Page 27 of Sexting the Coach (Pucking Daddies #6)

Weston

Elsie has been missing for five days now.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, I’ve been running around all day, dealing with fires. O’Connell and Meyers got into a fight after the game last night.

We didn’t beat the Rangers. Our dynamic was fucked the entire night, communication practically non-existent, tempers far too short. And not in a good way. We took stupid penalties, gave the Rangers a power play late in the game that totally fucked us.

And after, O’Connell and Meyers decided to put the cherry on the fucking sundae by throwing fists with their own teammates. The entire thing was caught on camera outside the hotel, and put up on TikTok in five seconds flat.

“They’re hockey players,” Bernie says now, walking alongside me, clearly trying to soften the situation. “Bad night. I don’t understand why everyone is reacting like this.”

“Probably because it’s fucking embarrassing,” I mutter, turning and walking into the elevator. PR has called me into the office, and Bernie is tagging along. At first, I thought it was about Elsie and was gearing up to tell them to fuck off.

But it’s not about Elsie.

We walk into the room and find the PR team—whiny guy and all—in something of a panic. They look like they haven’t slept, ponytails loose, glasses sliding down to the ends of noses.

“What’s going on?”

They all turn to look at me when I walk in, but my eyes skip to the presentation board behind them.

Of fucking course.

It’s James Morton up on the screen, his hairy arm thrown around the shoulders of a teen girl. Maybe she’s technically legal, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s a college freshman. It looks like she could be his granddaughter.

Below the picture is an article talking about him, clearly mentioning his last job—coach of the San Francisco Squids.

My eyes scan over the words, taking in the summary of the scandal from last year, what Morton has been up to since then.

A post from his actual granddaughter, cursing out her grandfather for hooking up with her college roommate.

Is this what people see when they look at me and Elsie? I know Tamra said fans thought the whole thing was cute, but where is the line? Do they think of me as a predator?

“Disgusting,” Bernie swears, startling me as he stops and leans against one of the chairs at the end of the table. “But what does this have to do with us?”

“Like it or not,” Tamra says, scrubbing her hands over her face.

“Morton is still associated with this team.” Her eyes shift to me.

“Can you talk to Elsie? Get her to answer us? We’re not sure how this whole thing is going to affect our angle with the two of you, but we need to get out in front of it before people run away with it. ”

“Right,” I grind out, because what I really want to do is pick up one of these fucking chairs and throw it through a window. It’s not like I’m going to tell Tamra that Elsie hasn’t been answering me, either. “Sure thing.”

“Okay. Great. Sit down gentlemen,” Tamra says, gesturing to the table. “We need to run through some pointers for handling the press, what to say if they bring up this story.”

Bernie and I take a seat, and a few moments later, Fincher and the other coaches show up. I ignore Fincher—after I snapped at him the other night, he’s been staying out of my way, but I’m worried that just looking at him right now is going to piss me the fuck off.

Tamra runs through a presentation on how to handle talking about this. More than no comment less than even acknowledging his attachment to the team. Thankfully, she doesn’t mention Elsie again for the rest of the meeting.

When the meeting is over, and I stand abruptly, pushing out of the room, Bernie follows me, catching me outside the room and giving me a considerate look.

“Maybe you should take the rest of the day off,” he suggests, his gaze flicking down to the clenched fists at my sides. “Try and cool off a bit, boss.”

“Yeah,” I say, pulling away from him. “Maybe.”

I take Bernie’s advice, and all it does it bite me in the ass.

Rather than heading straight home, I skip my exit and head toward the Gardens.

I used to come here a lot when I was younger, when I’d first moved to San Francisco and felt out of place.

Back then, I was reading every self-help book I could get my hands on, and they all touted the benefits of being among nature.

Not that it helped much.

I still got injured, still got divorced. The only good thing to come out of it all is the head coach position I currently hold, and now I’m not even happy with that. The thing I’ve wanted since I was a kid, and all it took was a single blond to derail my enjoyment.

Everything feels lifeless with the lack of Elsie in my day-to-day. Like she left and took the sunshine with her.

I walk through the entrance and hold my hand up to the person offering me a map.

I’ve been here enough that I don’t need it.

The gardens are more than fifty acres, and I spend an hour wandering around, taking in the flowers and exotic plants, forcing myself to slow down and try and work through the rage.

When I first started playing hockey, my coaches were more than happy to hype up that anger, get me to take it out on the other team. But after a while, I realized all that anger was messing with my play. I started finding other ways to work through it.

Right now, the magnolias are just starting to bloom, and I take a seat on a bench, forcing myself to breathe.

I miss Elsie. I wish she was here with me. How is it possible that she came into my life all at once and completely altered it? A year ago, I could have come here without thinking about another person.

Even my divorce with Leda didn’t feel this bad.

As though just the thought of her has summoned her, I turn the corner in the garden and run, face-first, into a bulky man in a black suit, his face set into a stern, sulking frown.

I recognize him. Her lead bodyguard.

“Weston?”

I wince, wishing I’d turned around, run the other way.

Because as much as this place feels like it belongs to me, I can’t forget the fact that it was Leda who started bringing me here first. It’s more her place than it is mine.

I just assumed that her fame had grown big enough now that she wouldn’t risk going.

“Leda.”

When she emerges from between the little crowd of bodyguards, she surprises me by throwing her arms around me, pulling back, smiling like we’re old friends, instead of exes.

Like she didn’t serve me divorce papers while she was overseas in England, filming a new movie.

As though she didn’t bring our years-long marriage to a stuttering halt with little to no warning.

Of course, she’s gorgeous. Long, shining brown hair.

Thick expressive eyebrows. A coffee held loosely in her left hand, which is covered in rings.

It occurs to me that Elsie doesn’t wear rings like Leda, that her hand is always soft and ready to hold.

Leda’s rings are like the spines on a cactus, keeping anyone from getting too close.

“It’s good to see you,” Leda says, grabbing her sunglasses and propping them up on her head. “I’m glad you’re still coming here.”

“Are you finished commenting on my relationship?” I ask, surprised at myself when the words come out of my mouth.

After she’d said all that shit to the press about Elsie being too young for me, I’d wanted to call her and tell her to fuck off. But I was sure the phone number I had for her would just take me to her assistant, and Tamra had warned us against any retaliation.

So, I said nothing.

But right here, staring at the woman who sent those fucking paparazzo to Elsie’s place, scared her out of her mind, disturbed her peace—I wanted to know what the fuck she was thinking.

“I mean, Weston,” Leda laughs, pushing some of her hair over her shoulder and leveling me with a pitying look. “I know you’re still grieving what we had together, but I’m not sure some girl is the best rebound for you.”

“What I do in my personal life is none of your fucking business,” I growl, wanting to step closer to her, but knowing it’s not a good idea, not with the crowd of bodyguards around her. “And, besides, you’re literally engaged to a man younger than Leda.”

“That’s different,” Leda says, waving her hand dismissively. “And you know it, Weston.”

Leda has seven years on me, which isn’t as broad as the difference between Elsie and I, but still had more of an impact than I ever realized when I was young and impressionable. We started dating when I was just twenty, cutting my NCAA career short and moving right into the NHL.

“How is it different?”

“Well, first, that’s just for show. He and I are in a show together—”

“Yeah,” I scoff, because I know all about it, having read through articles about it before. “You’re playing his mother. And you’re trying to be all high and mighty about this shit.”

Her eyes go hard, “It’s unbecoming when men date younger women. What, do you want to be a Leonardo DiCaprio?”

All at once, something occurs to me, and I bark out a laugh, realization washing over me. “You’re jealous.”

“I am not—”

“You said all that shit about my relationship because you didn’t want me moving on,” I say, realizing that each time I’ve made a move to date someone new, there’s always been shit in the press. Enough bother than I didn’t want to deal with it. “You’ve been fucking with me this whole time.”

It doesn’t make sense that the press would care so much about my relationships. But someone like Leda certainly has the power to influence them to bother me.

“That’s ridiculous,” she snaps, but she puts her sunglasses back on, and I know it’s the truth. She’s been siccing the press on me, and for what? It’s not like I’m the one who wanted the divorce.

As she turns to leave, I speak up, raising my voice, “You know, even people who sign NDAs can still talk, Leda. Maybe I’m starting to not give a fuck about a lawsuit.”

She pauses for a moment but doesn’t look back at me. We were married for years, and I know there are a lot of things she would never want coming out about her.

When she and her bodyguards are gone, I’m left standing in the middle of the flowers, breathing hard, trying to grapple with the reality of how Leda has been affecting me all this time.

For a second, I think about showing up outside Elsie’s apartment. Going to her. Insisting that we talk about this.

But she ran away when I brought up things being real between us. It’s not a good idea to follow her. Especially not when Leda could snap her fingers and send the press swarming back in a second.

There are so many reasons I should leave her alone. But I can’t stop thinking about her, can’t shake the feeling that letting go of her so easily would be the biggest mistake of my life.

I’m usually a pretty decisive guy.

But right now, I have no fucking clue what the next move should be.