Chapter Four #2
“Yes, the hellions have talent. Does your encyclopedic knowledge extend to all your players’ families? Or are you just a McLaren stalker?”
“The internet is free,” she says with a vague wave.
My brow rises without my consent.
So she looked up my family? Or did she research me, specifically?
I visualize her on a couch in what is probably a perfectly appointed condo, laptop balanced on legs primly tucked beneath her, typing my name into a search bar and perusing the results.
A hot pulse of curiosity tugs behind my abs. What’d she think about those results, exactly? Did her eyes widen when she saw my past highlights playing out in high def? Was she impressed?
Why do I care? My history is pretty fucking good.
My future, however…
Something catches her eye and she stops. “Hey, want to help me with something?”
Not even a little bit. This is already feeling too chummy.
Apparently she takes my hesitation as a maybe and jabs her thumb over her shoulder toward a bakery. It boasts a weathered round wooden sign that reads Wild Blue. “I ordered a bunch of blueberry muffins to take to…the place we’re going. Have you figured out what it is yet, by the way?”
I’m not sure which ridiculous thing to respond to first. “No. I plugged the address into my GPS, parked, and started walking. Muffins?”
“For the team. I’m not sure how familiar you are with Maine, but blueberries are a huge deal here, and this bakery is one of the best. So good, Leo. You’ll see.”
I stare blankly. There are people living on remote islands with no wifi who probably have more knowledge of Maine than I do. “But—why?”
“It’s morning.” She peers up toward the sun like a flower seeking its light.
“And I’m taking you guys out of the way to do something that isn’t explicitly hockey—though it’s very relevant—so I felt like this was a good idea.
And like I said, you must try the blueberry muffins, or at least a scone.
And if not a baked good, some tea. Anyway, want to help me carry them? ”
I can’t be bothered to hide my disgust. “You actually bought breakfast for those assholes?”
She bristles, and I know it can’t be because of my swearing, since she’s both surrounded by it in her career and has dropped f-bombs herself at practice, albeit under her breath.
It’s obviously my brush-off that bothered her.
Ah, hell.
“Never mind. I’ve got it under control,” she says with a tight smile. “Go ahead, I’ll meet you there.”
She walks toward the bakery, her shiny ponytail swinging.
I’d like to wrap my fist around it and give it a light tug so she’ll turn around and let me talk some sense into her.
My teammates have done nothing but disrespect her since the second training camp started, and that’s just to her face. If she knew the kind of shit they said behind her back, the last thing she’d want to do is reward them with muffins.
After day one, when someone detailed all the jobs they felt she’d be better at than coaching, I invested in noise-canceling earbuds for the locker room so I wouldn’t have to hear their constant commentary on her. Or Vivi. Or anything else they have to say, for that matter.
Someone walks out of the bakery holding a muffin wrapped in waxy tan paper. The top spills over, dusted with a sugar glaze.
It is approximately the size of my head.
Sadie intends to carry twenty of those? Twenty-five, if she bought enough for all the coaches.
I stare at the door, my irritation growing by the second.
Damn it all.
The bakery’s bell jingles overhead as I make my way inside and join her at the pick-up counter. Her large order is already boxed to go, marked with a taped receipt that says her name in dark ink.
She spots me out of the corner of her eye and does a double take. A smile lifts her lips just slightly.
“Like you’ve given me a real choice here,” I say miserably.
She shrugs, but the faint smile remains. “We always have a choice, Leo.”
“Don’t do that.” I take the stack of four boxes from the counter. A sharp pain shoots across my shoulder. I adjust my hold to fix the awkward carry, exhaling discreetly.
“Do what?” she asks.
“Drop weird, coach-y platitudes on me,” I say, a strained bite to my tone. “It’s muffins. And those guys don’t deserve them, by the way.”
She walks beside me as I approach the door and then launches ahead to hold it open.
I pass through the too-narrow doorway, catching a hit of something flowery before the salty sea smell outside drowns it out. I try not to notice anything about her when we’re at practice, let alone that she’s a woman, but it’s much harder when I’m assaulted by a good perfume.
I can’t help but also notice that she’s shorter today.
Or her normal height, rather. When we’re not on the ice—when we’re in meetings or while she’s hiding in the back of game tape review sessions led by our team’s analyst—she’s usually in heels.
High ones. Today, though, she’s opted for duck boots.
The top of her head reaches just above my shoulders.
I’d put her at about five-six or five-seven.
That height makes sense for someone who competed as a goalie at an elite level. Any shorter and she would’ve struggled in the crease. And since she was a gold-medal Olympian and PWHL superstar, it’s clear she didn’t struggle all that much.
“I’ll take two of those boxes.” She steps in my path and extends her arms.
I ignore her, because I’m already carrying the damn things and don’t intend to waste our time switching boxes around. “Just lead the way, since I have no idea where we’re going.”
She’s probably going to shove us straight into the Bay for more conditioning. That would certainly explain her waterproof boots. She wants to stand on the water’s edge while we suffer.
The last weeks have been nothing but pure hellfire for my body, not that I’d ever admit that to anyone. When Sadie and Vivi aren’t torturing us, Dom is drilling our faces off. When the regular coaching staff isn’t all over us, we’re in the gym.
Anything to not be the league’s biggest losers, I guess.
The only reprieve in our day is when we watch prior game footage, but I can’t say that brings much levity to the situation, since it sparks fights among the existing Fury members. Dumbass this and lazy that.
Last night I took a much-needed ice bath. I’m training camp tired, is all. Nothing out of the ordinary.
“I gave you the address,” she points out as we continue down the sidewalk, wrapped in the cool September morning air. “You could’ve looked it up if you were curious.”
“Sorry, I’m hard of Googling.”
She hums and steps ahead of me to make room for people passing by. At her quick pace, a gap forms between us. My gaze naturally travels down.
She peeks over her shoulder, perhaps to check that I didn’t take off with fifty thousand calories’ worth of carbs.
The Overtime photoshoot bursts into my head.
It may be a few years old, but one of her poses was similar to this: her back—mostly bare except for the thin, crisscrossed lines of her sports bra—was to the camera.
Her hand rested on the PWHL Goaltender of the Year trophy, which was draped in her Olympic medals, because she’s nothing if not a star.
But it was the look over her shoulder—same as she’s giving me now—that’s crystal clear in my brain. Her eyes were bright and mischievous as if to say what’s next on my path to world domination? Her gorgeous hair cascaded down her back, hitting a few inches above her leggings.
White leggings that left nothing to the imagination. Not the shape of her legs, or the perky swell of her ass. Her body—
Damn it. I’m no better than the guys in the locker room with these gutter thoughts. And being anything like them makes me want to punch myself in the face.
Fucking Milo. Why’d he have to bring up the Overtime shoot in the first place?
Better yet, why’d the hockey world start circulating it again as soon as she got hired?
Now I have to once again do the hard work of forgetting that picture—and all the pictures just like it that I’ve accidentally seen.
The team is inside the lobby of the warehouse all of thirty seconds before a vague sort of dissent ripples through the air.
“What are we even doing here?” Lachlan, a second line right winger with fox-like features, asks bluntly.
Nic points at the sign above a single door. “We’re seeing The Axpert.”
“Did you just say asspert?” Lachlan doesn’t bother to look up from his phone while he speaks.
His thumbs fly a million miles a minute.
He’s always texting the women on his personal roster, and he’s always wasting our time talking about it.
I’d be even more annoyed if I weren’t the same way in my early twenties.
Back when I picked up a new woman every other night.
“What are you, five?” Callum asks. “He said axpert. As in we’re probably swinging axes.”
My stomach pulses, the discomfort in my shoulder growing at the mere thought of swinging something. That motion could fuck me up.
Lachlan peers down at his green button-up. “I’m not dressed for labor.”
“I don’t think we’re the ones doing it,” Nic argues. “I think we watch a guy throw axes or something. That’s why his name is kind of like expert?”
Okay, so we’ll watch some guy throw axes instead. I can live with that. Relief slides through me, and I move on to my next pressing issue: what to do with all these damn muffins.
Where in this lobby filled only with chairs am I supposed to put four huge boxes?
I move closer to Sadie to get her orders and overhear Vivi’s whispers.
“Bachelorette party shrapnel?” Vivi asks, pointing at the trash can. It overflows with pictures of a man’s face on popsicle sticks. “That’s The Axpert’s primary audience?”
The hell has this woman gotten us into?
“Well sure, bridal parties can book this place just like anyone else,” Sadie whispers back. “But his website mentions corporate retreats, team building, et cetera.”