Uncoachable (Unlovable #1)

1. Iveline Talvi St. James

Iveline Talvi St. James

Scottie: You at the rink yet or did you already piss someone off?

Me: Both. I walked in and three men flinched.

Scottie: God, I love your work.

Me: It’s inefficient.

Scottie: So are most men.

I lock my phone and slide it into my bag, resisting the urge to smile.

Only Scottie can find the humor in me being surrounded by a wall of fragile male egos.

She’s the only woman I know who’s more relentless than I am, though she prefers to do it in four-inch heels with a martini in hand.

The air inside the arena is always five degrees cooler than the rest of the world—a crisp, recycled chill that smells of floor wax, overpriced popcorn, and ambition.

Most people find it sterile. I find it grounding.

Coming back to the States was supposed to be a victory lap, but as I navigate the familiar labyrinth of the back hallways, it feels more like stepping back into a cage I spent a decade breaking out of.

In Europe, I was “The Ice Queen.”

It started as a headline in a Swedish tabloid after I’d dismantled a veteran coach’s defensive strategy without so much as a crack in my composure, and it spread through the leagues like a frost.

The media loved the trope—the cold, calculated woman who preferred analytics to small talk and results to ego. They meant it as a critique of my lack of “warmth,” but I wore it like a shield.

Here, however, the press hasn’t caught up yet; to the men in this building, I am still just “The Daughter.”

I have to make sure they forget the second one by noon.

I turn the final corner toward the coaches’ wing and nearly collide with a body planted directly in my path.

It’s Mark Delaney, the associate head coach. He is a walking liability in a cheap suit, fueled by a cocktail of entitlement and thinning hair.

He steps into my way like he’s been waiting for the chance to intercept me, lifting a hand, palm out, stopping me as if I were trespassing.

“Hold up.”

I stop, because letting him touch me isn’t an option. His eyes drag over me, slow and assessing, trying to find a box to put me in.

“Can I help you with something?” he asks.

“I’m heading to the coaches’ office,” I say, stepping to the side.

He mirrors the movement, blocking me again.

I blink once. Twice.

He’s actually doing this.

“And why exactly are you headed there?” His eyes narrow. “PR? Player wellness? One of those new analytics interns?”

“No.” My voice stays even. “Assistant Coach.”

He lets out a short, incredulous laugh. “Right. Sure you are.”

I don’t answer him. I’ve learned the hard way that silence is far more unnerving than defensiveness.

In the eight years of climbing through the ranks in Europe, I’ve dealt with a hundred men just like Delaney—men who view a woman’s presence as an invitation for a lecture or an apology.

They expect a scramble. They want to see the flustered overexplanation, the softening of the shoulders, the desperate need to reassure their egos.

I give him none of it.

I simply watch him, my expression a flat, unreadable slate. My quiet irritates him more than any retort could; it denies him the satisfaction of rattling me. Every second I remain still is another second he has to fill with his own mounting discomfort.

I let the awkwardness stretch until it’s his skin that’s crawling, not mine.

I take a slow, deliberate inventory of him—the way his tie is knotted slightly off-center, the way he smells like stale coffee and a desperate need to be the loudest person in the room.

He’s the kind of coach who relies on “grit” and “gut feelings” because the actual science of the game terrifies him.

He scoffs, shifting his weight, his cheap leather shoes squeaking on the linoleum. “Look, sweetheart, this wing is for staff. Actual staff. You can’t just wander back here because you’re lost or curious or—”

“I’m not lost.”

“Then you’re confused,” he says, smiling like he’s being generous. “It happens. These hallways are a maze. I can walk you back to the public area if you’d like.”

I stare at him. “No, thank you. I have to be at the meeting soon.”

He opens his mouth again, gearing up for another condescending assumption, but apparently I’ve convinced him that I’m not just a lost girl, because he suddenly changes gears.

“I just didn’t know we were looking for a new assistant coach,” he says, the words sharpened into something meant to cut.

He knows.

As the associate coach, he would have been on the email chains, would have seen my CV sitting on the corner of the GM’s desk.

This isn’t a lack of information; it’s a refusal to acknowledge my legitimacy. He’s forcing me to audition for a room I’ve already been invited into.

“Mr. Anderson requested me personally, sir,” I say, keeping my tone cool. It physically pains me to show respect, but optics matter. “We worked together in Europe.”

That gets his attention. Surprise flickers across his face, then calculation.

“Oh.” He laughs again, a short, dismissive sound. “Well, you understand my concern, right? I mean, what are you—twenty?”

He slowly looks me up and down, and I know I don’t look twenty. The assessment isn’t about my age; it’s a deliberate, slow-motion attempt to make me feel small.

My nerves spike, a sharp, cold hum under my skin, but I don’t give him the flinch he’s looking for. I keep my posture steady, meeting his gaze with the same clinical detachment I’d use to study a penalty kill.

If he wants to look, I’ll make sure he sees exactly how little he intimidates me.

“Twenty-six.”

“Oho.” His brows lift. “Then should we be worried you’ll be missing games when the kids are sick?”

There it is.

As if a woman cannot exist fully without orbiting a family she may or may not want. As if I am nothing more than a ghost in a waiting room, just passing the time until I’m summoned to motherhood.

I don’t rise to it. I won’t give him the satisfaction. Instead, I glance past him—and almost sigh in relief.

My father is walking down the hallway.

William St. James does not rush. He never has.

He moves with a gravity that pulls the room toward him without effort, the very air seeming to straighten in his wake. He doesn’t need to raise his voice to be the loudest presence in the hallway; he simply is.

“Excuse me,” I say, already stepping away. “I should speak with Mr. St. James.”

Delaney opens his mouth to continue whatever bullshit he had queued up, but my father arrives just in time to cut him off.

“Mark,” Dad says calmly, authority carried without volume, “I trust you’ve been welcoming our new assistant coach.”

Delaney straightens instantly, his spine snapping into place. The transformation is almost comical.

“Coach St. James,” my father says, the title a formal barrier between us.

He doesn’t offer a smile or a hand on my shoulder; he doesn’t even use my name. He keeps exactly three feet of professional distance.

“Mr. St. James,” I reply.

My father’s gaze doesn’t linger on me for more than a second before shifting back to the hallway at large.

We don’t look like a family reuniting; we look like two strangers with nothing to say.

“I was just ensuring the coach felt… oriented,” Delaney stammers, his face flushing a mottled red.

“I’m sure,” my father says, his voice like dry parchment. “Though I doubt she needs a tour from someone who consistently forgets the way to the video room.”

He shifts his attention back to me, his eyes clinical. “I trust the associate coach hasn’t delayed your start, Coach St. James?”

“Not at all,” I say, tilting my head just a fraction of an inch.

“He was just sharing his concerns about my hypothetical family obligations. It’s quite a modern touch to have the associate coach prioritize my future nursery over my current coaching credentials, but I suppose he’s just very focused on the long-term logistics of my life. ”

The sarcasm is subtle—but not subtle enough.

My father ignores it for now. He always does in public.

“You’ll want to familiarize yourself with the arena,” he continues, checked out and already moving on to the next item on his mental checklist. “The full staff and the rest of the department are convening in the boardroom. We’ll be waiting for you in half an hour for the formal introductions.”

“Understood, sir.”

He’s already walking away.

I don’t waste another second on Delaney. I turn on my heel and head for the nearest bathroom, adrenaline buzzing under my skin now that the confrontation is over.

September is a strange month to join a coaching staff—late enough that the routines are set, early enough that the pressure hasn’t peaked.

But this was the timeline the organization chose, and I wasn’t about to ask for special treatment. If anything, starting now only proves I can keep up.

It’s surreal.

A year ago, this felt impossible—working in the same organization as my father. Not because I wasn’t qualified, but because I refused to be a nepotism headline.

I didn’t come back until the offer came without his interference. Until I could say, without hesitation, that I earned this.

And I did.

Eight years in Europe. Eight years of being second-guessed and evaluated harder than any man in the room. Eight years of locker rooms that went quiet when I walked in.

This is the price of loving the sport.

A woman loving the sport.

The bathroom is empty. I grip the edge of the sink and let out a shaky breath, finally meeting my own eyes in the mirror. I hold the gaze of the woman in the mirror until she looks steadier than I feel.

“Don’t show them when it hurts,” my mother’s voice echoes in my head.

She was a sports psychologist. Brilliant, underrated, and relentless. I grew up on stories of men who dismissed her until they needed her—until she proved, again and again, that she belonged.

I straighten my shoulders and step back into the hallway.

Walking toward the boardroom, I slow down long enough to take in the photos lining the walls.

It’s then that a voice stops me from behind.

“Fans aren’t allowed back here.”

I close my eyes for half a second.

It’s a slow, deliberate blink—the universal sign of a woman whose patience is being stripped to the bone. My jaw sets, the muscle at the corner of my mouth twitching as I prepare to face yet another man standing between me and where I need to be.

I turn, ready to deploy polite professionalism—until recognition hits like a blow to the sternum.

Callahan Eli Moore.

Time folds in on itself.

The pristine hallway blurs, the scent of floor wax evaporating into the sharp, acrid stench of burnt rubber. Suddenly, the concrete floor isn’t solid beneath my heels—it’s the rain-slicked metal of a bridge four years ago.

The sound hits me first: the high-pitched, screaming protest of steel grinding against steel. My head snaps forward, a violent jolt that sends a white-hot flash through my vision. The seat belt locks, a brutal line of pressure digging into my collarbone, pinning me to the seat.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t move.

A sharp, rhythmic rapping on the glass shatters the silence.

“Get out! We need to deal with this!”

I stumble out of the wreck, the rain hitting my skin like needles. He’s pacing the wet pavement, hands shoved into his hair, shouting at the storm.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he barks. “The biggest game of my life and this is what happens?”

I try to speak, but my voice is buried under the sound of the rain. I flinch as he throws his arms up, his shadow looming large and indifferent.

When the black car pulls up to whisk him away, he doesn’t even glance back.

He just lets the rain swallow me whole.

The smell of ozone and wet asphalt burns away, retreating until I’m back in the hallway, the air suddenly thin and freezing.

Callahan looks different.

The boyishness has been hollowed out, replaced by a rugged, hard-edged exhaustion—the kind of look that only comes from years of being the sole person expected to carry the weight of an entire team.

There is a dark grain of stubble lining his jaw now, sharp enough to lend him a dangerous air.

But the eyes—those blue, piercing eyes—are exactly the same.

They still look at me like I’m a problem he can’t solve.

He’s mid-stride when he really sees me. And then he stops. Not slows. Stops. Like he’s walked into an invisible wall.

His shoulders lock.

He stares at me, his gaze hard and heavy as it moves over my face and down to my boots, then back up again. He scans me with a grim sort of focus, his jaw tightening as he connects the woman in the blazer to the girl shivering in the rain.

Something sharp and electric snaps through the space between us.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he asks.

Yeah, he remembers me.

“Working,” I say calmly.

He exhales, a short, disbelieving breath.

“That’s funny.” A pause. “Because this area’s restricted.”

I say nothing.

Annoyance flashes across his face—too fast, too sharp—like he’s pissed off that I’m not just a memory anymore.

“I don’t have time for this,” he says. “You should leave before I call security.”

I take a step forward. Close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off him. Close enough that his breath stutters before he catches it.

“I’m on a schedule that doesn’t include stopping for your temper tantrum. Out of my way, Moore.”

He doesn’t step aside. He just stands there, rigid and unreadable, like he’s daring me to blink first.

Fine.

I shift my weight forward and walk past him. His cologne trails after me and I catch the twitch of his hand at his side, the instinct to reach out strangled before it can surface.

I don’t slow down and I don’t look back.

My watch buzzes.

Three minutes.

The hallway opens into the staff wing, the boardroom door coming into view. Laughter spills out—low, easy, familiar—cutting off the moment they see me.

I don’t adjust my posture, I don’t smooth my clothes, and I don’t hesitate.

I step into the room like I belong here.

Because I do.