Chapter 22
Coast POV
The smoke from Coach Bramwell Hayes’s cheap cigar hung in a gray, sour haze beneath the fluorescent panel of his office.
Across the scuffed laminate desk, Grant Wesley had three glossy organizational charts spread over my athletic profile. On the left were the Providence Bruins, Boston’s primary AHL affiliate. On the right was an unsolicited trade inquiry from the Calgary Flames, stamped with yesterday's date.
"Calgary wants to acquire your exclusive negotiating rights before the postseason starts, Coast," Wesley said, leaning forward in his chair, tapping a gold Montblanc pen against the paper.
"They have two starting blue-line spots opening up on their NHL roster next October.
If we package your draft rights in a multi-player swap, you bypass the minors.
You step straight into the Saddledome on a three-year entry-level deal.
Maximum rookie base salary, nine hundred and fifty thousand, plus the full ten percent signing bonus. "
Hayes let out a low whistle through his teeth, crossing his thick arms over his Garrison pullover. "That’s guaranteed NHL minutes out of the gate, Stuart. Most kids would cut off a finger for that slot."
I stared at the map of western Canada printed on the inquiry sheet.
Two months ago, I would have signed the transfer without blinking. I would have skated in Anchorage, in Edmonton, in the Arctic Circle if it meant putting nine hundred grand in an escrow account to cover Julian’s specialized hydrotherapy and physical care.
Now, the numbers on the paper looked like worthless ink.
Calgary was two thousand, four hundred miles from the Adirondacks. It was four time zones away from the red-brick libraries of Boston, where Tallulah Barry had sent her three graduate fellowship applications on Tuesday afternoon.
If I went to Alberta, I left her behind.
The thought made an icy, violent pressure lock down behind my sternum. The pulse along my carotid artery didn't spike; it dropped into a slow, immovable rhythm that turned my jaw to pig iron.
"No," I said.
Wesley paused, the gold pen hovering half an inch above the desk. "No?"
"Tell Calgary to keep their draft picks," I rasped, leaning forward until the wooden arms of my chair creaked under my weight. "I'm not signing in western Canada."
Hayes took the cigar out of his mouth, his brow furrowing with sudden irritation. "Coast, don't be an idiot. Boston has a stacked defensive rotation. You could spend eighteen months riding buses in Rhode Island before you see a single shift at TD Garden."
"Then I ride buses in Rhode Island," I said, my voice flat, leaving no room for negotiation. "Boston drafted me twenty-second overall. My rights stay with the Bruins. Providence is an hour from Boston. Lake Placid is four hours south of the border. That's my perimeter."
Wesley studied my face for five long seconds. The scout was fifty-five years old; he had spent thirty years watching young athletes barter their souls for ice time. He looked for the bluff in my eyes and found nothing.
"You're limiting your own market leverage, Stuart," Wesley said quietly.
"I don't need leverage," I muttered, pushing back from the desk and standing up.
"I need the contract in Massachusetts. If Boston doesn't want to sign me on August fifteenth, I'll skate my senior year here, graduate, and pick my own sweater as an unrestricted college free agent. But I am not moving out west."
I didn't wait for Hayes to bark at me. I shoved my hands into the pockets of my dark wool coat, turned my back on the draft boards, and walked out the door.
* * *
The key to my front door turned smoothly in the brass lock, the deadbolt sliding back without a sound.
I stepped into the entryway of the timber house, and the knot of physical tension that had lived in my shoulders since Tuesday's morning skate melted away on a single, deep exhale.
The house didn't smell like hockey tape or industrial bleach.
It smelled of hot Earl Grey tea, wild clover honey, fresh lemon rind, and the clean, rain-sweet scent of her hair.
I slipped off my heavy winter boots, set my duffel against the wall, and walked quietly down the pine hall toward the kitchen.
Tallulah was sitting on a high stool at the cedar counter, bathed in the amber glow of the pendant lamp overhead.
She was wearing my thick, dark gray Garrison Hockey crewneck—the one with the faded white lettering that fell nearly to her knees, the cuffs rolled back three times to keep her wrists free.
Her dark hair was twisted up in those brass drafting clips, a few loose tendrils curling against the nape of her neck.
Spread out across the laminate were two heavy biomechanics textbooks, a legal pad filled with dense, neat equations, and three empty plastic specimen tubes from her morning research rotation.
Beside her laptop sat the ceramic mug of tea I had pre-measured for her that morning, along with the box of Scottish shortbread I had hidden in the back of the pantry so Callahan wouldn't inhale it.
Earlier today, I had driven thirty miles down to the regional bank in Saranac Lake, pulled forty-eight hundred dollars from my private checking account, and sent an untraceable cashier's draft to the Garrison bursar's office under an anonymous athletic alumni grant code. Toby Ramos’s spring track housing was paid in full. Her brother was safe.
She didn't know. She would never know. She would have fought me with every sharp word in her vocabulary if she thought I was paying her family's debts.
She didn't need to know who built the walls. She just needed to be safe inside them.
"You're staring, Captain," she murmured without looking up from her screen, the nib of her pen tapping the paper.
My mouth curved into a slow, quiet smile.
I walked up behind her stool, planting my large hands on the counter on either side of her books, boxing her in against the edge. I leaned down, burying my face in the warm crook of her neck, inhaling the sweet almond of her skin until my lungs were full.
My stubble grazed her sensitive collarbone. Tallulah’s breath hitched in a soft, delicious gasp; she tilted her head to the side, leaning into the pressure of my jaw, her small hand reaching up to rest against my forearm.
"Long meeting?" she asked, her fingers tracing the thick veins along my wrist.
"Scouts talking noise," I rasped against her skin, my hands shifting to her waist, lifting her easily off the stool.
I sat down on the high chair myself, pulling her down onto my lap so her thighs bracketed my hips, her knees resting against my outer legs.
She didn't fight it. She curled against my chest like she had been born to fit between my collarbones, her hands coming up to rest flat against the front of my shirt.
I reached down, taking her bare, cool feet into my large, calloused palms.
Her skin was chilled from the draft near the floorboards. Slowly, methodically, using the deep, rhythmic pressure I used on my own skate-battered arches, I began to work warmth back into her heels and toes, my thumbs smoothing over the delicate bones of her instep.
Tallulah let out a long, ragged sigh, her forehead dropping against my shoulder, her muscles going slack against my chest.
"You're spoiling me, Coast," she whispered, her voice husky with exhaustion. "People are going to start thinking the Garrison enforcer has a soft underbelly."
"Nobody sees this room except you," I murmured, my thumb pressing a slow, firm circle into her arch, feeling the tension drain out of her tendons. "And you're not people."
She smiled against my shirt, a faint, breathy sound that vibrated directly against my ribs. "Sonya cornered me in the kinesiology annex today."
My hands paused on her foot. "What did she say?"
"She asked why my resting heart rate was ten beats lower than it was last month," Tallulah said, tilting her face up to meet my eyes, her honey-dark gaze filled with quiet, teasing warmth. "I told her I started doing breathing exercises."
"Liar," I rasped, leaning in until my lips brushed hers.
"Good girl," she mocked softly, repeating my own words back to me with a wicked, playful curve to her mouth.
A low rumble started in my chest. I caught her chin in my thumb and forefinger, holding her still as I took her mouth in a slow, possessive kiss that wiped the humor straight off her lips.
I kissed her until her breath was coming in shallow hitches, until her fingers were digging hard into the fabric of my back.
"Keep that smart mouth working, Barry," I growled against her lips, my hand moving from her foot to grip the curve of her hip through the gray fleece. "See where it lands you."
* * *
By 8:30 PM, the wind outside had picked up again, throwing dry snow against the high hemlock boughs.
The living room was quiet, lit only by the red glow of the cast-iron stove and the small brass reading lamp on the end table.
Tallulah was still curled against my chest on the leather sofa, her head resting on my left shoulder, an open chapter on musculoskeletal force distribution resting across her knees. Her highlighter had slipped from her fingers twenty minutes ago, rolling onto the floorboards.
Her breathing had shifted.
It was deep, rhythmic, and soft, her chest rising and falling in perfect sync with the steady thud of my heart beneath her cheek. A tiny wisp of dark hair fluttered against her parted lips with every exhale.
I sat completely motionless for ten minutes, watching her sleep.
Her face was peaceful, stripped of every trace of the razor-sharp armor she wore to survive on campus. In this house, wearing my clothes, she didn't have to defend herself against compliance officers, or bankruptcies, or arrogant athletes trying to push her around.
She was just mine.
I slid my left arm beneath her shoulders, slipping my right arm under her knees.
I stood up from the sofa with an unhurried, measured strength, lifting her against my chest. She weighed barely more than a set of goalie pads; her head rolled naturally into the hollow of my neck, her small fist clutching the front of my shirt even in deep sleep.
I carried her down the dark hallway into my bedroom.
The mattress was cool, smelling of clean cedar and the lavender soap she used. I laid her down in the center of the dark flannel sheets, my hands lingering on her waist as I eased her body onto the pillows.
I unpinned the two brass clips from her hair, setting them on the nightstand beside my watch, letting her dark curls spill out across the pillowcase.
I pulled the heavy down comforter up over her frame, tucking the edges securely around her shoulders to lock out the Adirondack draft. She stirred once, a soft, sleepy murmur escaping her lips, her cheek nuzzling deeper into the soft down.
I stood beside the bed in the dim gray shadows, looking down at her.
My heart hammered with a heavy, terrifying finality that seemed to shake the floorboards beneath my bare feet.
There was no turning back.
Wesley could threaten to trade my draft rights. Mercer could spread whatever poison he wanted in the locker room. My father could come down from Montreal with a loaded gun.
None of it mattered.
I would tear my own career to pieces, I would walk away from Boston, I would bleed every drop of bone and gristle in my body before I ever let the world touch this woman.
She was my line. And I was going to hold it until the ice melted into the sea.