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TWENTY-FIVE

Jethro

Even without a shooting partner, there’s always something productive to do on the rink. Like working on rebounds. I’m tossing pucks at the boards, and then plucking them out of the air with my stick, when I hear the door to the rink bang open and someone stepping onto the rink.

“You need the ice?” I call out to whoever.

“Nope. Came looking for you.”

Startled to hear Clay’s voice, I miss the next fucking rebound. The universe doesn’t want me to do anything right if he’s watching.

I reach for another puck, but then hesitate. Why is Clay here? He never seeks me out when I’m alone. Since our wild talk in my hotel room, he’s treated me exactly as he treats every other player—with a firm brand of civility they probably teach at coaching school. Never too warm or too chilly, and always infused with authority.

It’s an improvement, I have to admit. Even better, he’s played me in the net. And after every game—no matter how much I flail—he offers me a steady glance, a pat on the shoulder pad, and a positive word. Good hustle . Or, You got the job done . Even when I’m not, in fact, getting the job done.

He’s been Mr. Supportive, while I’m stinking it up all over town.

“Afternoon,” he says now, skating out to the bench to grab a stick. “Want me to shoot on you?”

“Sure. Is this a social call, or a business visit?” It comes out gruff, but if he has bad news for me, I want to hear it straight.

He picks up a bucket of pucks and skates to the top of the circle. “It’s a business visit, Jethro. That’s the only kind I make. No need to get stressy about it, as Stoney would say.”

He drops a puck on the ice, and suddenly I don’t have time to be a grumpy asshole. I refuse to let any of Clay’s practice shots past me.

The first one is a wrister to the corner, and I snatch it out of the air. He follows it up with a five-hole shot that I deflect with my stick. My reaction is a little slower than it should be, and a bead of sweat rolls down my back.

“Not bad for a dinosaur,” he says with a smirk, dropping another puck. “Let’s see how you handle this one.”

He winds up for a slap shot, and I brace myself, tracking the puck. It comes in low and fast, aiming for the bottom right corner. I drop into the butterfly position, my pads sealing the ice. The puck deflects off my right leg, skittering into the corner.

“Sweet,” Clay says, already lining up the next shot. He flicks his wrist, sending the puck sailing high toward the left corner. I snap my glove up and catch it cleanly, holding it for a beat before tossing it back to him.

“Now let’s speed things up.” He drops several pucks on to the ice, setting up for a rapid drill. “How’s Toby?” he asks.

I grip my stick. “I thought you said this was business.”

“It is.” The first puck fires high glove side again, and I snag it. “But how’s Toby?”

“Hates the new school. Hates the teacher. Hates me.” I get my stick on the next shot and send it sailing back to him.

He sidesteps it. “Is he just homesick? Or is it a bad classroom?” The next puck he sends me is a low blocker side.

I kick it out with my right pad. “Probably that first thing. But he’s a ball of steaming hot anguish, and I spend an hour every night talking him down.”

Clay gives me a thoughtful look, but he doesn’t stop shooting. The next puck is a deceptive change-up, a soft shot aimed toward the five-hole, and I clamp my legs shut just in time to stop it from slipping through.

“Good one,” he says, his voice professional but with a hint of something softer. He drops another puck and skates in closer, faking a shot before trying to deke around me. I push off with my left skate, sliding across the crease to meet him, my stick outstretched. He tries to flip the puck over my pad, but I manage to get my blocker in the way, sending the puck bouncing harmlessly into the corner.

By the time I look back at him, he’s skated back to the top of the circle. He lines up again, this time taking a slap shot that rockets toward the top corner. Throwing my glove up, I feel the satisfying thud as the puck lands in it.

God I love this .

He drops another puck almost immediately. He skates in closer, snapping a shot at my blocker side. I deflect it with a quick flick of my wrist, sending the puck high into the netting behind me.

We continue this dance, him shooting and me blocking, each shot testing a different angle. This is what I live for, the rush of adrenaline with every save. High, low, glove side, blocker side, rapid-fire shots, and slow, deliberate ones. Sweat pours down my face and back, but I don’t care.

I will not look like a chump in front of Clay. Not today, Satan .

Then, just when I’m so deep in the zone I could go on forever, he stops. He straightens up, cocks his handsome head to the side, and lasers me with a look that sees right through the tangled mess of a man behind these pads.

“When you got here,” he says, “I thought you were playing too deep in the net—like you didn’t trust your teammates.”

“Accurate.” I snort. “That’s what happens when you’ve gotta learn a new team in a day.”

He shakes his head. “Your on-ice perception is excellent. The best I’ve ever known.”

Even at age thirty-seven, I’m not immune to a little praise. The compliment hits me right in the chest, and I swallow hard. “That’s a nice thing to say, Coach. Too bad it ain’t true lately.”

“No, it is, Jetty. You don’t trust the Cougars, and you don’t trust me. But those are obstacles you could play through. What’s blocking you is that you don’t trust yourself .”

“Bullshit,” I mumble. As if there were anyone I trust other than myself.

“I understand why,” he continues, ignoring my comment. “Detroit fucked you over. Toby is testing you to make sure you’re not going to abandon him, too. Your sister, your dad, a new team, your legacy… there’s a lot riding on you. It would screw with anyone’s head.”

“Look—isn’t this kind of thing Doc Baker’s job?” I lean over and brace my stick against my knee pads.

“Yeah, but…” He skates closer. “We don’t have a lot of time to unfuck your game, per Baker’s technical term. I’m pretty sure we’re going to rest Volkov for three games. Starting tomorrow night.”

Oh shit . “So you’re good and fucked? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

He leans over, too, matching my posture. We’re closer than we’ve been in a very long time, and I see sudden humor dancing behind his eyes. “This is our workplace,” he says primly. “We should avoid all discussion of getting good and fucked .”

I laugh, startled, as a bolt of heat shoots through my veins. I know he’s just being flip, but it’s just too easy to recall the days when we stripped each other’s clothes off and wrestled on the bed. The memory hits me like a heatwave, and the hot glance I give Clay is involuntary.

His eyes dart away, and I stand up straight and start gathering the pucks I’ve scattered with my stick. “Noted.”

A smile twitches at the corners of his mouth as he rises to his full height. I can’t help but notice a hundred small things about him. Like the way he’s wearing a close-fitting, ribbed T-shirt, with its long sleeves pushed up on his strong forearms. And the light sheen of sweat on his forehead from the effort he expended shelling me with pucks.

All these years later, he’s still blindingly handsome—maybe even more so than when we were young. And he’s still so goddamn good . He’s a good coach, and a good man, and patient with my miserable ass, even when I don’t deserve it.

He’s the whole package. And I’m the dumbass who blocked his number when I was young, just because he scared me so badly.

I was willing to give you everything .

Fuck. I’ve got to stop thinking about it. And I’d better start playing some great hockey this week, because I don’t want to fail Clay Powers. It’s bad enough that I did him wrong when we were young. I can’t tank his championship chances, too. I won’t be able to live with myself.

“Look, I can see you grinding your wheels already,” he says. “But this is just another three hockey games in your life. If you can manage to be half as relaxed as you were a few minutes ago, it’s going to be fine.”

“Yeah, okay,” I grunt. “Don’t worry.”

“I won’t,” he says with way too much confidence. “I just wanted you to hear it from me. And I wanted to ask if there’s anything the organization can do to support you.”

“No,” I say quickly. “You’ve, uh, done plenty. I’m good. I got this. Thank you. I appreciate the chance.” I glance up and our eyes meet. For a moment, the professional facade slips. There’s something in his gaze, something that tells me he’s working really hard to treat me like every other player.

But then he blinks and turns away, skating toward the bench. “Get some rest, yeah? See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” I mutter, watching him go. “Cheers.”

By the time I gather up all the pucks and make it to the showers, the only guy left in the dressing room is Stoney. He’s down on his hands and knees on the carpet. In front of him is a poster board and some rubber cement, the same materials Toby uses for school projects.

“Hey! Got a sec?” Stoney asks. “I need you to give me a photo for the vision board.”

“The what?” I strip off my sweaty clothes.

“A picture of something you want most.”

An image of Clay’s smile floats through my mind.

“I know it’s some woo-woo shit,” Stoney says, “but this girl I’m dating swears by it. I’m gonna post it on the wall where we’ll see it every day. Then the universe will, like, nudge things in our direction. It has something to do with magnets, I think.”

“Magnets,” I repeat as I head for the shower. If only the world worked that way.

“Think about it!” he calls to my naked backside. “It could change your life!”

If only.