Chapter 33
February
The night before my master class, I stay up past my bedtime experimenting with the camera’s online software and feeling anxious about my clinic.
My biggest fear is that nobody will show. They’re tired from the road trip. When their alarms go off in the morning, they’ll roll over and shut them off.
I finally fall asleep at two a.m., which means I’m the one having trouble getting out of bed the next morning. I shower in a hurry and dress even faster.
I give myself a pep talk as I speed walk toward the facility, which glints in the morning sunlight at the end of Twenty-First Street, like a gaudy jewel.
“This had better go well,” I tell the cold February air.
“It needs to be the most insightful ninety minutes of these players’ careers.
A clinic wise enough to make hockey angels weep. ”
“Are hockey angels a thing?” someone asks from behind me. “Wait up, Coach Zoe.”
I slow down only enough to give DeLuca a wave. “No time for chitchat. Consider this your warm-up.”
“Yes, Coach.” He falls into step beside me.
“Where are your two sidekicks this morning?” It’s not too late to worry that nobody will show up for my class.
“They’re right behind us. Tremaine was arguing hockey stats with the concierge. Hey—I hope you noticed—I finally signed up for my one-on-one.”
“You get a gold star, DeLuca.”
“Thanks. You should have come over for beers the other night. It was a good game, and you could have helped us trash-talk Brooklyn’s skating.”
“That does sound like fun,” I agree.
“Your boy would have been happy to see you there. Just saying.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” I say primly.
“If that’s how you want to play it,” he says with a grin.
We’ve only made it a few more paces when I hear the sound of feet running hard behind us. As a small, single woman in a big city, that sound might be alarming. But not with DeLuca at my side, especially when he shouts, “Keep up, boys! Our girl wants to get there early.”
“Better put it into high gear, then,” Tremaine says as he and Chase pass us.
DeLuca and I share a quick glance. And since we’re both competitive athletes, we break into a run at the same moment.
“This is invigorating,” I manage to say as we accelerate.
“Can’t let ’em leave us in their dust,” he says.
I’m running full out now, my bag bouncing against my hip. But I’m also grinning. This is why I couldn’t quit sports entirely. I need to be surrounded by people who think that a morning sprint to work is a fun way to start the day.
Plus the view is nice from here. I’m watching Chase’s muscled backside power toward the Legends’ headquarters.
He must feel my gaze, though, because he suddenly angles a smirk at me over his shoulder.
Chase wins the race, holding open the door for the rest of us.
“Such a gentleman,” Tremaine says, patting him on the stomach as he passes by. “My hero.”
“Fuck off.” Chase rolls his eyes and then winks as I pass through.
The wink makes my stomach do a little pirouette. We’ve come a long way from the scowl he gave me on my first day in New York. Now if we could only figure out how to skate together again, we might just be okay.
Since I’m thinking about Chase, I don’t spare a glance at the man standing at the security desk. Until I hear his voice, that is. “Just try her cell,” he snaps, and I jerk to a halt.
“Why don’t you try that, sir?” the guard asks the newcomer.
“B-because he can’t,” I sputter. “I blocked him.”
Every eye in the room zips past me as my ex-husband turns slowly around, his smile firmly in place. “There she is,” he says calmly. “Good morning, Zoe. I thought you’d turn up.”
I’m too annoyed to return the greeting. So I just stare at him instead. I don’t have time for this. I really don’t.
Bruce seems oblivious to my discomfort. He’s giving me his disarming smile, the same one he uses on prospective clients.
He’s an objectively handsome man. Everyone says so.
When I was twenty, I liked his aura of success, with his dark, shiny hair and a gleaming smile that he whitens regularly. The man is as vain as the day is long.
He was twenty-nine when we started dating, and already a huge success.
He had a long list of top athletes on his roster, including skaters, track stars, a couple of female golfers, and a tennis wunderkind.
In fact, most of his clients are women. I saw him as smart, sophisticated, and a champion of female athletes.
All those things are true, I suppose. But there’s also a lot of posturing when it comes to Bruce. It took me too long to understand that he cares far more about appearances than about actual people.
Everything is optics, he likes to say, which probably accounts for that slick smile. “Hi, darling,” he says. “We need to talk.”
“I’m late for work,” I reply, instead of what I really want to say, which is something like We talk through our lawyers. But I won’t make a scene in the Legends’ lobby.
“This will only take a moment,” he says smoothly. “I need to know why I’m the last to hear about this?” He raises his phone to show me a certain social media announcement.
“Oh, that?” I squint at him. “You came all the way to New York to ask me about the jamboree?”
“I was in town. And I’m still your agent. You don’t perform anywhere without my say-so.”
“Uh-oh,” mutters DeLuca, making me aware of the fact that nobody has moved through the turnstiles toward our skating session. They’re all standing here watching my ex-husband interrogate me.
“We’ll discuss this later,” I say, my hand closing around my ID in my pocket.
“Now works better for me,” he says, stepping into the space between me and the turnstiles. “Let’s go to your office and settle this. You have an office, right? You said this was a real job.”
Inside, I’m starting to boil over. My position here is precarious enough without Agent Asshole showing up to embarrass me. But I cannot lose my temper. Nothing good comes of that.
“I have an office,” I say quietly. “But no time to visit it. As I already mentioned.”
“Make time. I have a one o’clock flight.”
Inside my Legends jacket I’m starting to sweat. I glance at the hockey players and nod toward the escalators. “Why don’t you all go on up? Get a few laps in.”
“We’re good,” Chase says calmly.
Oh my God. I need to extract myself from this situation, but I don’t know how. Bruce always said he loved me, but he’d boss me around in the next breath. My marriage had a power imbalance that I never figured out how to correct, and I doubt I’ll solve that in the next sixty seconds.
Or wait. Maybe I can.
“Bruce, thank you for stopping by,” I say sweetly. “But you’re released from duty as my agent.” Then I take a step to the side.
“What?” my ex barks, moving to block me again. “Zoe—”
“Bro,” Chase says, sliding between the two of us. “I think you just got fired.”
Bruce makes a sputtering noise. But I know an opening when I see it. I scoot once more toward the turnstile and badge in.
DeLuca is right behind me, while Tremaine hangs back a moment with Chase.
“Zoe! Come back and—” Bruce calls.
“Dude,” Tremaine says. “The lady said no.”
Bruce is many deplorable things, but he is not stupid. A split second later he’s striding across the lobby toward the doors. And a second after that, he disappears onto the street outside.
I watch him go. My face is burning up, but I feel lighter already.
Chase and Tremaine badge in before I recover myself, and DeLuca gently nudges me toward the escalator. The other players follow after I step on.
“He seems nice,” Chase says dryly.
I gulp. “God, I should have fired him a long time ago.”
“Why didn’tcha?” DeLuca wants to know.
“Because…” God, it’s a good question. “Because I’m a has-been in skating, and everyone told me that nobody else would take me on.”
Everyone being Bruce and my mother.
“A bad agent is worse than no agent,” Tremaine says. “Isn’t that what Bess always says?”
“It’s true for husbands, too,” I point out.
“Wait…” Tremaine’s jaw unhinges. “You married that prick?”
“Weren’t you ever young and dumb?” I mumble. This isn’t helping my image.
“I was!” DeLuca says, raising his hand. “My rookie year I got so wasted after my first NHL shutout that I barfed all over the GM’s assistant.”
“You threw up on Darcy?” Tremaine yelps.
“No—the woman who had the job before her. But she was besties with the travel lady, and they still lose my luggage more often than yours.”
The small talk relaxes me by, oh, about 4 percent. So I’m still a basket case when I step off the escalator and jog toward the locker corridor. “On that rink in eight minutes, boys!” I call over my shoulder.
“Aye, aye, Coach!” DeLuca returns as they head for the players’ dressing room.
I drop my coat in my locker without even checking for nasty notes.
And then I dash into the equipment room, where Bernie is working at the grinder.
“Morning, Coach!” he says. “Yours are right there.” He nods in the direction of one of the dozens of wooden cubbies built into the wall. “Did ’em last night.”
“Thank you!” I flash him a smile, grab my hockey skates, and light out of there.
Just in case Bruce decided to lurk in the lobby, I take the back stairwell down to the main level and enter the rink through the rear door.
My damn hands are shaking, though, as I drop my skates onto the bench. I sit down and press my palms together. I don’t know if I’m shaky from anger, though, or from the shock of having made the decision to cut my last tie to the figure skating world. There’s no going back now.
I lace up my skates as quick as I can, then step onto the rink.
The swish of steel against ice calms me down a little.
There are already a dozen players in attendance.
Several are warming up on the ice, while a few more lace up their skates.
Aiden Sharp is here as well, checking the cameras we set up the other night.
Feeling galvanized, I wait at center ice.