Chapter 17
Zoe
I blinked repeatedly as if that would change what I was seeing on Miah’s laptop screen.
There was no way those numbers could be correct.
There had to be a glitch in the form. Somehow, we’d had twenty-eight women sign up for the women’s rec league in just the one week we’d had the form up on the rink’s website.
“Damn. I knew there were female hockey players in the area, but I didn’t realize there were that many.”
Miah shook his head, just as shocked as I was. “I’ve gotten countless emails personally thanking us for starting the league.”
It was impossible to feel anything but proud.
We had done this. We had provided female athletes with an opportunity to play with and compete against other wo-men.
No gender rules, just good ol’ hockey, as it should be.
What we had done probably wouldn’t fully hit me until I saw them all out on the ice.
“Okay, so what’s next then?” I asked, even more eager to get to work.
League logistics was where I was out of my element, though. That was all Miah.
He pulled his laptop more toward him and opened up another document where he’d laid out step-by-step instructions. Boy, did I love a man with a plan. If only my brain worked like that.
“Some already have teams, but there’s a good amount that are free agents. There’s also varying skill levels, so we need to determine how we’re going to handle that. We don’t want one team just dominating the league.”
I pursed my lips and leaned my arms on the desk as I eyed the forms Miah had printed so we could better visualize what we were working with.
“How about we organize them by skill level and then distribute them as evenly as possible among the teams?” I suggested.
Miah waved his hand at the forms. “Have at it.”
Sorting things into piles was a form of organization that I could do.
After moving everything to the floor so I had plenty of space, I started by separating out the forms for those who had a team already established.
Then I got to work on the free agents, grouping them by skill level for now.
It wasn’t surprising that the pile of athletes who hadn’t played in years ended up being larger than our highly skilled players.
There hadn’t been many opportunities for them to play beyond college. Until now.
While I tried out different combinations for teams, Miah researched jerseys.
“What do you think? Plain colors or let them create a team name and logo?”
He looked so cute when he was focused, jaw cocked to the side and a slight wrinkle between his brows. God, he was distracting. Even more so now that I knew what it felt like to kiss him.
His amber eyes suddenly met mine. As if he knew what I’d just been thinking, Miah’s lips curled into a smirk.
“Can I help you, Cupcake?”
Why was that basic nickname so damn endearing?
“No,” I muttered, returning to the task at hand.
But this was Miah, and there was no way he was going to drop it.
I could hear his chair roll back across the rug and his soft footsteps as he rounded the desk before kneeling down in front of me.
His finger hooked under my chin and he lifted my face up to his.
It was a good thing I was already on the ground, because my knees would have given out under that intense gaze of his.
When he leaned in, his lips just barely brushed against mine. That was not enough for me. I lifted slightly to deepen the kiss. I could feel Miah smiling into it. He pulled back far sooner than I would have liked, though.
“If you want a kiss, you can just ask. Or take it.” He shrugged. “I’m fine with either.”
I glared playfully in a vain effort to disguise just how flustered I was.
“Noted,” I mumbled.
He grinned before pushing up, but not without a soft groan. I giggled, and he shot me a look.
“You won’t be laughing when it’s time for you to get up.”
He wasn’t wrong.
“Let’s go with simple colors this go-around,” I said. “Then as teams get established, they can have logos.”
“Maybe we could find a local artist to team up with for the graphics.”
I grinned. “I love that.”
We worked in companionable silence until I decided the teams were good enough. Of course, I’d let Miah look them over before anything was set in stone.
“You’re going to captain a team, right?” Miah asked.
My stomach launched into my throat, and I was seconds away from upchucking my lunch all over the forms. Thankfully, Miah was behind me so he couldn’t see how the blood had leeched from my face.
I forced out a laugh. It sounded distant even to my own ears, as if I were underwater.
“No, no. I’m just helping you run this. That’s where my involvement ends.”
There were two painful beats of silence where I felt his eyes on the back of my head, my neck prickling under its intensity.
“Seriously? I thought for sure you’d jump at the chance to play.”
I pressed my hand hard against my chest where my heart was running at a full-speed gallop.
Playing in the league hadn’t even crossed my mind before now.
Getting on the ice to coach the Puffins or playing one-on-one with Miah and Charlie were ways to dip my toes back into the world of hockey.
Baby steps I could handle well enough. But actually competing?
That was diving headfirst into the deep end, and I was nowhere near ready for that.
Doubts began to spiral through my mind.
You’ll never be as good as you used to be.
You’d be the worst player on the ice.
Going into fight or flight mode, I hurried to tidy up the piles, my hands needing something to occupy them. If my knees complained about me standing up, I didn’t notice with all the adrenaline pumping through me.
“I’ve got too much on my plate with work, coaching, and this.”
It was a poor excuse, but the best I could come up with in my current mindset.
“That’s true,” Miah—thankfully—agreed. I placed the stack of forms on the corner of his desk, and he leaned forward, encouraging me to meet his eyes. “I appreciate you making the time to help with this. And to just… be together.”
The sincerity in his gaze—and that small hesitation—pulled me out of my spiral enough that I no longer felt like I was drowning. Like a lighthouse beam cutting through the fog, he’d guided me back to solid ground.
“I will always make time for you,” I assured him, my voice barely more than a whisper. “And Charlie. Especially Charlie.”
We both grinned at that, and his laughter dissipated the tension in the office.
“So I come second to my own daughter.” He nodded once. “Got it.”
“Now I didn’t say that.”
“It’s those big, brown eyes of hers.” He let out a sigh, shaking his head slightly. “They get everyone.”
Little did he know that I was weak for his eyes as well. Possibly even more than I was for Charlie’s, it seemed.