Page 5

Chapter five

Nina

"O kay, I need details. I want the emotional damage report and the facial hair situation. Please don’t hold back."

Patty doesn’t even wait for me to sit before launching in. She slides a craft cocktail across the table toward me with all the drama of someone delivering a sacred elixir.

"Hi, it’s good to see you too," I say, grinning as I shrug out of my coat.

"You moved back to Detroit and took a job babysitting full-grown hockey players, Nina. You don’t get small talk."

I take a sip of the drink. Bourbon, blood orange, something smoky. It’s perfect. "It’s not babysitting."

"It is when they chirp like frat boys and punch walls instead of talking about their feelings."

"Okay, a little babysitting," I admit.

Patty gives me a look. "So, how’s working with a pack of alpha egotistical NHL dudes?"

I sit back in the booth and sigh. "Some of them are repressed. The rest are just loud about it."

Patty barks a laugh. "God, I missed you, bestie."

The bar is warm, the lighting low and gold. A soft jazz trio plays near the back wall. I’m in jeans, a gray sweater, and boots, my hair down for the first time in days. It feels good to be out of the blazer-and-steel exterior I wear around the team. Here, I’m just Nina. Just a woman grabbing drinks with a friend who knows the unpolished version of me.

We catch up on logistics. She’s still at the same nonprofit, still living in her loft apartment with too many plants and one opinionated cat. I tell her about the small condo I just rented ten minutes from the rink, and that I’ve been busy but not overwhelmed. Not yet, anyway.

Patty cuts to the chase. “So what’s the real reason you took this job, Nina? You could’ve stayed with the Army contracts, gone private, lectured, hell, opened your own damn clinic.”

I swirl the ice in my glass, then glance at her. “Because this team is something I believe in. And maybe... because I’ve seen what happens when good people fall apart and don’t have anyone in their corner.”

She softens. “This about your brother?”

I nod. “He held everything in until it cracked. Deployed three times, saw more than anyone should, but he never talked about it—not to me, not to anyone. By the time he admitted he wasn’t okay, he was already spiraling. So now, I step in earlier, hopefully before anyone gets to that point.”

Patty reaches across the table and squeezes my hand briefly. “You always carried more than your share.”

“Yeah, well, therapy's cheaper than armor.”

She smirks. “You still wear armor. It’s just invisible and accessorized with killer boots.”

“Guilty.”

I take a breath. “Honestly, part of me thought I could handle this like any other contract. Professional, clear lines. But it’s harder when you see what they’re holding in. And when one of them…”

“Gets under your skin?” Patty offers.

I nod slowly.

“Don’t roll your eyes,” she says, pointing at me. “You’re allowed to be a human woman with an advanced degree and a heartbeat.”

“It’s not about romance,” I say. “It’s about connection. Trust. Helping them understand they’re not machines built to win or break.”

“And what about you?”

I blink. “What about me?”

“Who reminds you that you’re not a machine? That you’re allowed to want more than stability and a paycheck?”

Her words settle in.

I smile, but it feels small. “Still working on that part.”

I thought after my brother passed, I'd buried that part of myself, the part that hoped for something beyond the job, beyond the purpose. I told myself being useful was enough, being the one people relied on. And with all the travel, the relocations, the nights prepping for sessions instead of dates... it was easy to believe that.

My dating life is nonexistent, not because I’m not interested, but because until now, it always felt like something I had to pause, postpone, or rationalize away. But lately... I don’t know. Maybe the quiet at night feels too quiet. Maybe I want someone who sees me the way I try to see everyone else. Someone who doesn’t need fixing, just understanding.

The kind of love I want isn’t flashy or loud, it’s steady. It’s the kind that doesn’t try to fix me, but just sits beside me without flinching when things get heavy. I want laughter in the in-between moments, and a hand on my back when I forget that I don’t have to do everything alone.

I shift back to her. “Okay, enough about me. What about you? Still swearing off dating apps and scaring off every emotionally stunted finance bro within a five-mile radius?”

Patty snorts. “Proudly. Although I did go on one date last week. He told me he was ‘emotionally evolved’ and then spent forty-five minutes explaining why his ex was actually the problem.”

I wince. “Oof. Classic.”

“Yup. Back to romantic exile for me. Honestly, I think I’m better solo. Fewer dishes. More duvet real estate.”

“Hey, I respect it. But for what it’s worth, you deserve someone who is the total package… successful, honest, hot and no bull.”

Patty smiles at me over the rim of her glass. “Right back at you, Doc.”

Then she narrows her eyes. "So. Tell me how you handle it. The players."

I hesitate, then glance around. "Without breaking any privacy rules... it’s like walking into a storm where everyone’s pretending the lightning is no big deal."

Patty raises an eyebrow. "That bad?"

"No. That fragile."

I explain some of the work I’m planning: group cohesion, one-on-one sessions, mindfulness prep before games. I mention how the team is talented, but something’s fractured. That Coach Stephens brought me in mid-season to help turn things around. I don’t name anyone, but I talk about personalities. The charming ones. The stubborn ones.

And then I mention him.

"There’s one," I say, casually swirling the straw in my drink. "Goalie. Intense."

Patty’s lips part like she’s about to bite into dessert. "Intense?"

I nod. "Doesn’t say much, but when he does, it cuts. Carries the weight of the net like it owes him something."

She leans in, delighted. "And is he hot?"

I pause too long.

Patty gasps. "Oh my God, he’s hot."

"I didn’t say that."

"You didn’t have to. You just gave me your I’m-pretending-this-isn’t-a-problem face."

I laugh, shaking my head. "It doesn’t matter. He’s off-limits. They are all off-limits. And by the way, they are all pretty much hot."

"Because of the job or because of the brooding?"

"Both. And it would be a professional disaster."

"Right," she says, nodding. "But a hot professional disaster."

I smile, but my thoughts drift. Back to that session. Back to the moment where his guard didn’t drop, but maybe... shifted, just a little.

He’s not easy. But he’s not unreachable either. And that might be the real problem.

Patty watches me closely. "He got under your skin. You care. Doesn’t make you weak, Nina. It makes you... well, still human. That’s allowed."

I sigh and look down at my half-empty glass. “He’s smart. Sharp. He pretends like he’s aloof, above all of it, but it’s a mask. And he wears it so tightly I think he’s forgotten what it feels like to breathe without it.”

She raises a brow. "Okay, Dr. Freud. Sounds like someone’s a little fascinated."

"I am. But not for the reason you think. He’s the kind of guy who pushes people away before they can even consider getting close. He uses silence as a shield. But behind it there’s this edge, this tension…like he’s one wrong thought away from unraveling."

I swirl my glass again. “It’s not about saving him. It’s about not looking away when someone’s drowning just because they’re too proud to call it that.”

Patty lets the words hang, then softer: “Be careful, Nina. You can’t be their anchor and their lifeboat. Especially not for someone who doesn’t know which one they want you to be.”

I nod. “I know. There are lines. Boundaries.”

“And yet...” she says, grinning.

“And yet,” I echo.

***

Later that night, I walk into my condo with tired legs and a head full of the day’s happenings. I kick off my boots, pull my hair up into a knot, and drop onto the couch with my notebook open to the page I’ve kept clean for him.

Alex Chadwick.

I stare at the name for a second.

Then I write one word underneath it, all caps, and underlined:

STUDY!

Because this one’s different. Not just guarded—strategic. He doesn’t hide everything out of fear. He hides it because he thinks it’s the only way to survive. And that tells me there’s more to see. More to learn. And maybe... more to lose, too.