Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
HALEY
The office was mine in the way small things became yours when nobody else wanted them.
Tucked between the equipment corridor and the coaches’ offices, it was barely large enough for a desk, three monitors, and a chair I’d dragged in from somewhere else because the original one had made my back hurt.
The air conditioning worked too well, which meant I wore a hoodie even in summer.
The blue light from the screens gave everything a cold cast that probably wasn’t great for my eyes.
I’d been here since six-thirty. Most of the players wouldn’t arrive for another hour.
Mark, the other team analyst, came in at about seven.
He had his own tiny office down the hall, though we shared space in a larger room where we could show plays to the assistant coaches or multiple players. I hadn’t seen him yet.
The screens showed footage from three different games, all the same opponent, tagged and color-coded by play type.
Power play sequences in red. Penalty kill in blue to show how we might stop the opposing team if one of our orcs had a penalty and we were down a player.
Five-on-five or full team plays in green.
I’d been building this package for two days, and it was good work.
The kind that made me forget to eat lunch or notice when the building got loud around me.
My coffee had gone cold at least an hour ago.
On the center screen, a defenseman made the same positioning mistake he’d made in four other games.
I tagged it, added it to the sequence, and made a note about the pattern.
This was the part of the job I liked best. The puzzle of it.
The way footage revealed things that happened too fast to catch in real time.
My phone sat face down on the desk. I hadn’t checked it in forty minutes, which was probably a record.
The empty pastry bag from two days ago was gone. I’d thrown it away after staring at it for an embarrassing length of time. Tolrek had laid it on the chair beside mine during the scrimmage before he was called back into play.
He’d eaten the pastry I’d given him. From the way my heart was leaping around in my chest, you’d think he’d asked me out on a date. Not just eaten something from a random person he ran into in the parking lot. I’d been thinking about it since, giving a lot of thought to an empty paper bag.
The thing was, I’d been tracking him, though not on purpose.
Or maybe on purpose, but not consciously.
The same way I tracked plays developing on ice, peripheral awareness that didn’t require true attention.
I knew where he was during practice. I knew which part of the locker room he gravitated toward.
And I knew he arrived early and left late and didn’t talk to anyone unless they talked to him first.
I’d also watched more of his footage than the job required.
Last night I’d pulled videos from three seasons ago, before the injury and the trade. I’d told myself it was a professional thing to do to give context for his current patterns. I needed to understand his baseline before I could identify the changes.
That was true, though it also wasn’t the whole truth.
If someone else had shown me this pattern, I would’ve recognized it immediately. I was choosing not to recognize it in myself, which was pretty much a lie.
I took a breath and returned my attention to the screen.
The opponent’s power play had a tell. Their center positioned himself near the net before the pass. I tagged three more instances and added them to the sequence. My father would use this in the team meeting tomorrow. He’d pull the clips I flagged, and the players would see what I’d seen.
That part still felt good.
Five more minutes passed. The footage rolled. I got lost in it the way I always did, and for those five minutes, I was just competent at something I was good at.
Footsteps sounded in the corridor outside. My father doing his morning rounds, checking in with staff before the players arrived. He appeared in the doorway with a coffee mug in his hand and the easy authority he wore like a comfortable coat.
“You’re here early,” he said.
“I wanted to finish the package.”
“How’s it looking?”
“Good. Their power play has a positioning tell. The center telegraphs the pass.”
He stepped around my desk, looking at the screen over my shoulder. I pulled up the sequence and ran it for him. He watched with the focus he gave everything, processing it the way a coach did information.
“That’s useful,” he said. “Can you isolate the weak-side defender? I want to see what he’s doing when that happens.”
“Already tagged. I’ll have it ready for the meeting.”
He smiled. “You always do.”
We spent the next few minutes talking through the package. He asked good questions and made observations that actually helped. This was us at our best, two people who understood hockey and each other.
He started to leave, taking a few steps toward the door before turning back.
“Training camp’s always an adjustment period,” he said. “You know how it is.”
I did know. “It takes time.”
“Some of them are still settling in socially. Camp can be intense.” He leaned against the doorframe. “I’m glad you’re here, Haley. Having someone I trust completely in the building makes the job easier.”
The old warmth moved through me. He’d been my whole world after my mother died, the constant in a life built around his schedule, his rink, and his team. I’d chosen this, every time.
“Training camp has a way of making things feel more significant than they are. Especially for new acquisitions who are still finding their footing.”
He wasn’t naming anyone, but he didn’t have to. He’d seen me talking with Tolrek at the dinner and read more into it than he should.
The rule had existed since I hit puberty. I’d been a freshman in college when he first spelled it out, after I’d spent an entire semester watching one of his senior players, hoping he’d notice I existed. He never had. I’d been invisible, which was worse than heartbroken.
My father had sat me down and explained, gently, that hockey players were off-limits. He’d seen relationships like that detonate teams and careers. He was protecting me.
I’d been mortified then.
Sitting here now, three days after the welcome dinner, and hearing it again in this rink I’d followed him to, it landed differently.
“I understand what you’re saying.” I kept my face neutral. “I’ve always known.”
“Perfect. Glad that’s settled.” He smiled. “You’re the best thing about this program.”
With that, he left.
I turned back to my screens and let out a long breath.
I loved my dad. What I was feeling right now was something closer to grief. He was protecting me. He was also, without knowing it, defining the shape of what I couldn’t have.
During the welcome dinner, I’d stood in a corner with someone who’d talked to me like I was a real person.
Tolrek enjoyed raspberry pastries as much as I did. He’d made a point to seek me out and tell me.
My father’s footsteps faded down the corridor.
I returned to the footage.
Different footsteps rang out in the hallway right away. Tolrek stopped in the doorway, wearing practice gear, his bag hanging over one shoulder, his hair pulled back.
His expression gave me nothing.
I’d been studying him for three days, and I’d gotten good at reading what wasn’t there.
He’d heard what my dad said or some of it.
My pulse kicked against my ribs.
“When’s my tape session?” he said in a voice much too professional. The schedule was posted in the locker room. Any of the assistant coaches could’ve told him.
Instead, he’d asked me.
I filed the fact in the folder I’d been trying not to create.
“Thursday afternoon,” I said. “Four o’clock. Does that work?”
“It does.”
Silence settled between us. He didn’t leave and he didn’t explain why he wasn’t leaving. He just stood there, and I was too aware of how much footage of him I had open on the center screen. Three seasons of tape. Before and after the injury. The positioning changes. The hesitation.
He glanced at the computer. At me. Then he left.
I turned back to the monitors, finding him there, frozen mid-stride in a moment I’d been analyzing on and off for at least an hour. The frame showed him three seasons ago, before everything changed, moving across the ice with the kind of certainty that didn’t exist in his current footage.
As I watched him skate through the play again, I realized that I had a problem.
The next day, the team meeting room held all the players, the full coaching staff, and me in the back corner with my laptop.
As usual, I liked being on the periphery.
I could be ready to pull clips if needed, and I was visible enough to be useful.
But I wouldn’t be a distraction. I’d perfected this kind of invisibility over the past three years.
My father stood at the front near the screen, running through the breakdown for the upcoming exhibition opponent. He pulled from my scouting package, the one I’d finished yesterday. The clips played exactly as I’d organized them, color-coded and tagged.
This was good work.
The players mostly paid attention. Some leaned forward, taking notes. Others watched with the absorption of athletes who’d sat through hundreds of these sessions. Crim sat near the front, his attention sharp.
My father pulled the weak-side positioning sequence.
“This is a consistent pattern,” he said. “Their defender drops too deep when the play develops on the strong side. This creates a gap we can exploit.”
I watched the clip play. Six games, same mistake, tagged and isolated.
Crim shook his head. “I’ve played against this team. That’s situational, not consistent. It happens when they’re already down a goal and pressing. It changes their whole structure.”
The room absorbed this.
“Well, then, it’s something to consider,” my father said in a diplomatic tone before moving forward.
I made a note to pull additional clips after the meeting. I’d build the case more thoroughly for the next meeting. This wasn’t the first time I’d been overruled, and it wouldn’t be the last.
“She’s right.” Tolrek’s voice cut through the room.
Every head turned his way.
“The weak-side pattern holds in five of the six games,” he said. “I’ve played against two of those defenders. The positioning gap is a real liability. It’s not situational.”
Crim nodded but didn’t comment.
My father pulled the clip back up and added context that reinforced what Tolrek had said.
Tolrek had spoken up because I was right, and being right mattered more to him than whatever was unresolved between us.
But my folder was getting uncomfortably full.
Sunday was our one genuine day off.
The upcoming Thursday tape session with Tolrek loomed on the calendar like a closed door I’d have to open.
But today was Sunday.
I slept later, which meant eight instead of six.
After taking a long shower, I walked to the bakery because the city was quieter on Sunday mornings and the walk was one of the things I’d decided I liked about being here.
Pillage and Pastry opened early, and Megha always saved the best raspberry pastries for people who arrived before nine.
I arrived at eight forty-five and stepped inside.
The smell of butter and sugar coasted through the air.
It was toasty warm from the industrial ovens that had been working since before dawn.
Megha stood behind the counter, green-skinned and flour-dusted, two of her three orclings peeking through the kitchen pass-through.
One of them must be dangerously close to touching something they shouldn’t.
“Don’t,” Megha called without turning around.
The orcling stepped back.
The case was full of pastries arranged in neat rows, everything golden and perfect. It was a good Sunday.
I ordered and took my coffee and pastry to the small table by the window I always used.
I’d just sat down when he walked in.
Tolrek was not easy to miss in any setting, but he was especially incongruous in a small bakery on a Sunday morning, despite wearing civilian clothes instead of hockey gear.
He passed by me and stopped in front of the case, scanning the offerings with the same focus he gave everything.
I wondered if he’d seen me yet.
I had only a short time to decide what to say if he did.
Megha greeted him warmly, and he ordered. She bagged it and handed it over the counter to him with a smile.
He turned and walked through the center of the room again, taking a few steps past where I sat before coming to a stop.
I didn’t look away.
He turned and met my gaze. Then he walked over and sat down, placing the bag on the table between us, opening it to reveal two raspberry pastries.
He lifted one out and took a bite, gazing out the window.
I tugged the other one out of the bag. I’d already eaten my first, but indulgence was good for the soul, right?
Outside, a couple walked past with a dog wearing a bright yellow jacket. Tolrek watched them with no expression. The dog was small and fluffy and overdressed for weather that wasn’t even cold yet.
I took a bite of pastry. The dough shattered the way it always did, and the raspberry filling was both sweet and tart. Megha made these better than anyone else. I swallowed and ate some more, watching Tolrek while he looked at everyone but me.
A thing in my chest had been growing for days. I’d started calling it awareness, then interest, then something I didn’t want to identify.
I was running out of neutral names for it.
Tolrek drank his coffee. Finished his pastry. And watched the street without saying a thing.
Neither did I.
It was the best conversation we’d had since the welcome dinner.