Chapter 12
Calder
Steam curled along the bathroom mirror, thinning until it framed a stranger I half recognised. Shaved, hair damp, towel slung around my shoulders—looked decent for a man running from every bad decision he’d ever made.
I padded into the living room. The couch groaned when I sat. The place smelled faintly of detergent and dust, the kind of silence that made you notice how alone you were. My phone buzzed against the coffee table—three messages, all variations of the same thing.
From Sam:
Heading to The Pour House. Team’s pumped. You coming?
I stared at it. The screen lit my knuckles, scars ghosting in the glow.
I shouldn’t. It was their night. They’d fought claw-to-crossbar for that draw and clawed it into a win. They deserved to breathe without the coach hovering over their shoulders, policing the party.
I pictured how it’d go if I showed up—half of them watching what they said, the other half waiting for me to slip. My name still tasted like headlines, and I wasn’t stupid enough to hand the league another one.
The phone pulsed again.
Seriously, boss. They want you there. One beer. No speeches.
I exhaled through my teeth. The right call was boring. Stay put. Drink water. Watch game tape until the smell of the rink faded from me.
But I kept seeing her. Billie, helmet off after the final period, hair damp with sweat, chest heaving but eyes locked—so alive it hurt to look at. She’d made one bad play, owned it, and then ripped the game back with that last cross-ice feed. I’d been proud, though I tried not to show it.
My thumb hovered over the messages.
I could still hear her voice from earlier that week—steady, daring me not to treat her like porcelain. A sound that stuck under your ribs.
The bag with my jacket hung by the door. Black leather, old enough to pass for anonymous. I stared at it too long, hoping common sense would talk louder than curiosity.
It didn’t.
“Just one drink,” I muttered. The lie already shaped like truth.
The lock clicked behind me, and the hallway felt colder than it should have. Somewhere across town, music and laughter waited. And Billie Donovan would be in the middle of it.
The Pour House hit me like a body check—warm air, low light, the mixed stink of fryer oil and spilled beer. Laughter bounced off brick walls. Jerseys hung over chair backs, tied around waists. Someone had dragged two booths together and claimed them with backpacks and empty pint glasses.
A sharp whistle cut through the din.
“Coach is in the building!”
I didn’t need to look for the voice—Kira, loud enough to wake the dead. The girls howled, a few raising their glasses in mock salutes.
I lifted a hand in half-hearted acknowledgment and kept moving.
Eyes everywhere. Theirs, mine, the ones I didn’t mean to find but did, anyway.
Her.
Billie stood near the end of the bar, hoodie still on, sleeves shoved to her elbows. She leaned close to a teammate, holding a bottle by the neck, laughter breaking across her face like light off ice. Hair still damp from the rink, cheeks flushed, mouth unguarded.
For a second, I forgot I was supposed to breathe.
Fuck. She’s gorgeous.
My heart misstepped, and I caught myself gripping the back of a chair like it could ground me.
The bartender spotted me and slid a glance toward a corner stool. Easy landing spot. I threaded through the crowd, nodding at clapping hands, deflecting the shrieks of “Coach! You finally showed!” with a practiced smirk.
“Just one round,” I warned no one in particular, voice rough enough to push the point.
I ordered a whiskey, neat. Old habit. The burn hit my throat, steadied my hands.
At the booths, the girls launched into a chant—something about Crestwood rising. Kira stood on the seat, waving a napkin like a banner, leading them with the no-fear grin of a girl who’d never had to rebuild her reputation. For that alone, I almost liked her.
Almost.
Billie turned at the noise, scanned the room, spotted me. Her laugh faded, not gone, just drawn suddenly quieter. She lifted her bottle in a small salute—too polite for how complicated we were—and turned back to her teammate.
I took another drink, longer this time.
This was a mistake.
The music thumped low, all bass and pulse. My pulse.
The girls started some dare game at the booths—truth or drink, from what I could piece together over the noise. Kira cackled after one of Billie’s turns, and Billie rolled her eyes, blushing harder. The sight hit me worse than the alcohol.
I looked away, focused on the glass sweating in my hand. Tried to remember I was a coach, not some idiot chasing ghosts.
The bartender leaned on the counter. “Hell of a game, Coach. Girls played like they gave a damn.”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “They did.”
The words tasted good, honest. Still, my gaze drifted back to her. Couldn’t help it.
Maybe it was the whiskey. Maybe it was me.
Either way, I stayed.
Kira caught me watching them and waved me over like I was the guest of honour instead of the guy ruining their buzz.
“Coach!” she shouted. “You’re sitting alone again. That’s tragic behaviour.”
“Some of us like peace and quiet.”
She leaned across the table, eyes sharp from tequila. “Peace and quiet? You’re in The Pour House, not a monastery.”
A chorus of laughter rose around her. A few of the girls banged their glasses on the table, chanting,
“Coach needs a date! Coach needs a date!”
I raised both hands. “Jesus, I come for one drink—”
Kira cut me off. “Exactly. One drink, one date. We’ll help. What’s your type?”
“My type?”
“Yeah,” she said, scanning the bar like she was hunting on my behalf. “Blondes? Brunettes? Women who can tolerate your early-morning suicides?”
The girls howled.
I forced a grin, pretending it didn’t feel like a noose tightening around my neck. “None of your damn business,” I said, trying to sound amused, not cornered.
“C’mon, you’re too scary to approach on your own. Let us do community service.”
They started pointing—a woman at the jukebox, tall, legs for days; another in a leather jacket leaning at the rail; someone by the dartboard who looked like she could bench-press half the room.
“Her,” Kira decided, nodding toward the one in the jacket. “She looks like she bites.”
“Perfect,” someone else giggled. “He needs biting. Keep him humble.”
I barked a laugh I didn’t feel, leaned back on the stool. “You girls ever think about focusing this much effort on your defensive coverage?”
Groans, boos, one flying napkin.
“All talk, Coach! No game!” Kira tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Look, she’s looking at you already.”
The woman had noticed the noise, gave me one slow once-over. Not shy.
This could work. Let them think I was playing along; it’d keep their gossip pointed anywhere but six feet to my left, where Billie sat pretending to text but actually tracking every second of this circus.
I offered the woman a small nod. She grinned like she’d been waiting for it. Moments later, she pushed off the bar and strolled my way.
The girls broke into applause.
“Yup,” Kira crowed. “Still got it, Coach!”
The woman slid onto the stool beside me, perfume sharp and sweet as a hook. Her smile was polished, eyes lined black with confidence. “You the infamous Calder Shaw?”
“Guilty.” I gave her the kind of grin that used to open doors and start fights.
“Heard the girls chanting you needed company. I figured I’d volunteer.”
“That so?”
She shrugged, crossing one leg over the other, fabric whispering. “They say you used to play for Detroit.”
“Used to,” I said.
“What happened?”
“Life,” I offered, and took a sip of whiskey to close the subject.
She laughed anyway, leaned in closer. “You always this cheerful?”
“Only when supervised.”
That earned another round of cheers from the table. Someone shouted, “Buy him a drink, Mari!”
So that was her name.
She waved for the bartender, ordered a pair of shots. Gave me a sideways smile. “To second chances?”
I lifted mine. “Sure. Why not.”
But my focus was drifting. The crowd blurred into shapes and colour, noise rising and dropping like surf.
Across the bar, Billie was still near the wall, phone forgotten now.
A guy in a button-down had slid beside her, hand resting too familiar on the counter, leaning in with that practiced proximity of someone used to being told yes.
She smiled—tight, polite, obligatory—but her shoulders had gone rigid.
The bartender set another glass in front of me. Mari talked, her mouth moving too fast, words just noise over the hum in my ears. I nodded when I felt I should, eyes trained past her shoulder.
Button-down laughed at something, touched Billie’s wrist. She pulled it back, gentle but firm. He laughed again, didn’t move.
My grip tightened on the glass. Ice cracked.
“Everything okay?” Mari asked.
“Yeah,” I lied, eyes still fixed on the other side of the room. “Everything’s fine.”
Mari kept talking, lips shaping words I didn’t catch. She laughed, touched my arm, traced the ink curling at my wrist. Every move rehearsed. Every cue as familiar as a face-off circle.
I knew the next steps by heart—lean in, match her rhythm, let the night slide into something physical and easy. That was the play. That always had been the play.
She was exactly my type. Sharp. Confident. The kind of woman who’d leave before sunrise and not expect breakfast. I should’ve been using the charm I’d sharpened over decades of bad decisions. Take her home, forget everything, drown the noise in skin and heat.
That was what should’ve been happening.
But Billie’s laugh snagged in my brain like a stick on bad ice. The memory cut through the noise, hot and cold all at once. I saw her in flashes—the way she’d cursed when her skate lace snapped during practice, the stubborn set of her jaw when I pushed her too hard.
One night. A mistake. That was all it was. It should’ve dissolved like spilled beer on this floor. Instead, it clung to me, breathing down my neck.