was quiet when I used my key card to enter through the staff entrance and made my way to the equipment room, mentally reviewing the session I’d planned. Shooting accuracy drills. Defensive positioning. Tactical awareness exercises that required minimal physical contact.
Safe territory.
I pulled out my coaching notebook and flipped to the pages I’d prepared over the weekend, detailed diagrams and progression sequences that would keep us focused on measurable hockey skills. Nothing personal, nothing that could be misinterpreted.
My phone buzzed with a text from Floris.
Floris
How’s the coaching going? Still enjoying your “normal life” experiment?
Me
Going well. Learning a lot about American hockey culture.
Floris
And nothing else? No interesting developments?
The question felt loaded somehow, like he was fishing for information about the conversation we’d had during our last video call. The one where I’d admitted to being attracted to someone I couldn’t pursue.
Me
Nothing worth reporting.
This was technically true. Attraction wasn’t worth reporting if you were planning to handle it professionally and move past it.
Floris
If you say so. But remember, life is short. Don’t let opportunities pass you by.
I turned off my phone without responding. Floris meant well, but he didn’t understand the complexities of my situation. The power dynamics, the professional obligations, the fact that pursuing those feelings could destroy everything I’d built here.
The arena doors opened with their familiar echo, and I heard the sound of someone’s gear bag hitting the floor near the benches. Early, as always.
“Morning, Coach,” Adan called out, but something in his voice sounded different. Less confident than usual, maybe. More tentative.
“Good morning, Adan,” I replied, keeping my tone carefully professional as he approached the coaching area.
Something was off about his usual pre-session energy. Instead of the focused confidence I’d come to expect, he seemed nervous, almost fidgety.
“How was the rest of your weekend?” I asked, the question automatic before I remembered my resolution to keep things strictly hockey-focused.
“Fine. Good. You know, just relaxing and stuff.” He wasn’t meeting my eyes, which was unusual. Adan was typically direct in his communication, comfortable with eye contact.
“Excellent. Ready to work on some shooting accuracy today?”
“Yeah, sure. Whatever you think is best.”
Whatever I thought was best? That didn’t sound like the Adan I’d been working with for the past month. He usually had opinions about training, questions about techniques, pushback when he didn’t immediately understand the purpose of a drill.
He quickly changed into his practice gear, and then we stepped onto the ice together.
He was keeping more distance between us than usual.
Not dramatically, but enough that I registered the change.
Maybe he’d spent the weekend thinking about our growing friendship and decided it was inappropriate too.
The thought should have been reassuring. After all, it would make maintaining professional boundaries much easier if we were both committed to the same goal. Instead, it left me with an unexpected sense of loss.
“We’ll start with some shooting-accuracy work.” I set up cones to mark target areas in the net. “I want to focus on shot placement under pressure.”
“Sounds good.” He was still avoiding eye contact, focusing instead on the equipment set-up with unusual intensity.
I demonstrated the first drill, showing him the proper body positioning and follow-through technique. “The key is maintaining your accuracy even when you’re moving at game speed. Ready to try it?”
“Yeah.”
He took his position and went through the drill, but something was clearly off. His timing was slightly delayed, his shots less precise than I’d come to expect. These were techniques he’d mastered weeks ago, yet he was struggling with the execution.
“Let’s try that again. Remember, you want to pick your spot before you release the puck.”
“Right. Pick the spot.”
His second attempt was better, but still not up to his usual standard. I skated closer to observe his form more carefully. “Your shoulders are tense. That’s affecting your follow-through. Here, let me—”
I moved to adjust his positioning, placing my hands on his shoulders the way I had dozens of times before. The moment I made contact, he went rigid, his entire body tensing under my touch.
“Like this?” he asked, his voice sounding strained.
I could feel the tension in his muscles, the way he seemed to be holding his breath. This was completely different from the relaxed comfort we’d developed during previous sessions.
“Yes.” I stepped back. “That’s better.”
But it wasn’t better. Something was wrong, and I was clearly the problem.
Had he picked up on my attraction, on my feelings for him? Had those somehow made him uncomfortable in ways I hadn’t realized? The thought made my stomach turn with professional guilt and personal disappointment.
“Let’s move on to defensive positioning.” I skated toward the next drill set-up to create some distance between us. “We’ll work on reading the forecheck.”
“Okay.”
The rest of the session continued in the same awkward vein.
Adan going through the motions competently but without his usual engagement, me providing instruction while trying to figure out where I’d gone wrong.
Every technique that required physical demonstration was met with the same tension, the same careful distance.
By the time we reached our final drill, I was convinced that I’d crossed some line without realizing it.
Maybe the bus ride conversation had been too personal.
Maybe he’d sensed something in my demeanor that had revealed feelings I’d been trying to keep hidden.
Maybe he was trying to send a clear signal he wanted us to be professional.
“That’s good work today,” I said as we finished up, though it had been far from good work. “See you at practice?”
“Yeah, sure. Practice.”
He gathered his gear quickly, more quickly than usual, avoiding the casual post-session conversation that had become our routine. No questions about technique, no discussion of how the drills might apply to game situations, no easy banter about anything beyond hockey.
“Adan,” I said as he headed toward the exit.
He stopped and turned back, but still wouldn’t quite meet my eyes. “Yeah?”
I wanted to ask if everything was alright, if I’d done something to make him uncomfortable, if there was a way to fix whatever had changed between us.
But those questions felt too personal, too much like exactly the kind of boundary-crossing that had probably created this problem in the first place.
“Have a good day,” I said instead.
“You too, Coach.”
After he left, I stood alone on the ice for several minutes, replaying every moment of the session and trying to identify where things had gone wrong.
The easy camaraderie we’d built over the past month had disappeared completely, replaced by an awkward formality that felt worse than our very first session together.
I gathered the equipment and headed back to the coaching office, my mind churning with possibilities.
Had someone said something to him about our growing friendship?
Had he received feedback from other coaches or players about the appropriateness of our relationship?
Had he simply reflected over the weekend and decided that maintaining professional distance was the smarter choice?
Or had I somehow revealed my feelings in ways that made him uncomfortable?
The last possibility was the most troubling.
If Adan had sensed my attraction and was pulling back because of it, then I’d failed in the most fundamental way possible as his coach.
I’d allowed my personal feelings to interfere with my professional responsibilities, creating an environment where my student felt unsafe or uncomfortable.
I sat at my desk and opened my laptop, staring at the blank screen while trying to figure out how to handle this situation.
The obvious solution was to request that Coach Brennan reassign Adan’s individual coaching to Kevin or bring in someone else entirely.
It would be disappointing professionally—I genuinely enjoyed working with Adan and believed I could continue to help him improve—but if my presence was making him uncomfortable, then stepping aside was the ethical choice.
The thought of not working with him anymore, of going back to purely professional interactions during team practices, made something ache in my chest. But that reaction was exactly the problem.
I was more invested in this coaching relationship than I should be, more personally affected by his success and his company than was appropriate.
I opened a new document and began typing a carefully worded email to Coach Brennan, requesting a meeting to discuss Adan’s individual coaching arrangement.
I didn’t need to explain all the details—just that I thought it might be beneficial for Adan to work with a different coach for the remainder of the season.
But as I started the second paragraph, I hesitated.
One awkward session didn’t necessarily mean anything significant had changed.
Maybe Adan was distracted by schoolwork, or tired from the weekend, or dealing with some personal issue that had nothing to do with me.
Maybe I was projecting my own guilt and confusion onto his behavior.
I closed the laptop without sending the email. One more session. If Wednesday’s training went the same way, if the awkward distance persisted, then I would know for certain that something fundamental had changed. At that point, I could make the professional decision to step aside.
But as I gathered my things and prepared to leave the arena, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d already lost something important.
The easy friendship that had been developing between us, the comfortable conversations that had nothing to do with hockey, the sense that I’d found someone who genuinely enjoyed my company—all of that seemed to have disappeared overnight.
And the worst part was that I wasn’t sure if I was more disappointed as his coach or as someone who’d been starting to care about him far more than was wise.
Either way, it was a reminder that I’d been right to try to maintain professional boundaries from the beginning. Personal relationships in coaching situations were complicated for exactly these reasons. When things went wrong—and they inevitably did—everyone got hurt.
I just hadn’t expected it to hurt quite this much.
As I prepared myself for the rest of the day, I tried to convince myself that this was for the best. That maintaining professional distance would be easier now that Adan seemed to want that too.
That I could go back to being simply his coach, nothing more and nothing less.
But the empty feeling in my chest suggested that convincing myself wasn’t going to be as easy as I’d hoped.
I had two days before our next session to figure out how to handle this new dynamic professionally. Two days to prepare for the possibility that the most engaging coaching relationship I’d ever had was coming to an end.
Two days to accept that sometimes, doing the right thing felt an awful lot like losing something you’d never really had in the first place.