6. Iveline Talvi St. James
Iveline Talvi St. James
I hear the notification before I see the message, and I’m already annoyed.
It’s still dark out, the city feels suspended; half asleep and half holding its breath before the morning rush begins.
I’m late.
I like my mornings quiet and predictable. I prefer two hours at the rink before anyone else arrives, coffee in hand, getting systems down on paper before they ever exist on the ice.
But I slept through my alarm, and that simply doesn’t happen to me—so now I’m pissed.
I stop at a red light and pick up my phone from the passenger seat, the screen glowing a harsh white against the interior of my car.
Unknown: You’re not here.
I blink at the screen, my brain still foggy from the sudden wake-up.
Me: Who is this?
A pause follows. It’s long enough to feel intentional, like the person on the other end is measuring my reaction.
Unknown: …Right.
Unknown: Sorry. It’s Noah. Analytics.
Me: Why are you texting me before 7?
Noah: Because you’re not here.
Me: I’m not scheduled until 8.
Noah: Yes, but yesterday you arrived at 6:21. Statistically, I expected a similar pattern.
I close my eyes briefly and exhale through my nose. It is too early for statistics.
Me: Is there a reason you’re texting me, or are you just monitoring my existence?
Noah: Both.
Me: Noah.
Noah: I have the updated transition data you asked for. And the heat maps. And the shot pressure overlays. And the clip of Leo doing the thing wrong.
I snort despite myself, the image of Leo Park fumbling his footwork flashing through my mind.
Me: I haven’t even had coffee yet.
Noah: I brought you one.
That makes me pause.
Why? Why would the guy who lives in a world of spreadsheets and cold data points go out of his way for a coffee?
The light turns green before I can respond.
I drop the phone back onto the seat and drive, refusing to text and navigate Boston’s aggressive traffic at the same time.
Noah can wait. Whatever revelation he’s sitting on will still be there in five minutes.
When I pull into the parking lot, I check my phone.
Noah: You didn’t drink anything yesterday until 3:17 PM and you didn’t eat until after 5. Your energy levels were visibly low by the end of practice.
Me: You can’t see energy levels.
Noah: I can. You blink slower when you’re tired.
I freeze for a second with my hand on the door handle, caught completely off guard.
Who notices something like that? And why does it feel so strangely intimate to be watched that closely?
I unlock my door, sling my bag over my shoulder, and grab my laptop and water bottle; the same one that will likely stay full until tonight when I inevitably pour it out and try again tomorrow.
Me: Where are you?
Noah: Next to reception. With the coffee. And the data. And a banana. Rick said you like bananas.
Me: Rick is a liar.
Noah: Should I throw the banana away?
Me: No. I’m coming.
I lock the car and start toward the entrance when my phone buzzes again.
“Vittu helvetti,” (Fucking hell) I mutter.
The curse feels sharp on my tongue, a jagged bit of Finnish frustration that matches the rhythmic pounding of my heart against my ribs.
I brace myself instinctively, like my mother might materialize out of the Boston fog to scold me for the language—then I remember she isn’t here.
I’m a grown woman; I can swear before sunrise if I want to.
Noah: Also, you did well yesterday. I forgot to say that part.
I slow down for a second, the irritation from being “late” softening.
Me: Thank you, Noah. I’ll be there in five.
Noah: Four. You move fast.
I push through the heavy glass doors of the arena, the smell of recycled air and old ice immediately hitting me.
Noah Klein is an anomaly.
In the hyper-masculine, “rub dirt on it” world of professional hockey, Noah is a man governed entirely by data points and sleep cycles. He’s the only person in this building who doesn’t look at me and see a “St. James.” He looks at me and sees a variable in an equation he’s trying to solve.
It’s strangely refreshing.
I see him standing by the reception desk, looking exactly like a guy who spends sixteen hours a day in a windowless room. He has a cardboard carrier with two coffees and a single, slightly bruised banana resting on top of his laptop case.
“You’re late,” he says as I approach. He doesn’t say it with judgment, just as a statement of fact, like he’s noting the outdoor temperature.
“I know, Noah,” I reply, reaching for the coffee.
It’s hot, exactly how I like it, and black. No sugar. No cream. Just the way he probably figured out by watching the lack of stir sticks in my trash can yesterday.
“Here,” he says, handing me the banana. “Eat it. Potassium prevents the muscle tremors you had during the second period of the scrimmage.”
I stare at the fruit. “I didn’t have tremors.”
“Your left hand was shaking while you were holding the clipboard at 2:44 PM. Eat the banana, Iveline.”
I take it, feeling that heat creep up my neck again. I’ve spent my whole life perfecting a mask of being perfectly “fine,” and a guy with a spreadsheet just cracked it in a single morning.
We walk toward the elevators in silence, the only sound the squeak of our shoes on the polished floor.
“The data on Callahan is interesting,” Noah says as the doors slide shut. “He’s resisting the new entry pattern. His heart rate spikes whenever you blow the whistle during his reps.”
“He doesn’t like being told he’s a distraction,” I mutter, taking a sip of the coffee.
“Statistically, he is one,” Noah counters. “But his output is still in the top five percent of the league. So… he’s an efficient distraction.”
The elevator dings, and we step out into the hallway.
The arena feels like a cathedral of secrets this early, and I’m about to walk back into the confession booth. As Noah heads toward his monitors and his sanctuary of screens, I keep walking toward the coaches’ offices.
The moment I step further into the building, I feel the shift. The pause. Eyes linger a fraction too long. Conversations dip, then resume at a much quieter volume.
Rick falls into step beside me, a coffee of his own already in hand. “They’re talking,” he says mildly, staring straight ahead.
I snort. “I assumed as much.”
“About your dad.”
Of course.
It’s always about him.
“I don’t care,” I say automatically, my voice a practiced shield.
Rick stops walking. So do I.
For a second, he isn’t the head coach of a multi-million dollar franchise. He’s the man I drank terrible wine with, who watched me diagram systems on greasy napkins and never once asked whose daughter I was.
The memory hits me like a puck to the ribs—Prague, three years ago.
We were in a dimly lit cellar bar with vaulted ceilings and the thick smell of toasted hops. I had been three glasses of Pinot Noir deep, furiously sketching a neutral zone trap on a damp cocktail napkin while Rick watched with the intensity of a man watching a bomb being defused.
“You’re wasted in that league, Iveline,” he’d told me then, pointing at the napkin.
“I’m fine where I am,” I’d countered. “Nobody here knows my father. I’m just ‘the American coach with the temper’.”
“You’re the coach with the best transition defense in Europe,” he’d corrected. “Come to Boston. Work for me. Not for him. For the love of the game.”
Standing here now, in the sterile, bright hallway of the arena, that promise feels like it was made in a different lifetime.
Rick isn’t just my boss; he’s the architect of my return.
He knew the sharks would circle the moment I stepped off the plane. He just didn’t tell me exactly how sharp their teeth would be.
“You should care,” he says.
My jaw shifts. “Why? Their opinions don’t change the power play percentages.”
“Because it won’t stay about him,” he says, his voice dropping an octave. “It’ll become about whether you deserve to be here.”
I nod once. I’ve had this conversation in four countries, three languages, and more locker rooms than I can count.
“Let them talk,” I say, my voice steady again.
Rick studies me, then smiles—small and approving. “Good. Staff meeting in fifteen. Don’t be late.”
My lips twitch. “I never am.”
***
The coaches’ room feels different today.
It’s quieter, with less of the frantic edge that usually precedes the first week of camp.
Jenna Walsh is already there, her blonde hair pulled into a bun so tight it looks painful, scrolling through her tablet with efficient swipes.
Sarah, the head trainer, flips through injury reports, her glasses perched low on her nose.
No one looks surprised when I walk in.
In fact, it feels almost… welcoming.
It throws me just enough to make me hesitate before taking my seat.
Jenna glances up first. “You survived. Congrats.”
“So far,” I reply, sitting down and opening my laptop.
She exhales through her nose, a dry sound. “Delaney’s in a mood, though. Just a heads up.”
“When isn’t he?” I ask.
That earns me a smirk from Sarah. “True. But today it’s personal. He doesn’t like being told his defensive schemes are ‘vintage’.”
I suppress a laugh as the door opens and Delaney walks in.
He takes the furthest seat from me without a word.
His jaw is set, his tie is pulled too tight, and his hair is aggressively gelled like it’s the only thing holding his thoughts together.
No one fills the silence for him.
It’s an interesting dynamic; the room is already beginning to cord off.
The meeting moves fast—practice flow, load management, travel logistics. I contribute when needed and stay quiet when it’s not my lane.
When I suggest a rotation change for the second unit, Delaney finally snaps.
“We’ve run that rotation for two seasons,” he says, his voice tight. “It works. Why fix what isn’t broken?”
“Because it’s predictable,” I counter. “The league has caught up. If you stay static, you’re dead.”
Rick looks at Delaney, then back at me. “We’re testing it. Today.”
Delaney’s face turns a shade of purple that almost matches the team’s color. His mouth opens, a rebuttal clearly poised on the tip of his tongue—but then he catches my father’s eye.
William isn’t even looking at Delaney. He’s looking at his own hands, his wedding ring catching the light as he twists it, once, twice.
It’s a silent display of absolute power.
He doesn’t have to defend me because his silence says that his word is law.
I hate it.
I want Rick to defend the logic of the change because the math supports it. I want the room to agree because the system works, not because they’re afraid of the man who signs their paychecks.
I catch Jenna watching me.
She’s leaning back, her pen tapping a rhythmic beat against her chin. She sees the tension in my shoulders and the way I’m gripping my pen. She knows exactly what kind of win this was, and she doesn’t look impressed.
My father doesn’t speak much during the rest of the meeting. He doesn’t need to. His presence does enough damage on its own.
When the meeting wraps, Jenna lingers as I gather my things.
“Drinks tonight?” she asks, her voice casual but her eyes sharp.
I hesitate.
I’ve always been a loner in these organizations. It’s safer.
Then I look at her properly and she meets my gaze without flinching.
“Sure,” I say.
She smiles. “Good. You’ll need allies in this building, Iveline. Real ones.”
She leaves without waiting for a response.
Even as she walks away, I catch the sharp twitch at the corner of her mouth, the subtle impatience behind her humor.
Jenna Walsh doesn’t waste energy on things that don’t yield results. That will make her useful—or very dangerous.
Allies.
The word sits heavy in my stomach.
***
Practice is sharper today.
Not easier—just cleaner, more deliberate. The players are beginning to understand that I’m here to stay, and it shows. They listen with intention. They think before they act.
Even Callahan skates differently today. His jaw is still tight and his shoulders are stiff, but his movements are precise.
He’s trying to prove he isn’t a distraction, which, ironically, makes him all I can focus on.
Halfway through the scrimmage, I hear it. It’s low, off to the side, coming from the bench.
“Of course she’s confident. Wouldn’t you be, with your dad upstairs making sure no one touches you?”
The voice belongs to Miller, a veteran winger who’s been coasting on a high shooting percentage for three seasons. He says it just loud enough for the guys on the bench to hear; a pebble tossed into a still pond to see how far the ripples go.
I don’t stop the practice. I don’t even blink.
But inside, that old, familiar fire flares up in my chest. It’s an exhaustion that lives in my marrow—the constant need to be twice as good just to be considered half as worthy.
I look past Miller and lock eyes with Callahan.
He’s standing by the circles, leaning on his stick.
I see the conflict in his face—the part of him that wants to agree because it’s easy to dismiss a woman as a “daughter,” and the part of him that just spent the last hour running the most efficient transition drills of his career.
He doesn’t defend me. He isn’t my knight in shining armor. But he doesn’t laugh, either. He just watches me, his gaze heavy and unreadable, as I direct the next line into place.
By the end of the session, the team is exhausted.
The work speaks louder than lineage ever could.
As they clear the ice, Noah skates over—clumsily, since he’s better with a computer mouse than a stick.
“The numbers are improving faster than projected,” he says quietly, looking at his tablet. “Even accounting for the variance in Miller’s laziness.”
“Good. Keep tracking it.”
“They’ll notice soon,” he adds. “The logic is undeniable.”
I meet his eyes. “They already are noticing, Noah. That’s why they’re getting louder.”
Noah’s brows pull together for a moment, before he turns and skates away with a slow, deliberate push.
I gather my things and leave without ceremony.
The hallway swallows me, my footsteps echoing against concrete. Cold air trails after me, sharp and clean, carrying the scrape of skates and the muffled locker room chatter behind closed doors.
I walk past the photos on the wall.
I don’t stop this time. I don’t look at the championships or the captains or my father when he was young.
Because if I do, I’ll start thinking about the difference between earning something and being assumed to have earned it, and I don’t have time for that today.
Tonight, there will be drinks with Jenna.
Tomorrow, there will be practice again.
And somewhere between those two things, they will decide what story they want to tell about me.
I intend to make it very hard for them to choose the wrong one.