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18

Lennon

L uke is avoiding me. Or should I say, Coach Holloway is avoiding me. It’s been over a week since I slept at his place, and he’s kept our interactions to a minimum, even canceling two of our sessions. It’s been nice to have a little extra time in my day, but it hasn’t been sitting right with me.

I woke up that morning in his guest room, the sheets smelling like him, and all I wanted to do was roll back over, burrow in, and forget everything. But instead, logic finally reared its stupid head, and I quickly got dressed, called a car, and slipped out before he even woke up. About an hour after I got back to my apartment, a text came through from an unknown number.

Unknown Number: I’m assuming you made it back home?

Me: Who is this?

I knew better than to assume that this was him. If it was someone else and I inadvertently revealed that I spent the night at my coach’s apartment, that wouldn’t have ended well for either of us.

Unknown Number: 64

His jersey number.

Me: Yes I made it home. Thanks again for letting me stay. I didn’t want to bother you for a ride home

Unknown Number: *thumbs up*

That was it. Just a simple thumbs up. I changed his contact name in my phone to 64 and have been trying to forget that night even happened.

I mean, nothing did happen, but yet at the same time, there’s been a shift. I feel it in the way he watches me, like I’m something he simultaneously can’t stand to look at but can’t look away.

“Where’s Coach Holloway?” Austen asks, adjusting her gloves.

“Why would I know?” As soon as I say it, I curse myself at how defensive that just sounded.

She raises her brows. “Because don’t you always workout with him before practice?”

Yes, yes I do, and it’s a perfectly normal question for her to ask. “He cancelled our session again today.”

“Been flaking on you, huh?” Aubrey adds, standing on the ice on the other side of Austen. “That sure didn’t last long. But hey, at least you got a little extra time to look at him. He’s had me wishing I was a goalie this season.”

I do my best to sound convincing as I laugh along with Austen. Practice started twenty minutes ago, but Coach Holloway is nowhere to be found.

Is he sick? Maybe he’s still avoiding me. Maybe he quit.

Each guess sinks like a stone in my gut, and the burrito I ate for lunch suddenly doesn’t feel like it’s sitting right. Coach Maver blows her whistle, drawing everyone’s attention down to the opposite end of the ice where we’re all currently gathered.

“Everyone line up!” she yells, her voice booming around the rink. “We have a special treat today.”

Blades scrape against the ice as everyone skates toward Coach Maver, who hovers by the blue line. She’s dressed in a black sweatsuit today, and her signature whistle hangs down her chest.

“Kilcrease and Miller, you won’t be participating in this drill but that doesn’t mean you can slack off. I want you to pay attention, and learn from one of the best. The rest of you, hit him with your best shot.” With that she crosses her arms and perches on the boards.

Grace comes up beside me. “What does she mean we’re not participating?”

The answer to her question comes out from the tunnel to the locker room, stepping onto the ice.

Murmurs ricochet down the line of my teammates, everyone’s focus commanded by the looming figure taking his spot in the crease.

“Holy shit,” Aubrey whispers in awe, and I couldn’t agree more with her.

Seeing him on a video does him no justice. Off the ice, he’s an imposing figure with his height and build. On the ice, stacked with his pads and face covered by a mask, Luke Holloway is a warrior.

His pads are plain black and white, nothing like he used to wear. But it’s not those that instantly draw my focus. It’s his mask. But even from here, I can tell that it’s gray and unadorned by any artwork. Likely an old practice helmet Coach Maver had lying around. Not his beautiful, equally treasured and despised one.

Coach’s whistle blows, disrupting everyone’s eye-fucking of Coach Holloway. “Get started!”

They scramble to grab a puck from the piles sitting by the boards and forming a line to start shooting at him. Grace and I fade to the sides and do exactly as Coach instructed. My eyes don’t leave him for a single moment once shots start firing.

One after another, sticks slap against the ice and pucks, sending them sailing at different targets within the net. But one by one, they skitter back toward the line of players, not a single one making it through him.

He said he couldn’t track the puck after the hit, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem for him now. It’s as effortless as breathing to him. He moves around the crease with a dangerous, ethereal grace that I can’t tear my eyes away from. Each shot from my teammates is blocked with ease, as if it’s merely a warm-up to him.

Glancing around at everyone waiting to take their shots, I see the same awe I’m feeling reflected on their faces each time he denies another goal. There’s a rising sense of respect being founded as a collective group. Before, most of the team viewed him as lazy eye candy and not someone they really took seriously. In their defense, he never really did himself many favors.

But it’s as if everyone is realizing that our very own coach is a former professional hockey player. A Conn Smythe trophy winner. A Stanley Cup winning goalie.

My own admiration balloons in my chest as Grace and I watch silently, completely hypnotized by watching someone play our position so…beautifully.

“He’s amazing,” Grace finally says. I’m too speechless to do anything but nod.

The drill continues, and Charlotte is the only one to score on him. Everyone cheers as her shot fires into the net, and even Coach gives her a tip of his head as she skates back in line.

Coach Maver blows her whistle as the team starts to grow frustrated with their shortcomings. “If you can score on the best, there’s no one that will be able to stop us. Everyone say thank you to Coach Holloway for donning his pads again to help you ladies.”

There’s a collective thank you from the team before she starts doling out instructions for the next drill.

Luke partially takes his mask off, letting it rest on top of his head, giving a clear view of his face. Not a single drop of sweat mars his skin as he props his elbow on his stick.

My teammates skate around, moving on as Coach Maver instructs them, but I’m frozen. I don’t know if I could move even if I tried to.

Because his eyes finally find mine from across the ice, and it paralyzes me.

All it takes is one look. One single look that shifts something instrumental in my brain and shakes my focus to the very core. One look and it makes me feel things I haven’t before, or things I’ve been feeling since last week but have been denying. It dredges them up and shoves them in my face, demanding to be felt. But I can’t. Not for Luke. Coach Holloway.

Not my coach . Yet my pulse speeds up and palms grow clammy beneath my gloves as everything in the rink seems to be sucked away until it’s just me and him.

But suddenly, he breaks eye contact and skates calmly toward the exit of the rink as if nothing just happened.

As if my entire world didn’t just tilt a few inches and send everything off kilter. He doesn’t even spare me another glance as he takes off toward the locker room, and I’m left wondering if once again, if I’ve gone mad.