Chapter 7
Billie
Ipushed the laces through eyelets until my fingers hurt.
Tight, tighter, as if I could bind everything I’d dragged in with me—the breakup, the headlines, the shaky sense that everyone still saw me as Nate Ransom’s girlfriend who used to play a little.
The skate hissed against the waxed lace, a clean sound that cut through the locker-room chatter.
Auri angled toward me from the next bench, gum snapping, eyes bright. “Word is he’s some NHL relic with rage issues. The kind who still signs autographs for himself.”
Kira laughed from across the aisle. “Bet he’s bald and screams at girls for fun.”
I yanked one last knot and stood; the blades nicking the floor tile in tiny clicks. “If he gets us noticed, he can scream all he wants.”
That shut them up for a breath. I hadn’t meant it like a threat, but it landed that way. A couple grins twitched. I was already walking toward the tunnel, stick over my shoulder, helmet dangling from my wrist.
The noise shifted the moment I stepped out—air colder, sound sharper.
Rink smell hit me: damp rubber, paint, ice shaving dust. I felt it fill my lungs the way it used to when I was a kid, before I tangled myself in someone else’s shadow.
The boards gleamed under the lights. My heart beat steady, hard, alive.
I dropped my stick onto the dasher, crouched to stretch. Counted breaths. Everything slowed except what mattered—edge pressure, blade angle, the controlled give of my thighs against the ice.
Then I pushed off. First glide, then stride. No cameras, no Nate, no baggage. Just me carving lines until the world narrowed to motion. The cut of my blades sang back in rhythm: forward, cross, drive, pivot.
More players drifted out. Chatter followed—someone complaining about midterms, another asking if the coach really played for the Serpents. I tuned them out.
When I practiced, the noise always dulled to a hum, like being underwater. My stick met puck, and muscle memory took over. Wrist flick, rebound, pick-up. One, two, three—clean passes against the boards until sweat gathered at my temples.
I could almost taste metal in the air. I liked that. It felt pure. Honest.
I skated a full circuit, pressed into the turns until my edges hummed. A couple of the girls clapped sticks on the ice, a soft rhythm of approval. Someone muttered, “Guess the Ransom ex can actually play.”
I didn’t react. They could doubt, they could gossip. None of it mattered if I earned minutes and scored.
My shoulders dropped, muscles loosening into something close to peace. I chased a puck through the neutral zone, faked a pass to no one, ripped a shot at an empty net. It hit the post, ringing through the empty rink like a promise.
This was the only place where everything quieted—the rink didn’t care who I’d dated or what I’d lost. It wanted sweat, precision, and speed.
So I gave it everything.
The whistle tore through the rink, sharp as a cracked rib. Every head turned. I froze mid-stride, breath fogging the air. A man stepped out from the tunnel.
I looked up, and my world folded in half.
No.
It wasn’t possible.
Same shoulders. Same crooked jaw I’d traced with my thumb. The same split in his bottom lip I’d kissed last night when I thought he was just some stranger at a bar who didn’t want my name.
My knees forgot how to hold me. The blade caught, a quick slip that sent a shot of panic through my calves. I gripped the stick hard enough my knuckles went white.
He saw me. I felt it—a pause that cracked the air between us.
His stride faltered for one breath. Then he straightened, eyes unreadable, expression locked into something cold and professional.
But I knew that face. I knew the weight of his hand on my hip, the way his voice had dropped when he whispered okay?
My lungs burned.
Paige’s voice carried over the echoes. She was smiling too much for a scene that felt like a funeral. “All right, ladies, let’s get settled. This is our new head coach.” My heart slammed against my ribs. “Coach Shaw.”
The name hit like a slap. My vision tunneled again, and all the noise of the rink—skates scraping, puck clatter, lockers slamming shut—went muffled beneath that single word.
Shaw.
Of course it was. NHL pedigree, old-school enforcer, highlight reels full of fights and glory years. Calder Shaw—man who’d shattered bones and headlines in equal measure. Every hockey kid in this city knew the name.
My stomach twisted.
And I had hooked up with him. The coach of all people. The man now standing in front of two dozen players, calm as stone while my pulse threatened to shake me apart.
He scanned the team, voice low and rougher than I remembered. “First rule—nobody coasts on reputation. You earn every damn shift.”
A few girls giggled nervously. I couldn’t move.
“All right,” he said, voice echoing off the glass. “Let’s see what kind of team we’ve got.”
He turned his back, barked for drills to start. The room moved again—sticks clacking, chatter buzzing—but I stood rooted, blades biting a clean groove into the ice beneath me.
Every nerve screamed at once.
Last night I’d escaped into someone else’s arms, just to feel seen.
Now that same someone was my coach. He stood at centre ice, legs braced apart, hands buried in his jacket pockets like he could anchor himself there.
The way he moved—slow, deliberate—reminded me of someone walking a tightrope over an open hole. Every step measured. Every word loaded.
“This isn’t house,” he said. His voice rolled low, rasped from cigarettes or too many late nights. “If you want to make noise, earn it.”
No pep talk. No welcome. Just that.
Silence stretched. A few helmets tilted, waiting for the part where he’d soften and say he was joking. He didn’t.
Reese broke it. Of course it was Reese—our winger with a mouth faster than her sprint. She raised her glove, not mock-polite, not shy.
“Didn’t you punch out a linesman?” she asked.
A couple girls snickered. Someone muttered Jeez, Reese, but she barreled on.
“What happened to your last coaching job?” Her tone carried that high, bright edge people used when they smelled blood. “And… is it true you were suspended for drinking?”
A heartbeat of stillness followed, sharp as cracked ice. Calder didn’t blink. He looked right at her like he was checking whether she’d flinch.
“Yeah,” he said. “All of it’s true.” He let the words hang, then added, “And I’m still better than whatever you had before.”
A low ripple moved through the team, half amusement, half discomfort. Sticks scraped the ice nervously. No one laughed now; they’d wanted a show, not a confession.
Someone behind me whispered, just loud enough to bleed across the air, “This program won’t last a week.”
The sound lodged under my ribs. I should’ve turned—corrected her, told her to shut it—but I just stared at him.
Waiting.
He didn’t explode like I expected. No bark, no threat, no swinging stick. Just that stillness again. His gaze swept across the lineup, steady and savage, daring anyone to meet it. No one did.
I watched the muscle in his jaw shift when he clenched it. The barely-there tremor in his fingers. He was holding something down—anger, shame, recognition—something I could feel from the length of the rink. It hit like static, pricking my skin.
He started pacing, blades scraping on the ice.
“You think this is a joke,” he said. “You think because it’s new, because this school wants to look progressive, that you can coast. You can’t.
I don’t care who your parents are, or what scholarship you’re clinging to.
You either give everything here, or you sit. ”
The whisper came again from the far end, quieter now, “He’s serious, huh?”
I couldn’t tear my eyes from him. The breath fogged out of me in even bursts, masking the heat climbing up my neck. If anyone looked, they’d think I was concentrating, not fighting the reminder of his hand against my hip.
He turned toward us again. His eyes caught mine—a flick, nothing more—but it felt like being slammed in the chest.
“Everybody skate,” he said.
I dropped my gaze, snapped my helmet on, and pushed off, forcing air into my lungs. The ice bit through my blades like it wanted blood. I welcomed it.
Professional, I told myself. He was keeping it professional.
Barely.
My pulse hammered so hard I could taste it. Helmet halfway to my head, hands trembling so bad the cage rattled. That man—the one who’d pressed me to a wall, skin to skin, voice low and rough in my ear—stood yards away with a whistle around his neck. And he owned the next chapter of my life.
Skate blades scratched the ice in restless circles.
Every few seconds, a flash of memory cut through—his breath against my collarbone, fingers tracing my spine, the way he’d steadied me when my legs gave out.
I shoved the images down, stacking them behind anger, pride, anything that would keep me upright.
Paige finished her announcements and drifted off, clipboard hugged to her chest. He blew the whistle once. Sharp. The team jolted forward like a flock startled into flight. I should’ve moved with them, but my knees locked.
He looked straight at me. Not long. Just one beat too many. Then his voice—steady, businesslike. “You skating, or you standing there for decoration?”
The girls nearest to me snorted. Heat rushed up my neck. I tugged my helmet on and dropped onto the ice.
This is your shot, Donovan. You throw it away now, and you were never serious.
Coach Calder Shaw could ruin me before the week was over. But hiding wouldn’t save me. I’d already done enough of that—with Nate, with fear, with every excuse I’d made for not chasing what I wanted.
I shoved off hard, blades carving deep, lungs burning cold. The rink stopped feeling like a trap and started feeling like a test. Crossover, sprint, pivot, again. I focused on the bite of steel, the push of each stride, the ache climbing my thighs.