Chapter 14
Beckett
The puck rattles free, and my body is already moving before I realize that my legs feel heavier than they normally do at this point in a game. I angle my hips, cut off the lane, and shoulder their winger just enough to separate him from the puck without drawing a whistle.
Clean. Controlled.
The crowd surges as I pivot toward the blue line, tracking the play. Chicago’s pushing harder now, desperation bleeding into every move. They’re getting sloppy. And dangerous.
The puck snaps cross-ice, and I close the gap fast. The winger tries to dangle inside. Bad choice. I step into him, timing it perfectly. Chest to shoulder, weight through the hit. He goes down, and the puck slides loose.
I barely register the roar of the crowd. I glance toward the bench on the backcheck—just a quick scan out of habit—and that’s when I see her. Coach Blake stands behind the boards, arms crossed, expression unreadable. Her eyes are locked on the ice.
On me.
Something in my chest tightens. Not nerves, but something sharper. Cleaner.
I dig deeper into my edges.
The next shift, I play more aggressively.
When one of their forwards takes a run at our goalie, I’m there in half a second, dropping gloves and getting in just enough to make my point.
When I skate to the box for my two minutes, I don’t look at the bench. I don’t need to. I can feel her attention like a lightning rod between my shoulder blades.
Ten years ago, I played like this because I was trying to prove something about who I could be.
Tonight, I’m playing like this because I know exactly who I am.
And I want Finley to see it.
***
“You were on fire out there.” Li slaps my shoulder as we make our way into the locker room after a hard-fought win on our home ice. “The hit you threw after that asshole ran the goalie? I don’t care how long you sat; it was absolute perfection.”
Down by two at the start of the third period, Chicago sent their enforcers out more than usual, and I met them hit for fucking hit. You can always tell when a team’s getting desperate—their big guys start leading the rush like they’re goons in a street fight.
For the first time in a long time, I felt good. Like I did five years ago, when I was on top of the hockey world.
“Yeah, man, what’s gotten into you?” Larsen asks. “I thought you were going to break a hip or something out there the way you weren’t even trying to avoid those assholes.”
I shove him hard into the wall, but he bounces right back. “I’m not that fucking old.”
“I know what this is about,” Larsen chirps as we make our way into the locker room.
It’s about me being a damn good hockey player. I refuse to admit it could have anything to do with the woman standing behind the bench. And since I’m not admitting it, there’s no way Larsen knows about it.
“Now that you’re a big celebrity, you wanted to make sure you didn’t let your fans down.”
I pull my helmet off, placing it on the top shelf of my locker. My gloves go on the shelf below before I drop onto the cushioned seat, my eyes drifting up to the image of the yeti mascot on the ceiling.
“I never let down my fans,” I retort, hoping if I don’t mention TeamBlane, he won’t, either. I pull my jersey over my head and throw it onto the pile, careful to avoid the logo in the middle of the room.
“But these are not just your fans, yeah? Coach is the one they’re all watching,” Volkov says, from across the room.
“Really, Volkov? You pay attention to this shit, too?”
“I find Americans’ obsession with silly little videos very interesting. Plus, I looked damn good up there. The judges were obviously biased toward English music.”
“Oh, please,” Larsen starts, but we all quiet as Coach’s double knock comes, followed by her assistant coaches walking into the room. Finley enters last. She’s in complete coach mode, with her black suit and heels on.
“Good game tonight, fellas. They hit hard, but we hit harder. It’s exactly the type of play we need to get us to May.
Focus on recovery tonight. Hydrate. Fuel.
Hit the cold tubs. We’ve got Winnipeg in two days.
They play heavy. Optional skate tomorrow.
Mandatory treatment. We’ll dial in systems and matchups then. ”
It’s the exact speech we need. Short, sweet, and to the point. This isn’t about getting us fired up. It’s about letting us move forward without needing to be the loudest voice in the locker room.
“Anything else?” she asks her assistant coaches.
When they have nothing, she nods at the team. “Good work out there. J.D. and Lefevre, you’re on for press.”
“You know,” Larsen says thoughtfully as he works his pads off, “if I weren’t competing in The Great Yeti Challenge, I’d totally be cheering for Coach. She’s a fucking badass. Even if she could lighten up a little.”
“She is pretty great,” I agree. “But I totally disagree. She’s funny. I think you just can’t tell when she’s being sarcastic, Rookie.”
The room goes quiet.
“Oh, shit,” Lefevre whispers, and I catch J.D.’s slightly downturned mouth.
“What?” I ask, looking around.
When no one answers, I bark it again, “What?!”
Volkov stares at me, his blue eyes piercing my soul. “You know you can’t actually like her, right?”
“He likes Coach,” Larsen groans, like he just found out why everyone is being weird, too. “You can’t like Coach.”
“You literally just said you like her.”
Larsen widens his eyes like I’m the slow one here. “Yeah, as a coach.”
“I agreed with you.” I rub my hand through my sweat-slicked hair. “It was the exact same.”
“It wasn’t,” Volkov states.
“We’re… partners. In this stupid competition. I like her as a partner.”
Hearing what I said, I shake my head.
“I mean, like a colleague. A person I don’t hate spending time with. A work friend.”
It’s okay, I can like her. I mean, it’s impossible to spend any amount of time with the woman and not like her. I just can’t do anything about it. Which is fine.
“A friend… who’s a girl?” Larsen teases. “So, a girlfriend.”
“Larsen,” Volkov chastises. “Enough.”
“I’ve been friends with women before,” I say. Probably.
“Dude, no, you haven’t,” Larsen disagrees.
Li shoves his friend. “Give it a rest, man. Sometimes, men and women are friends. It doesn’t have to be anything more.”
“I’m not saying it is more,” Larsen protests. “I’m saying, Kane wants it to be, with Coach, which is a recipe to have your ass traded twice in one season. Which would essentially be the death of his old-ass career.”
There are snickers around the room, and I roll my eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I’m old. Got it.”
Volkov stands, only partially undressed.
Even without his goalie gear, he’s a huge motherfucker, and now he looks like he wants to pummel every single one of us.
“She’s a damn good coach. We all know she’s what our team needs.
But she will be gone if they think the fact she’s a woman is distracting to any of us.
” He looks me dead in the eyes. “You weren’t here last season, Kane, but she got interim not because of her last name and who her dad is, like the press says. ”
As much as I want to do something, to argue that I just agreed she was a badass, I don’t. Because this is the first time I’ve heard anything about how Queenie got her position. I need to know what the Russian has to say.
“We, as a team, went to White and Peterson and said we wanted Coach Blake. They were going to get someone external, but we said no. That Blake was who we wanted—who we needed. She had helped every one of us while she was an assistant, and we knew she was the right person for the job. They warned us of the optics. Of a young woman coaching men. We said we didn’t care.
She was too good a coach to pass over. And just like they said there would be, there was chaos in the media. A lot of hate.”
He looks around the room, and the players who were on the team last year all nod gravely.
“But not in our fucking house. We did everything she said. She was nothing more than a coach to us. Nothing. We are better because of her as our coach, and no one is going to fuck that up.”
He looks at me, and I give a subtle dip of my chin.
“Good.” The large Russian sits back down after what is certainly the most words I’ve ever heard him say at one time, maybe in total.
“Yeah, what he said,” Larsen says, already bobbing away from the jab I throw half-heartedly at his chest.
I drop my head into my hands. “I just agreed with Larsen that she’s a badass. I didn’t ask him to officiate our wedding.”
An image pops into my head uninvited, one of Finley walking toward me in a long white dress, her dark hair curling gracefully past her shoulders.
Volkov groans. “No wedding.”
“I said not a wedding!”
“Leave the old man alone,” J.D. cuts in on my behalf. “He had a hell of a game tonight, and I’m sure he has about an hour’s worth of cooldown still to do. Let the man get home to his…” He trails off, clearly trying to figure out what I have waiting for me at home.
Nothing.
Now that my dance practices with Coach are done, the answer is nothing. And I refuse to acknowledge the sinking sensation that causes behind my rib cage.
“Plants?” he finally asks.
I shake my head, and J.D. lets out a little grumble. “I’m getting you a dog for your birthday. It’s just too sad.”
“So they can spend half their life in doggy daycare?” I ask. “No, thank you.”
I slowly undress, my adrenaline from the game completely gone after the roller coaster Larsen just took me on.
Li is the last one in the locker room with me, and just before he reaches the door to leave, he turns back to look at me like he has finally made up his mind to say something.
“Larsen’s an idiot, but he’s not wrong. You can’t treat Coach like you would any other coach, because, to the rest of the world, she’s not.
And she’s finally getting the respect she deserves,” he says.
“I know you two are just friends, but it doesn’t matter.
If people have any reason to think there’s something more, it could mess up her entire career. ”
Li and I have slipped into an easy pairing since I joined the team. He’s easy to read and is learning how to trust his gut a little more when he’s on the ice with me. Besides Finley, he’s the closest thing I have to a friend, well, him and Larsen, I guess.
And, based on the way I’ve seen him around Doctor Pearce, I know he’s spent more time thinking about the ramifications of having feelings for a coach than anyone else on this team.
“I’m her partner in the competition,” I remind him. “What would you do?”
Li looks at me, his gaze finding that kernel of something in my soul. The roots of something more that I can’t seem to kill. “I don’t know. But I would do everything in my power to make sure my feelings didn’t fuck things up for her.”
Fuck.
“And maybe don’t dance with her anymore,” Li suggests before walking out the door, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
They didn’t say anything I don’t already know. This can’t be anything. I just don’t know why it suddenly feels like it already is.