32. Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Two
The Renegades dominated on the ice last night, but the penalty box was a frequent stop.
While the team’s performance was strong, off-ice whispers surrounding a certain member of the team are creating a buzz.
Coach Trasier, usually stoic and unmoved by emotion, addressed the issue in the post-game presser, indicating the team took offense to comments made by the opposition.
The Renegades need to demonstrate their ability to handle distractions if they want to raise the Stanley Cup. ~Renegades Rinkside
Merri
I lingered in the video room long after Wilson took off. I stood like an indecisive idiot at the door, listening to the sounds of the players and staff in the hallway, fighting the urge to go and find Shep.
Three penalties in the last period, starting with a five minutes for fighting penalty and ending with a high-stick call when Cale pulled his chicken-wing move on Shep’s stick. The refs might have missed it, but my cameras caught everything.
My ex had perfected the art of drawing penalties at Arvon, but tonight’s savagery went beyond game strategy. Neither man bothered with pretense. They wanted blood.
After they dropped gloves the first time, it was like a match had been tossed onto dry tinder. The next line came out rearing for a fight, singling out Johansen at every opportunity.
Sure, playoff-push games always cranked up the intensity. Emotions ran hot, tempers flared, testosterone peaked. But this?
The team’s reputation centered on skill and speed, not dropping gloves. Yet even Fournier, our typically unflappable captain, had zeroed in on Johansen, slamming him into the boards with barely contained fury.
My hands trembled as I rewound the footage for the four hundredth time. What had Cale said to light Shep’s fuse? The dread coiling in my gut whispered a terrifying answer.
We ended the game 6-1. Looked like a dang soccer score, not a hockey result.
We crushed them.
A door slammed out in the hall. I flinched only to slump back against the wall and close my eyes. The air thrummed with a tension that left a metallic and bitter taste after every breath.
The rancid memory of walking into my Arvon office that Monday after the hotel bar incident lurked at the corner of my mind. The whispers that followed, the way statistics and game analysis suddenly took a backseat to relationship drama.
I rolled my eyes at my own dramatics. The reality wasn’t that men gossiped about women—they absolutely did. The reality was that gossip had consequences. Consequences that had birthed my No Hockey Players Rule in the first place.
Moving to the Renegades should have been my clean break.
A chance to prove video coaches earned respect through algorithms and analysis, not relationship status.
The NHL had hired a woman. Progress, right?
But beneath their welcome-to-the-team smiles lurked the same old prejudices, ready to pounce the second I stepped out of line.
I’d fought like hell to shake off the Arvon whispers. Landing this job felt like escaping Cale Johansen’s shadow. Because surely NHL credentials would silence the gossip back at Arvon.
My pretty dresses and encyclopedic hockey knowledge had become my armor. I tracked player trends better than any computer program, spoke up in meetings, earned my place in this testosterone-fueled circus one statistical analysis at a time.
But what if the whispers started? What if they dug up my past, dissected my relationships, speculated about my sex life?
Would those snide comments, disguised as harmless “locker room talk,” brand me with an outdated reputation while my male colleagues got a pat on the back for the same damn thing?
Would my expertise, my hard-won knowledge, be dismissed because I dared to have a personal life?
In the initial few months after the fiasco with Cale, I’d experienced every bit of the backlash.
And I’d trotted my butt into the Arvon head coach’s office and even involved human resources when doing so felt like the right move.
I would do the same here, too. I would fight for my right to do my job. My right to not be disrespected.
But why did every moment have to be a battle?
Why couldn’t I just do my job, analyze film, work with the coaches and players like every other Renegades employee?
The door swung open and Shep barreled through.
His presence filled the room like a thunderstorm.
He stopped at the empty table and towering monitors, but whirled back around to find me leaning on the wall.
The crest of his cheek was already turning red.
From Cale’s fist? The side of his chin had a lump the size of my thumb. How much must his face hurt?
I reached out and grasped his hand. His big hand swallowed mine, but he let me turn it over. Banged up and bruised knuckles, scraped raw from pounding into Cale.
I used to roll my eyes at the fights in hockey.
How was pounding away at another player part of the game?
Where was the precision, the skill in that?
Since then, I’d learned that the fights stemmed from passion for the game, for overcoming challenges and earning a W for the record books.
Was it uncivilized? Sure. Did it get my blood pumping? Hell yeah.
But that was before I’d developed feelings for a certain cocky sniper.
I smoothed my thumb over his bumpy, swollen knuckle. “What was this about?”
“The man’s a dick. He can barely play the game. He needs to find another way to make a living.”
My fingers traced the raw scrapes across Shep’s knuckles. Despite my churning emotions, facts were facts. “His stats put him consistently in the top ten. Exactly what was said?”
“Why do I feel like I’ve just come home from school and reporting on my day to my mother?”
I jerked back, dropped his hand, and retreated to the table lined up to the glass. I yanked my purse from the back of the chair, looped it over my shoulder and faced Shep. “Remember what I told you, how I’d taken a long weekend off to meet up with Cale?”
He stepped forward, hand outstretched. “Merri—”
“I’m not done.” Heat crawled up my neck as memories clawed their way to the surface.
“That Monday, Coach called me into his office.” The leather strap of my bag bit into my palm.
“Asked if I needed time to ‘process my emotional turmoil’ before getting back to work. Like my ability to analyze game film somehow hinged on my relationship status.”
I stepped back, putting space between me and Shep’s magnetic pull.
“You know what’s funny? Not one guy in that office has ever been questioned about their emotional state after a breakup.
No one’s ever suggested they might be too fragile to do their job.
” A bitter laugh escaped. “But me? The administration treated me like I might shatter if someone mentioned Cale’s name. ”
“The whispers spread through campus faster than a puck off your stick. Through the locker room, into coaches’ meetings. Every student athlete, every coworker, every administrator. One night turned me from respected analyst to cautionary tale.”
I twisted my fingers in my skirt. “Maybe I should have taken that time off, played into their stereotype of the fragile female who can’t handle rejection. But I’d rather eat glass than prove them right.”
“I guarantee Wilson’s never had someone question his ability to break down film based on his love life.
No one’s ever suggested buying him lingerie to keep his next girlfriend from straying.
” My voice cracked. “And I guarantee Coach has never asked him if he’s emotionally stable enough to do his job. ”
Shep reached out to touch my arm, but I ducked away. “That’s bullshit. They all needed their asses handed to them.”
“Sports run on testosterone and ego.” I smoothed my hands over my dress, steadying my nerves. “Throwing punches might work on the ice, but in my world? One wrong move and my career goes up in flames.”
My eyes stung and my nose tingled and I absolutely refused to lose it any more than I already had. I stepped past Shep, hovered in the doorway. “Tell me what Cale said.”
Shep’s jaw popped and he shook his head. “Bullshit, just spouting bullshit.”
I nodded, studying the man before me. Shep Landon, the golden boy with hidden depths.
Behind that easy charm lay a man who’d stepped up for his daughter without hesitation, who fought for his family as fiercely as he battled for points on ice.
The same man who’d whispered he loved me in that escape room darkness.
“Does Cale know about us?” I inhaled slowly through my nose. “Or, I guess, I should say, how much does he know? I’m thinking fighting with him gave him all the confirmation he needed.”
Shep waved his hand, like swatting away an annoying fly. “He doesn’t know anything. Don’t worry about what he said. Just two guys jawing at each other. No one pays any attention to that crap.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. Frustration surged, hot and sharp. “Easy for you to say.”
“Easy for you, too. You’re ignoring the fact that I wasn’t the only one after Johansen tonight. You’re a Renegade, Merri. You think any player on the team’s not gonna have your back?”
“What?” The words knocked the air from my lungs.
“I think even the captain put a little extra in that backcheck right before the buzzer.”
My mind reeled. I’d watched the game unfold, seen the fights break out, but I’d assumed… A lump formed in my throat. They hadn’t just been defending their star player. They’d been defending me.
“Merri?”
“But I’m just the video coach.” The words came out small, uncertain.
Shep’s blue eyes softened. “You’re a Renegade. The guys know what Cale did at Arvon. Think they’re gonna let him come into our house and talk shit about one of our own?”