Chapter Two
Kendall
Serendipity’s Coffee Shop smells like warm sugar and my resurrection after last night’s game.
I need caffeine and girl talk, and I need it now. Especially with the banter between me and Aleksi last night. I haven’t stopped thinking about it and I am in dire need of a distraction.
The sparkle in his eyes with his bloodied eyebrow, as if it couldn’t bother him any less, is burned into my memory.
His words play like a highlight reel, replaying over and over: “Fun fact—your pupils dilate when you look at something you want. Want me to test it?”
The chalkboard menu is crowded with hearts around the seasonal drinks: Honeysuckle latte, pistachio cold foam, Penelope’s famous dirty chai. One of the barista’s looks up when I walk in, despite the long line of customers in front of her, and waves at me.
My favorite thing about this place, second only to the food, is that it feels like family here.
The baristas all know me by name, and ever since the Hawkeyes hired me on, and Penelope pulled me into the inner circle of wives and girlfriends of the players, I’ve come to know this place as our special meeting spot to gossip about life.
I’ve never had a friend group like this. Shoot, I don’t even have a family as accepting and loving as this group of women. The idea of losing them is a scary thought. For as long as Penelope and the Hawkeyes are willing to keep me on, I’ll be here.
A toddler in a Hawkeyes beanie presses both hands to the pastry case like it’s a museum exhibit. The milk steamer screams in the background, and someone at the corner table cheers when a cinnamon roll the size of a catcher’s mitt lands on a plate.
“Kendall. Over here.” Penelope says, waving me over.
Our table is the usual chaos—Isla in a cozy sweater with a lipstick-stained to-go cup.
She’s married to a retired Hawkeyes player who still coaches the Hawkeyes kids’ league.
Cammy, Penelope’s assistant and JP Dumont’s girlfriend, is dissecting a blueberry muffin with surgical precision.
Peyton, a well-known sports podcaster and the girlfriend of Hunter Reed, our left winger, is scrolling with one thumb and stirring with the other.
There are more of us, but with the size of our group, there are bound to be scheduling issues, and it’s hard to get us all in the same room at the same time.
“You’re late,” Peyton says without looking up. “Cammy threatened to text you a photo of the last almond croissant as leverage.”
“I would never,” Cammy says, already sliding a pastry across to me. “Except I absolutely would. We are at war with the lunch rush.”
A barista sets down our drinks. Penelope pushes a dirty chai toward me, wiggling her eyebrows. “Doctor’s orders.”
I roll my eyes and take a sip. It’s like a hug that knows secrets. “Okay, fine. You win.”
“Obviously,” Penelope says, tapping the stack of itineraries with her nail. “Are you packed for tomorrow’s away game? Wheels up at 9 a.m. for the team jet. Most of the wives and girlfriends are coming for the playoff games. We’re flying commercial, so we’ll see you all there.”
“You packing, Kendall?” Isla asks. “Or are you living the glamorous life of rolling scrubs and orthotics?”
“Two pairs of scrubs, a set of my Hawkeyes athletic sweats for the game, compression socks, and a bathing suit for the hotel hot tub that I never seem to get to,” I say.
Juliet Haynes, Coach Haynes’ wife lifts her mug. “Keep the dream alive, I say.”
She’s a well known celebrity party planner so she’s always jet setting and we don’t always get her at our coffee shop chats, so today is a treat.
“Thanks Juliet,” I say back with a grin.
Peyton finally sets her phone down. “Speaking of emotional support—can we discuss how the entire city exhaled last night? I swear my car drove smoother this morning.”
“Winning does make the roads less bumpy,” Cammy agrees. “It’s physics.”
“Or the hockey gods,” Isla chimes in.
“We had a good game at home, but we’re away tomorrow and Colorado doesn’t lose much in their own arena,” Penelope says. “Let’s not order the champagne and confetti just yet. The Series is still 2–1.”
“Spoken like a woman whose love language is cautious optimism,” Isla says.
“I’m the GM. I have to plan for both endings,” Penelope shoots back with a grin. “Speaking of cautious optimism…” She glances over to me. “...how’s Scottie this morning?”
“He looks good. He’s back on the ice this morning. The neurologist had a look and Coach put him on light duty to keep him fresh for tomorrow’s game.”
“As if Scottie understands the concept of ‘light duty,’” Cammy teases.
If any of the boys on this team knew the concept, it would make my job of keeping them healthy, a lot easier.
The bell above the door jiggles again, and a group of teenagers in Hawkeyes hoodies tumbles in, all elbows and victory glitter. One of them points at the display of team stickers next to the register and groans that they’re sold out of Aleksi ones.
Of course.
Isla catches the direction of my glance and works up an innocent face that fools exactly no one. “Speaking of light duty… Aleksi looked like he was doing some light duty on the bench with you during last night’s game while you were working on his face,” Isla snickers.
“Oh my God, I’m glad someone else brought it up because I’ve been dying to say something since Oakley’s last night.
I swear I thought he was going to pull you onto his lap and make out with you right then and there,” Cammy jumps in, eyes wide, leaning in across the table as if worried she’ll miss a word.
I choke on chai as the heat of the idea of him doing that blooms in places between my thighs that it most definitely should not. “I—what? No, he wasn’t. He was just being his usual chatty self. You know how he is. Fun facts about random things.”
“Oh, he’s chatty, that’s for sure, but the way he couldn’t wipe that smile off his face, even the nosebleeds could tell what that boy was in the mood for,” Juliet says, smirking behind her own cup.
Panic rushes through me at Juliet’s words—“even the nosebleeds could tell what that boy was in the mood for…”
If the girls were the only ones who could see it, fine. But did the press see it? Would the medical board see it and jump to conclusions? Would the NHL think something more was going on?
The medical board has already allowed public persuasion with zero evidence to cause an audit—which puts my medical license at risk.
But I’m not the only one with something to lose here.
If the NHL thought there was an inappropriate relationship between the team doctor and a player, they could force the Hawkeyes to trade the player or bench him, at least. The NHL could bring down sanctions on the Hawkeyes for allowing an inappropriate relationship to happen under their nose, potentially affecting the draft.
“Ground Zero,” Peyton says, pouncing. “Three weeks ago. Your birthday. One drink. One dance. One relentlessly cheerful Finn who does not stop smiling.”
I’m not proud of the way heat prickles my cheeks. “It was one song. He caught me on the way to the bathroom.”
“He intercepted you like a gentleman,” Cammy corrects. “And spun you like an old movie.”
“It was a dance club,” I say, too quickly. “Everyone was spinning.”
Isla smirks. “Everyone was spinning. You were glowing.”
“I was sweaty and had two blueberry mojitos,” I protest. .
“You were seeing a tipsy glow at best.”
“You’re deflecting,” Peyton says.
I tear off a corner of the croissant I swore I wasn’t eating. “There’s nothing to deflect. You all know my rule.” Then I glance at Penelope, who knows just as well as anyone what’s at stake and why Aleksi and I can’t date. “A little help here?”
“‘No players,’” the table choruses like a church. Even the toddler at the pastry case turns, as if he’s heard this sermon before.
I set the croissant down and lace my fingers together on the table. “It’s not a cute boundary. It’s a survival strategy. And it’s not just for me.”
Penelope softens. “I know,” she says, nodding.
She’s been uncharacteristically quiet since Isla brought up Aleksi.
And since she’s known as the unofficial matchmaker of this WAGs group, she’s the one who would have jumped my ass about Aleksi the moment I walked through that door.
But she hasn’t, because she knows what that could mean for everyone involved.
“Your medical license could be called into question, and the team could face sanctions,” she says calmly, like the true GM she is.
“Seriously?” Peyton asks, her eyebrows stitching together, almost shocked by this.
“Oh… right,” Cammy says, leaning back into her chair as if an old realization just hit her. “I forgot that you technically have a doctor/patient relationship.”
“And the sanctions, especially right now in the playoffs…” I trail off.
“Even if I wanted something to happen with Aleksi—and I’m not saying that I do”—I look around the café, remembering that we’re in a public place.
I lean closer and drop my voice lower. The last thing I need is some random person hearing this and it gets out.
“It’s too messy and the potential cost is too great. ”
“Have you two talked about this?” Penelope asks, both as a friend and as the GM.
I lean back. “No, of course not. I don’t want to start a conversation about any of this with him. For all I know, he’s just flirting with me because he knows it can’t happen.”
“Sure that’s why he’s flirting with you,” Cammy says with an eye roll and a smirk. “Come on, Kendall. If he was an emoji, he’d be the one with drool dripping down the side of its mouth whenever you walk into a room.”
“But does he know you can’t date?” Peyton asks, looking between the rest of us.