Chapter 8 #2
It reminded me of last Friday morning, when everything had looked normal, too.
I’d gotten ready and stopped in the kitchen to grab coffee on my way to work.
The space made its best impression of normal—coffee sputtered, a magazine lay open to beautiful houses, and Mom floated in wearing her robe, as if a country club were about to materialize around the toaster. She caught my eye.
“You’re really traveling with an NHL team?” she asked, bright-eyed. “Team plane? Do they put you somewhere nice—Four Seasons nice?”
“The hotels are nice, but it’s about work, icing bruises and video clips,” I said, reaching for my mug.
“That part is per diem, right?” she joked. “With our situation…” She let that hang, then added, “I’m happy you got that job, and a fancy one at that. You’ve always been our star.”
Her words felt off. I said I’d be late and left.
I shook my head at the memory—she was living outside of this world.
After a bit more strolling through Land Park, I drove home.
Inevitably, my mind wandered to Sean. He wasn’t the kind of man who filled silences with awkward jokes; he let them breathe.
When I’d needed space more than words, he’d understood without asking.
You don’t have to be okay, not when it comes to me, he’d said.
And just like that, a tingle settled in my chest. A sudden, ridiculous urge to want things, soft things, real things. Like him. Which, again, was ridiculous.
My car’s dashboard blinked 7:58 a.m. as I parked in the employee lot.
I walked quickly toward the Tahoe West quarters, sipping my coffee, but the taste in my mouth turned dry as I neared the building.
The thud of pucks from the morning skate echoed through the arena, making me want to disappear.
Being the girl who may or may not have sobbed into her boss’s chest two days ago was stressful.
I walked in, trying to look normal. Not too peppy, not too stiff, just professional and emotionally unmemorable.
No Sean in sight, no players lurking with raised eyebrows. Good.
I turned the corner and my heart lurched. Asher was heading toward the rink, and we crossed paths. His eyes flicked to mine, one eyebrow barely lifting. But it was enough to make my stomach clenched.
“Morning,” he said, easy as a Monday.
“Good morning,” I replied, tight-lipped.
Did he know it was me that face-planted into the coach’s chest? I beelined for the staff lounge before my brain spiraled further. The coffee machine wheezed out a half-hearted brew when the door opened behind me.
“Morning,” Sean said.
Every cell in my body snapped to attention, dragged back to the parking lot, then in his car, where I hadn’t kept it together.
I turned, already halfway into a rehearsed “I’m fine, totally fine, nothing to see here” smile, and found Sean’s over-six-foot frame in a calm, measured swagger, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. He reached for a mug in the cabinet, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
“The schedule is tight this week,” he said, pouring his coffee. “We’ll keep the morning meeting short.”
I blinked. “Sure thing.”
Then he left. What a relief—a confusing one.
I carried that feeling into the trainers’ room, picked up the players’ progress reports, and from there the rest of the day blurred into notes, check-ins, and pregame rituals.
Tonight was Game 1 of Round Two. Home ice.
Tahoe West versus the Edmonton Oilers.
I stood in the staff section, pretending I wasn’t constantly overanalyzing every Tahoe West glance in my direction. Technically, staff dating wasn’t forbidden unless it interfered with work, but this was about optics. And mine felt really narrow, straight-up peephole narrow.
Midway through the second period, I spotted Sadie, team captain Asher’s girlfriend, whom I met at the sports bar—pretty, confident—and now she was watching me. The girl with puffy eyes and Sean Murphy’s shirt sleeve in her fist.
The memory crashed in, uninvited and biting, the way cold air slipped through a gapped window. I didn’t know what she saw that night, or if she’d said anything, or if Asher had, or if I was just spiraling into a self-judgment vortex.
What did they think I was? A woman with a flair for drama?
And suddenly I felt how I might look: the assistant who hadn’t completed her probation period, emotionally breaking down on the coach. And we’re talking the head coach of one of the NHL’s top five teams.
When Sean walked by, I did what any mildly panicked woman would: pivoted mid-stride and fake-checked something on my DevPad. Because what better way to say “I’m not fine” than intensely staring at a blank screen.
I was pretty sure his brows drew in. I was starting to know his reactions. Cool. Now I was being awkward and avoidant.
Love that for me.
Final score: 3–1, Oilers.
We’d do this again in forty-eight hours.
Same place, same matchup, then fly to Alberta Friday morning for two away games.
Sean hadn’t been kidding about the schedule being brutal.
Playoffs were not a place for self-conscious spirals.
I just had to make it through the week without becoming a cautionary tale, or you know, a trending hashtag.
After the game, I hung back and helped double-check gear bins and report sheets—a very professional excuse to avoid the tunnel, Sean, and any player who might look at me twice.
When we wrapped, the arena noise had thinned to the soft hum of vacuum cleaners and rink staff chatters.
I was halfway past the rental counter when I saw Frank, the older guy who’d helped me when I fell. He was shuffling a small bin toward the skate area.
“Frank?” I called.
He turned, squinted, and grinned. “Hey, you’re still on your feet. How’s the ankle?”
“All good,” I said, smiling. “You remembered.”
“Hard to forget a fall like that,” he chuckled, setting the bin down.
“So...what’s your role here?” I asked, already hearing the shift in my voice. Dad, sixty-four, needing to work again.
“Bit of this, bit of that,” Frank said. “No more heavy hauling; they’re nice about it. Mostly skate support now, it keeps me moving.”
I nodded, biting the inside of my cheek. “You’ve been here a while, huh?”
“Oh, I’m part of the furniture,” he said with a wink. “But not the heavy-duty kind anymore.”
I laughed, picking up the bin without asking, and he didn’t stop me.
When we reached the skate racks, he looked at me with mock seriousness. “You know, your skating wasn’t sharp. You could use the practice.”
“Wow, a nicely packed insult, that’s talent,” I deadpanned.
Frank chuckled and handed me a pair of skates in my size. “Go on. Nobody’s judging a little sliding around. Might even clear your head.”
I gasped. Was my head that obviously in the clouds?
A few minutes later, I was stepping onto the ice.
Across the rink, someone glided like a graceful penguin.
Me? I clung to the rail, still half expecting someone to crash into me.
The memory of that fall wasn’t encouraging, but these two-inch bursts forward were strangely freeing.
I wasn’t thinking about my parents, or Sadie, or the Sean-shaped tension in my stomach.
I looked ahead, gauging the path in front of me, and froze.
Sean.
No helmet, gloves dangling from one hand, each stride long and liquid smooth, his turns carving the ice with bursts of speed that stole my breath.
My pulse skated faster than my feet could ever dream of moving.
I told myself it was the surprise of seeing him, that the hot-and-cool squeeze in my stomach wasn’t from the way he moved—driven, precise, and powerful.
It was impossible to look away.
He was all muscle in motion, the kind of strength that melted your insides before you realized you were a puddle. I was absolutely not going to think about how he made me feel doing it.
I started to turn away, when he slowed, his head snapping toward me.
Crap.
Sean angled in my direction, skating with that maddening smoothness.
My hands clamped tighter on the rail. With not a freaking chance of a graceful exit, the rink had me hostage.
I was forced to watch his powerful, athletic body glide toward me and feel an entire swarm of whirlwind butterfly flutters in my chest. I might need a defibrillator, a stern lecture about ogling your boss, and a warning about how dangerous that was.