Chapter 10
Chapter ten
Mel
I stood in front of the Tahoe West quarters, waiting for my ride and trying not to glare at the scene playing out at the curb: Sean charmingly picking up a little girl and a woman, equally at ease, standing beside him. A vision of domestic bliss totally out of place after our hotel-room kiss.
How could he have held my freaking hips on the rink, kissed me as if I was the last slice of pizza at a party, and then be standing there now in a family reunion? Was what happened between us already erased by that curbside picture?
I’d Googled him. Divorced. But apparently, Google didn’t tell the whole story. The way he held that kid, the warmth in his face, the casual presence of the woman. It didn’t look new; it looked lived in.
And that was not how I rolled. A love triangle with a hockey coach wasn’t in my script.
A hot little knot twisted in my chest, a mix of anger and feeling punked on a grand scale. I felt violated for some reason, as if I had been invited to an exclusive party, only to find it was a packed house.
I didn’t dare to look back at the curb. My already-annoyed brain didn’t need any more fuel, and it wasn’t even noon. Plus, I still couldn’t believe Sam had bailed on me.
Her last-minute text had read: Final touches on the team’s research project. Sorry. Which, in sister-speak, meant you’re stuck with the one person you’d rather walk home in a rainstorm than ride with.
Cue: thirty-five minutes of what could only be a maternal ambush.
Mom looked at me now as if I were her last hope, and that made me avoid her like the plague. If I could sprint in the opposite direction, I would.
The teary, guilt-ridden people I’d unloaded on last Sunday were a shell of parents, whose financial crash had bruised. But they were proud people, stubbornly set on certain standards. The exact same people who raised two daughters to hold it together even when things fell apart.
Sam was crushing med school, with only a week until graduation—I was counting, beaming with sisterly pride, and cheering for myself too. The older daughter, still mostly sane.
Mom pulled up to the curb, looking way too cheerful for my current internal drama. I tossed my bags into the trunk and slid into the passenger seat.
“This sounds like a fun job, Mel. You get to see so many places,” Mom said after we had been on the road for about five minutes.
“It is,” I said, surprised by the genuine interest in her voice.
“How was Alberta?”
“Alberta was nice. I didn’t see much of it, but we had a couple hours free on Saturday, so I wandered a bit. The sky felt huge, and the air was super fresh. Oh, and I tried their honey lemonade. It was actually really good.”
Mom’s expression shifted as if she were trying to picture it.
For once, she wasn’t firing off probing questions that made me feel cornered. She was listening, and I did my best to entertain her, even if nothing in me felt that way.
Talking about Alberta helped release some of the pressure in my chest. Sean and I joked about what we saw like longtime friends, his hand in mine, us kissing… Warmth flickered low in my gut, unwanted but there, a rerun I couldn’t skip.
“And a private plane full of sporty men, and you haven’t snagged one?” she asked, catching me off guard again.
This wasn’t her usual timelines and expectations, dressed up in a sweet voice sharp enough to cut. It was old Mom humor, same as before everything went sideways. I felt too tired to dig deep into this unexpectedly nice Mom, but I’d take it. Today wasn’t a day for extra attacks on my nervous system.
“It’s hard to flirt when you’re also the one keeping score of their tardiness, you know.”
As I said it, the image from the drop-off slammed back into me, colliding with Sean’s lips under the Alberta sky. I folded my arms across my stomach, bracing myself.
Maybe I didn’t know the full story. But “maybe” didn’t stop this emotional recoil in my gut or the way I felt even more annoyed at him for making me one stupid cliché.
I swallowed past the lump in my throat.
Mom didn’t need to know I’d been thinking about a certain coach’s hands on my hips, or that he pressed me against a hotel room door and kissed me. Then, less than a day later, he gut-punched me with a curb scene that snuffed out every warm, fuzzy thought I’d foolishly carried home with me.
“Are you okay?” Mom glanced over, her brow furrowed.
“I’m fine.” The answer came out on instinct. The same password I’d used since my teens, and just like back then, it wasn’t true.
“You’ve always been good at keeping it together, Mel.”
And I had to keep it that way, I thought prayerfully.
At home, I mumbled something about being tired and went straight to my room. I stopped unpacking halfway, kicked off my shoes, and collapsed onto the bed. I needed quiet, with a side of invisibility.
My phone buzzed, probably a team update. I turned it face down.
Late afternoon, a knock came on the door.
“Mel?” Sam’s voice ran out, tentative. She slipped inside and shut the door behind her. “Tell me everything about Alberta, minus the hurricane I see went through here,” she teased. “So, was it still cold?”
I gazed at her. “Hey.”
Her grin faded. She gave me a once-over with knit brows. “Are you okay? You looked like someone hit pause and forgot to hit play again.”
I let out a soft huff, half a laugh and half an exhale. “I’m tired, and allergic to chitchat right now.”
Sam dropped her tote and backpack by the bed and sat beside me. “I’m the antihistamine for that allergy.”
I didn’t answer, which for Sam was the same as ‘keep probing, starting with head-to-toe exams.’
“What happened?” she asked again, softer this time. Then she lowered her voice to a whisper. “Is it the luxury SUV guy?”
My annoyance grew. “Can’t a woman have a bad day without it being about a man?”
“Actually, no,” she said, dead serious. “Estrogen plus androgen is a universal emotional hangover. It’s science.”
I smiled and instantly felt a pang of how much I’d miss her when she left in a few weeks. She would be in the white coat for real, and both of our lives would shift. Was everything going to change all at once? Including my ability to avoid eye contact with my now potentially complicated boss?
“So, what happened?”
I told her about Sean, carefully avoiding who he was and his name.
“Damn,” she muttered when I finished. “Still…you can’t jump to conclusions based on one family-looking drop-off. A Tahoe West guy, a colleague, wouldn’t cross a line like that. Right?”
I stared at the ceiling. I didn’t realize it could stink this much seeing him looking at someone else the next day as if I were a background extra.
“No, he wouldn’t,” I said finally, trying to convince myself of that.
Monday passed in full avoidance mode, which, let’s be honest, was exactly what I needed. The second week of admin orientation gave me a built-in excuse to stay off the rink and far from Sean Murphy’s line of sight.
I kept myself busy.
I caught up with Paxton in the hallway, hoodie rumpled, and eyes fogged with sleep. He’d missed two lifts, so we sketched out a weekly schedule on the back of a nutrition flyer. The structure helped; he said so himself.
Sergei updated me on his new apartment. I flagged it in the housing file and followed up with the relocation coordinator. There had been no mystery smells this time, and the shower didn’t sound like a jet engine.
In the lounge, hunting for a snack, I found Porter, quieter than usual, staring at the vending machine.
We talked. Reena, his fiancée, had been amazing, he said, but he felt as if he was juggling flaming skates trying to keep up.
I listened. It was a tough life, but by his stats on my graph, he was killing it.
I offered to try a mental performance coach, but he didn’t promise anything.
Catching up with players on their performance goals gave me a sense of accomplishment. I was doing something that actually mattered for them and the team.
The Panthers’ performance overall was looking good, but if we didn’t split the next two games Tuesday and Wednesday, we’d be headed back to Alberta, and I’d be on that flight, inevitably bumping elbows with the man who’d officially confused my senses.
I stayed home both game nights, even though every part of me wanted to be rinkside. The thought of running into him made me grip my couch pillow tightly, hoping it could absorb playoff romantic angst through osmosis.
Fortunately, we won both games. So, no Alberta, and no hotel hallway run-ins, pretending we hadn’t kissed like it was water in the desert.
Relief wasn’t quite it. A lump lodged in my throat, stubborn as a popcorn kernel that refused to budge. I dived into work to stay afloat. I tailored Dad’s résumé, applied for jobs in six-tab shifts, and tried not to feel the weight of the roles of parents and children that had flipped.
Thursday at 6 p.m., I was sitting in my car in the Tahoe West parking lot, windows cracked, FaceTime queued up. It was the best place to talk freely with my friend without worrying that my voice echoed throughout our hallowed house.
Erica picked up after one ring, the morning sun pouring behind her in a postcard perfect scene. Her hair up in a bun, and a coffee mug half the size of her head was in one hand.
“Hey, you,” she said. “How’s California life?”
I smiled. “Hey. Same old. Is that a Thai temple in your background?”
“It’s just my kitchen. But honestly, same level of devotion.”
I laughed.
“By the way,” Erica went on, “before the whole job talk, Josh and I were talking—you should come visit. The guest room’s yours. No debate.”
“That would be amazing. Maybe next year, once I’ve banked some PTO?”
“Deal. We’ll make plans then.” She leaned in, her eyes twinkling gossip-eager. “So… what’s new?”
“Puck-wise? Tahoe’s crushing it in Round Two.”
“Of course it is! You totally buried the lead!” she cheered.
I laughed, a good one that shook my chest.
“So, are you rinkside with pom-poms now?”