Chapter Thirty-Two
Coop
Coop Vale had not expected trust to feel so much like a puck on his tape.
Not heavy. Not fragile.
But alive.
Something he had to receive cleanly.
Something that changed direction if he handled it wrong.
Frankie had said, I trust you too, in the parking lot outside O’Malley’s, then driven away like she had not just rearranged several internal organs and left him standing beside his car with no useful expression.
He had gone to class afterward.
Physically.
Emotionally, he remained in the parking lot.
Tanner noticed in the locker room before practice.
“Vale looks stupid,” he said.
Nolan looked up from tying his skates. “Romance stupid or academic stupid?”
“Romance,” Hayes said immediately.
Coop opened his stall. “I am right here.”
“Physically,” Nolan said. “But emotionally, you are gazing across a frozen pond.”
“No weather,” Coop said.
“That wasn’t weather. That was landscape.”
Hayes sat beside him and bumped his shoulder. “You okay?”
Coop paused.
That question used to be easy.
Fine.
Good.
All the smooth answers.
Now they stuck a little because people had started expecting him to tell the truth.
Rude of them.
“I’m good,” he said.
Nolan leaned forward. “Whose?”
Coop pointed a roll of tape at him. “Don’t.”
Tanner laughed.
Hayes smiled like he understood too much.
Coop pulled on his practice jersey and tried to get his brain back inside hockey.
It mostly worked.
Practice was fast and sharp. Westbridge had been the women’s test, but the men’s team still had their own schedule, their own pressure, their own problems. Landry ran them through transition drills until nobody had enough air to be poetic.
Good.
Coop needed less poetry.
More legs.
By the time practice ended, his body had burned off the worst of the too-much feeling.
Not all of it.
Just enough.
In the hallway after showers, his phone buzzed.
Frankie.
FRANKIE: Your sister sent me a meme of a raccoon holding a hockey stick and said “Birdie energy.”
Coop laughed out loud.
Hayes looked over. “Frankie?”
“Yes.”
“Tell her Reese says Birdie cannot see that.”
Coop typed:
COOP: Hayes says Reese says Birdie cannot see it.
A minute later:
FRANKIE: Too late.
Then:
FRANKIE: Birdie says your sister understands her spirit.
Coop closed his eyes.
COOP: This alliance is dangerous.
FRANKIE: Extremely.
Then, after a pause:
FRANKIE: Practice?
He stared at that one.
Simple question.
Normal question.
Except Frankie did not usually ask just to ask.
COOP: Hard. Useful. Landry tried to remove our lungs.
FRANKIE: Sutter owns that patent.
COOP: They share coaching crimes.
FRANKIE: Likely.
He waited.
The next message came slower.
FRANKIE: You okay after yesterday?
There it was.
His thumb hovered over the screen.
He could say yes.
He was yes.
But not only yes.
He leaned against the hallway wall and let the truth settle.
COOP: Good. A little full.
Dots.
FRANKIE: Of pancakes?
He smiled.
COOP: Those too.
FRANKIE: Feelings?
COOP: Unfortunately.
The dots appeared.
Disappeared.
FRANKIE: Same.
Coop stared at the word.
Same.
Small.
Massive.
He typed:
COOP: Walk later?
Her reply came fast.
FRANKIE: No rink. Library path. Six-fifty.
Of course.
COOP: Six forty-nine?
FRANKIE: Do not weaponize punctuality.
COOP: Too late.
FRANKIE: I trust you less now.
He smiled so hard Nolan, passing by, stopped dead.
“Oh no,” Nolan said. “His face has become a lantern.”
Coop shoved his phone in his pocket. “Leave.”
“Can’t. Witnessing history.”
Tanner grabbed Nolan by the back of his hoodie and dragged him down the hall.
“Thank you,” Coop called.
Tanner lifted a hand without turning around.
At six-forty-nine, Coop stood outside the library with no pastry and no coffee because Frankie had asked for neither.
He did have gloves in his pocket because the temperature had dropped and Frankie routinely acted like cold was a concept that happened to other people.
Was that boyfriend behavior?
Was it also practical?
Also yes.
He felt comfortable with the overlap.
Frankie emerged from the library at six-fifty exactly, hair tucked into her hoodie, backpack over one shoulder, phone in her hand.
She looked tired.
Not bad tired.
Processing tired.
The kind of tired after a body survived something and then had to figure out how to live with having survived it.
She stopped in front of him.
“You’re early.”
“Consistent.”
“Annoying.”
“Also consistent.”
Her mouth almost moved.
He held out the gloves.
She looked at them.
Then at him.
“No.”
“You don’t know what I’m offering.”
“Gloves.”
“Okay, you know.”
“I have sleeves.”
“Sleeves are not gloves.”
“They are hoodie extensions.”
“They are fabric denial.”
She stared at him.
Then took the gloves.
“Temporary.”
“Of course.”
She pulled them on.
They were too big.
His chest did the thing.
He ignored it heroically.
Mostly.
They started walking.
No hand-holding at first because her hands were in his gloves and maybe that was enough.
The campus felt quieter than usual. Post-Westbridge energy still lingered in flyers and social posts and people stopping Frankie to say good game. But the frenzy had softened into reputation.
People looked at her differently now.
Not like a mascot.
Not like a feel-good story.
Like the goalie who had beaten Westbridge.
Frankie noticed.
Of course she did.
A group of students passed and one said, “Great game, Callahan.”
Frankie nodded. “Thanks.”
No flinch.
No hurry.
Coop felt proud.
Then immediately stored it carefully because pride could become too large if he let it.
Frankie glanced at him. “You did face restraint.”
“I’m growing.”
“Moderately.”
“I’ll take it.”
They walked past the humanities building, along the stone wall where she had told him prepared was enough.
The air smelled like cold pavement and distant snow.
Frankie flexed her fingers inside his gloves.
“You bought big gloves.”
“I have big hands.”
She looked at him.
Then away.
Interesting.
He let it pass because he valued survival.
After another minute, she said, “I keep waiting to feel worse.”
Coop’s attention sharpened.
“About the game?”
“After. Him. Muting him. Texting him. All of it.”
“Do you?”
“Sometimes. Then it goes away.”
“Maybe that’s allowed.”
She frowned at the sidewalk. “It feels like I’m skipping a punishment.”
The sentence hit him low.
He stopped walking.
Frankie took another step, then stopped too.
He did not reach for her.
Not yet.
“You don’t owe the punishment,” he said.
Her eyes lifted.
He kept his voice careful.
Not soft enough to blur.
Not hard enough to take over.
“Even if guilt shows up, that doesn’t mean it’s right. It might just be familiar.”
Frankie looked at him for a long moment.
Then exhaled.
“That was a therapy sentence.”
“Mara would be proud.”
“Your sister is everywhere.”
“Unfortunately.”
Frankie looked down at the gloves.
“I used to think if I didn’t feel guilty, it meant I was becoming cruel.”
Coop’s chest tightened.
“You’re not cruel.”
“I know.”
She said it quickly.
Then paused, like the speed surprised her.
“I know,” she repeated, slower.
Coop let the quiet hold that.
I know.
Another one.
Not small.
She looked out toward the darkening lawn.
“I can be sharp. I can be unfair if I’m scared. I can overcorrect. But I’m not cruel.”
“No,” he said.
Her eyes returned to him.
“You don’t have to convince me.”
His throat went tight.
“Good.”
“Yours?”
“Mine.”
She stepped closer then.
Not fully into him.
Just close enough that their sleeves touched.
“I don’t want him in this,” she said.
“In us?”
Her eyes held his.
“Yes.”
The word moved through him slowly.
Us.
Not ours this time.
Us.
He nodded.
“Okay.”
“No, not okay.” She made a frustrated sound. “I mean, I know he’s part of my life. History. Whatever. I can’t pretend he didn’t shape things.”
“No.”
“But I don’t want to keep checking our good against his voice.”
Coop swallowed.
Our good.
He had never loved a possessive pronoun before.
Dangerous thought.
Close thought.
Not yet.
Maybe soon.
“We don’t have to,” he said.
“Do we know how not to?”
“Probably not.”
Her mouth curved faintly.
“Honest.”
“Trying.”
“We’ll probably be bad at it.”
“Probably.”
“Better than fake good?”
“Definitely.”
She nodded.
Then took his hand.
His glove on her hand.
Her fingers curled around his.
Odd.
Perfect.
They walked again, slower now.
At the corner near the library, his phone buzzed.
He ignored it.
Frankie looked at his pocket. “You can check.”
“I’m walking.”
“Could be your sister.”
“Then she can wait.”
“Growth.”
“Annoying but approved?”
Frankie’s mouth almost smiled. “Current evidence favorable.”
His phone buzzed again.
Then a third time.
Frankie stopped.
“Check it.”
He sighed and pulled it out.
Mara.
Three texts.
MARA: MOM WANTS TO INVITE FRANKIE TO DINNER EVENTUALLY.
MARA: I said not yet because I value my life and yours.
MARA: Please praise me.
Coop read them and laughed under his breath.
Frankie’s eyebrows lifted.
He handed her the phone because the context was simple enough and private enough.
She read.
Her face went still.
Not bad.
Measured.
“Eventually,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Not now.”
“No.”
“Your sister blocked?”
“Yes.”
Frankie handed back the phone.
“Current evidence very favorable.”
He typed that to Mara.
Her reply came instantly.
MARA: I am beloved by goalies.
Coop showed Frankie.
Frankie huffed. “Debatable.”
He typed:
COOP: Debatable.
Mara:
MARA: I’ll win her.
Frankie read over his shoulder and muttered, “She might.”
Coop smiled.
Then his phone buzzed again.
His mother this time.
MOM: No pressure and no reply needed now. Mara reminded me that eventually is not now. I am trying. I hope your day is good.
Coop stared at it.
Something in him softened.
His mother was trying.
Imperfectly.
But sincerely.
He turned the phone toward Frankie.
She read it.
“Good,” she said.
He looked at her.
“Yours?” she asked.
He breathed out a laugh.
“Mine.”
“See?”
“What?”
“You can have good family things without making them perfect first.”
The sentence hit so clean he almost resented her.
Frankie noticed.
Her eyes warmed.
“True hit?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Yeah.”
She slipped her hand back into his.
“Walk.”
They walked.
Coop texted his mother one-handed.
COOP: Thanks. Day is good. Eventually, maybe. Not now.
The reply came after a minute.
MOM: Understood. Proud of you.
He swallowed.
Frankie did not look at the screen this time.
But her hand tightened around his.
She knew anyway.
Of course she did.
They circled back toward the library as the sky darkened fully.
Frankie’s steps slowed near the entrance.
“Homework,” she said, with deep resentment.
“Same.”
“Classes are rude after emotional development.”
“Should be a campus policy.”
“You’re alternate captain. Fix it.”
“I’ll add it to the agenda.”
“Useful.”
He smiled.
She looked at him and shook her head slightly.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“Your nothing has a face.”
She stared.
“That’s my line.”
“Shared language.”
“Dangerous.”
“Very.”
For a moment, the library entrance, the cold air, the homework waiting inside—all of it faded into background.
Frankie still wore his gloves.
Her cheeks were pink from the cold.
Her eyes were steady on his.
He felt the words again.
The big ones.
Closer.
His mouth opened before he made a plan.
Frankie’s expression changed.
She saw them.
Of course she saw them.
He stopped.
Not out of fear exactly.
Out of care.
Tonight was not wrong.
But he wanted the words to arrive when they were not hiding inside postgame adrenaline, not tangled in father boundaries, not rushed by a sidewalk goodbye.
He wanted to give them well.
Frankie stepped closer.
“Not yet?” she asked softly.
His heart stumbled.
She knew.
She knew.
He nodded once.
“Not because not true,” he said.
Her breath caught.
His did too.
Her eyes shone in the library light.
“Good,” she said.
The word almost broke him.
Then she corrected, barely above a whisper.
“Shared.”
He nodded.
“Shared.”
She rose onto her toes and kissed him.
Soft.
Short.
Enough.
When she stepped back, she tugged off his gloves and handed them over.
“Your hands are cold,” he said.
“I’m going inside.”
“Logic.”
“Try it.”
“Tomorrow.”
She smiled.
Real.
Then turned toward the library doors.
At the entrance, she looked back.
“Coop.”
“Yeah?”
“You’re not fog.”
The words hit harder than he expected.
He stood there, gloves in hand, throat tight.
Frankie’s face softened.
“Just so you know,” she said.
Then she went inside.
Coop stood outside the library until the cold bit through his jacket.
Not fog.
Not easy.
Not only useful.
Seen.
He looked down at the gloves in his hands and laughed once, quiet and disbelieving.
Then he texted Mara.
COOP: I’m in trouble.
Her reply came almost immediately.
MARA: The good kind?
Coop looked through the library glass, where Frankie had disappeared into the warm light.
COOP: The best kind.
Mara sent back:
MARA: Don’t be dumb.
He smiled.
Too late, maybe.
But he could try.