Chapter 5 #2
Hockey players.
The species I’ve successfully avoided since high school, when I learned the hard way that jocks trying to date the coach’s daughter was just another sport. Ryan Hutchins, captain of Dad’s team, who’d pursued me with flowers and promises until I’d finally believed him.
The morning after we’d slept together, his voice had carried through the quad: “Mission accomplished, boys,” he’d said. “Coach’s daughter? Check!” And the laughter that had followed from every other asshole on the team had drained something out of me I’ve never quite refilled.
But Dad’s eager expression is kryptonite to my resolve. This job is his dream made manifest in the shape of a Division I program. The least I can do is smile at his players before retreating to my apartment for my fifteen minutes of tightly scheduled breakdown time.
“Sure,” I hear myself say. “But just a quick hello.”
His beam could power the arena. “They’ll love you!”
Doubtful , I think, but I follow him anyway.
The hallway stretches ahead, Dad chattering about his team—their stats, their potential, the senior leadership he’s looking forward to building. I nod and make appropriate sounds to feign some level of basic interest while calculating escape routes.
The locker room door swings open to reveal two dozen players in various states of undress—some in practice gear, others in street clothes, all radiating that particular cologne of athletic confidence and Axe body spray.
As they spot us, conversations die mid-sentence, and twenty-four pairs of eyes lock on.
“Gentlemen,” Dad announces, oblivious to my fight-or-flight response. “I wanted you to meet my daughter Sophie. She’s getting her master’s in nursing.”
I attempt what I hope resembles a wave rather than a drowning gesture.
And then the world tilts.
As my eyes sweep across the room, they move past, then dart back to a guy standing next to his locker, pants on, shirt off.
My body recognizes him before my brain catches up.
Heat floods my face so fast I see spots.
My pulse hammers against my ribs like it’s trying to escape. Every nerve ending I possess ignites.
Mike.
Mike.
“What do you like, Sophie?” Mike.
Kitchen counter Mike.
Three-orgasms-in-twelve-hours Mike.
He’s a hockey player.
He’s one of my father’s hockey players.
The room spins lazily, like I’m drunk on mortification.
My brain supplies helpful flashbacks: me at the bar, explaining how I prefer guys who think about more than sports and frat parties.
His odd expression that I’d attributed to confusion.
The way he’d steered our conversation toward other topics.
“Sophie’s not much of a hockey fan,” Dad continues, apparently committed to making this worse, “so you probably won’t see her at many games.”
Polite chuckles ripple through the room. Mike’s face has gone carefully neutral, the practiced expression of someone trying desperately not to look like he’s seen me naked. But I see it—a muscle flinch in his jaw, the same tell he’d had when fighting not to come too fast.
I need to say something. Something normal. Something that doesn’t scream “I’ve had your teammate’s cock in me multiple times!”
“Nice to meet you all.” My voice pitches somewhere between soprano and dog whistle. “I’m sure you’re in, um, good hands with my dad.”
Hands. Why did I say hands? Now I’m thinking about Mike’s hands, which is the last thing I need when standing in front of two dozen hockey players and my father. Hands that had roamed all over me, and found places in me I didn’t know existed.
Thankfully, Dad launches into what sounds like a tactical briefing, while I hover near the door and figure out how to escape without being rude.
While I try to look anywhere but at Mike while my peripheral vision stays locked on him like he’s the sun and I’m a damned flower with no choice in the matter.
Oh shit. He’s staring back.
Not obviously, but every time I risk a glance, his eyes are on me. Dark and intense and carrying the weight of every secret we created that night. It’s like the night at the bar, watching me, but this time there’s an added weight, because those eyes have seen plenty.
My skin prickles with sense memory: those eyes watching me come apart, the way they’d gone almost black when I’d told him exactly where to put his mouth, how they’d crinkled at the corners when he’d laughed at my terrible jokes over morning coffee.
But this is fine. Everything is fine.
I handle more shit than this every single day.
I just need to survive however long Dad’s speech lasts, then I can make some vague remark about wishing them luck for the season and flee home to process this disaster in private. My home, which is usually a safe, hockey-player-free zone, with wine that might still be good.
“Sophie?” Dad’s voice cuts through my spiral, and I realize he’s looking at me. “You look flushed. You OK?”
Twenty-four heads swivel toward me with renewed interest, and the ghost of a smirk appears at the corners of Mike’s mouth. I can’t help but look, then force myself to look away just as quickly. Spectacular. Someone please film this for my eventual therapist.
“Just warm.” The lie tastes like copper. “These rinks are always so…”
“Hot?” one of the players offers helpfully. “Not my experience…”
Mike’s lips twitch, then he catches himself, expression smoothing back to neutral, but the damage is done. I know that tell. I know all his tells. I know how his breathing changes when he’s turned on, how he bites the inside of his cheek when he’s trying not to laugh.
And now I have to unknow all of it while looking at him in his natural habitat, surrounded by his teammates, wearing the jersey of the sport I swore off, sitting in my father’s locker room like some cosmic joke designed specifically to humiliate me.
Dad’s still talking.
The players are nodding along.
And Mike?
Mike is undressing me with his eyes while sitting ten feet from my father.
And there’s not a single thing I can do about it.