5. Callahan Eli Moore
Callahan Eli Moore
Cash: you talked to her
Me: how do you know that
Cash: I have eyes
Cash: and instincts
Cash: and a soul bond with drama
Me: she was just… clarifying something
Cash: she clarified your entire existence
Me: Finn
Cash: she told you you’re a distraction
Cash: A DISTRACTION
Me: I’m blocking you
Cash: you can’t block destiny
The problem with group chats, and with Cash specifically, is that they never truly die. They do not fade or lose momentum; instead, they metastasize.
One sarcastic message turns into a full-blown narrative with a soundtrack and a live studio audience before you can even lock your screen.
I glance up from my screen to find Cash sitting across the locker room, one skate on, the other dangling.
He doesn’t say a word.
He knows better than to break the cardinal rule of the room—what happens in the chat stays in the chat, especially when the guys are already on edge. But his face is doing enough talking for both of us.
He catches my eye and gives me a slow, exaggerated wiggle of his eyebrows, a silent “I see you” that makes me want to hurl my water bottle at his head.
He knows I followed her out and he’s currently enjoying my silent internal combustion far too much.
Cash thinks he is being funny, and usually, he is. That is his role on this team—the court jester who keeps the tension from snapping us all in half during a losing streak.
But today, the joke is on me, and I am not laughing.
I look around the room at the aftermath of our first session under the new regime. Most of the guys are in that post-practice haze, staring blankly into their lockers or scrolling through their phones with heavy limbs.
The locker room is my sanctuary, a place where the rules are simple: play hard, stay loyal, and do not let the outside world in.
Yet I can still see her standing on the ice, silhouetted against the bright white light of the rink. She didn’t look like a daughter or a favor. She looked like a general.
The fact that my body responded to her authority before my brain could even formulate a protest is what is really eating at me.
I drop my phone onto the bench harder than necessary and drag a towel over my head, hoping it might muffle the noise still ricocheting inside my skull.
Sweat runs down my spine, cooling too fast now that I have stopped moving. My thighs burn and my lungs ache, but my pride is in much worse shape.
That is the part I cannot shake: why I went after her.
I hadn’t planned it. I hadn’t even been thinking about her.
I had come out of the training room earlier today, hands still damp and head empty, running on pure muscle memory, and there she was—alone in the hallway, studying the framed photos as if she were reading history rather than just admiring it.
Then she went outside, and it didn’t register that I was walking toward her until I heard my own voice cut through the quiet.
She turned as if she had expected me.
She looked as though she already knew I was going to be a problem.
My heart was doing a frantic, uneven beat. I am the captain of this team, the face of the franchise, and I shouldn’t have been stuttering in front of an assistant coach.
How was I supposed to know the woman I lost it on during the worst night of my career would resurface as our coach?
What were the odds?
Apparently, not zero.
Four years ago, just before the biggest game of my life, she crashed into my car. It was the first game of the playoffs, the very first night I stepped onto the ice as captain.
It wasn’t even a dramatic crash. There were no explosions or blood, just enough metal on metal to snap my focus clean in half.
I was already wound too tight and already late, carrying the weight of a franchise that had not seen the Cup in too long. I had spent the whole drive visualizing my first shift and imagining the roar of the crowd.
Then came the jolt.
I remember looking at her car, a sensible silver sedan that looked tiny compared to my vehicle. I remember the fury that rose up in my throat, hot and choking.
I didn’t see a person in that car; I saw an excuse for why I might fail.
Looking back, that is the part that makes my stomach turn. I didn’t check to see if she was hurt. I yelled and said things I shouldn’t have. I don’t remember the exact words, only the edge in my voice and the way my hands shook.
And then I ran. I let my driver handle it, took another car, and told myself it didn’t matter.
We lost that night.
Somehow, in my head, that moment fused with everything that went wrong after. The missed assignment, the bad bounce, and the empty feeling in my chest when the season ended too early—I blamed her because it was easier than blaming myself.
The crash still lives in me, not just as anger, but as proof I could falter. That is what I keep hearing every time I step on the ice: the fear that I will not be enough.
“Earth to Callahan.”
Cash drops onto the bench beside me, all elbows and noise, acting as if personal space is merely a suggestion. I don’t look at him, but I can feel the grin.
“You okay?”
“I swear to God,” I mutter, closing my eyes, “if you say one more word about destiny, I am done.”
“She’s the GM’s kid,” he cuts in, his voice quieter now and serious enough to make me open my eyes. “That is wild, Callie.”
Across the room, Marcus Bennett spins a puck on his stick, acting casual though he is clearly listening.
“Explains a lot,” Marcus adds.
I sit up straighter. “What exactly does it explain?”
Marcus shrugs. “The confidence. The authority. The way Rick backed her without blinking an eye.”
“Or,” Carter says, bitterness sharpening his voice, “she is only here because of her last name.”
There it is.
The thing everyone has been dancing around.
I have thought it too; I will not pretend I haven’t. Nepotism is baked into this sport with the sons of GMs and nephews of owners, legacy hires dressed up as opportunity.
On paper, it fits perfectly.
Except she walked into her first practice and saw problems no one has fixed in years. She didn’t soften herself to make the room comfortable. She didn’t hide behind her name or blink when she was challenged.
I wanted to believe she didn’t earn it because that would protect my ego, but every fiber of my body knows that doesn’t explain the way she commands attention.
I lean back against the locker, my jaw tight. “You really think Rick would burn this room and risk the season for her? He’s not tanking the season just to do someone a favor.”
Cash’s smirk falters for a fraction of a second. He knows me too well. He sees the tension and the reflex to argue even when I cannot admit why.
Kovács scoffs, clearly wanting blood because she embarrassed him. “It’s a joke. You see the way she looked at us? Like we were a budget report she was about to cut.”
“I did a deep dive on the European forums while I was on the stationary bike,” Nico interjects, holding up his phone. “There’s zero personal info. No social media, no ‘hometown’ fluff pieces. But the fan boards in the Elite leagues? They all call her the same thing: The Ice Queen.”
The name hangs in the humid air of the locker room, sharp and fitting.
“They say she’s a ghost. She shows up, fixes a failing power play with surgical precision, and leaves before the victory parade. No one knows where she actually lives or how she got started, just that she’s the coldest person to ever hold a whistle.”
Cash whistles low. “The Ice Queen. It’s perfect. It explains why the temperature in the room drops ten degrees the second she walks in. I bet she drinks liquid nitrogen for breakfast.”
“She knows her shit,” the rookie, Leo, adds quietly. “Like… actually knows it.”
“That doesn’t mean she didn’t get a massive head start,” someone else mutters.
I am on my feet before I realize I have moved. The bench screeches against the floor, loud and ugly.
“You want to talk systems? Then talk systems. You want to talk politics? Do it without me.”
Cash’s eyebrows shoot up. “Damn.”
I grab my bag and head for the showers, catching my reflection in the glass.
I look pissed.
The truth is, I do not know what I am.
She told me I was a distraction. Not unprofessional or insubordinate, but a distraction.
The word sticks under my skin as the hot water pounds against me. I lean my forehead against the cool tile, letting the water slice over my shoulders.
My muscles are screaming from the tension of trying to act like I was not affected by her.
She is a challenge I do not know how to beat.
She knew exactly which button to press when she called me a distraction. She is telling me that my ego is getting in the way of the game, and the worst part is that she is right.
I scrub soap through my hair, trying to wash the thought out. It doesn’t matter if she is good or if she looks—no.
It does not matter.
She is the assistant coach and the GM’s daughter. I have no business noticing how her voice steadies a room.
My gut clenches, a warning I refuse to name.
I rinse off and tell myself the same lie I have been repeating since she walked in.
She won’t last.
And if she does?
That is a problem I am not ready to face yet.