Page 11

Chapter

Nine

We exited the North Centre under a sky smeared with bright spring colours. The days were getting longer, and I could almost smell the tailgate barbecues. Students still did them in the winter, but they were so much better when I wasn’t worried about smearing my winter coat with ketchup.

I was suddenly hyperaware of everything I did. How I walked, how I held my bag. Chase was just close enough that I could smell whatever soap he used—something clean and masculine. Had I even noticed what Garrett smelled like?

Chase didn’t say much until we turned down the path that curved toward the Dome. A little café slash corner store was tucked beside the arena, squeezed between the players' entrance and the main doors.

He pointed. “Does that work?”

“For what?”

He slowed. “For dinner.”

I hesitated. “I guess?—”

“I’ll get it, I just wondered?—”

“You don’t have to get it.” I didn’t want him to think my comment was a plea for help.

Chase stopped on the sidewalk. “You’re doing me—the team—a favour. I’m not going to make you pay for your food when you were probably heading home.”

I was heading home. But it wasn’t like I had great options there at the moment. I was probably going to make myself a bowl of canned soup.

“C’mon.” He started down the path, and I followed.

“Chase—”

“Coach Wilson.” He gave me a sidelong glance.

I exhaled. “Okay, I’m sorry I was being pissy about my name.”

Chase laughed. “You were being pissy.”

“You didn’t email me.”

“I already explained?—”

“Yeah, I know. You think this whole thing is bullshit. Your words, not mine.”

He slowed as we approached the entrance then reached out and held the door for me. I stared at it then at him with his arm outstretched. “This is weird.”

“Yeah.”

“If we acknowledge it, will it be less weird?”

Chase’s lips twitched. “Doubtful.”

“That’s what I thought.” I walked through the door.

Inside, the café was warm and smelled like fresh bread.

There were three small tables along the window, a short counter for ordering, and a few aisles with bags of candy, snacks, and emergency essentials.

One table was occupied by a couple of tired-looking students in Douglas hoodies, their trays piled high with fries.

The board above the counter offered daily specials in wonky chalk handwriting: tomato soup, grilled ham and cheese, and something called a Dome Power Bowl.

Chase ordered the fried chicken sandwich. I went for the Caesar salad with grilled chicken, not because I wanted to look like I was eating healthy, but because I hadn’t ingested vegetables since Saturday. And I doubted onion rings even counted.

He handed the cashier a couple of bills, and we stood off to the side to wait.

"You said you coached before?"

Chase nodded. "With a couple of different teams, but not at the university level."

"Wasn't part of the plan?"

He fingered a package of gummy worms. "Not initially."

I couldn't handle these two-word answers, and while he'd given me a few details of his life, it hadn't scratched the itch in the least. I wanted more.

And maybe if we actually talked about the interim between now and when we'd seen each other last, some of this tension I felt would disappear.

Maybe it was the mystery of it that was making my body go haywire.

"What happened? After you left?"

Chase turned and started to answer, then stopped himself. "How long did he stay?"

I knew instantly who he was talking about.

His dad. I wrapped my arms around myself involuntarily.

"About three months." It might've been less than that, but I remembered the day my mom finally changed the locks.

I'd just gotten back from Calaway Park with my friend Kate, and there was a pile of his things on the front porch.

"I felt bad about that." Chase looked up at the menu board, his jaw tight. "Leaving you both with him."

My ribs seemed to cinch around my lungs. He felt bad? I didn't think he'd given us a second thought. "You were barely ever there."

He scrubbed his hand over the barely-there stubble on his jaw. "Yeah."

Another little puzzle piece. Was it possible that Chase wasn't out at all hours of the night because he was cool and popular? Was it because . . . he didn't want to be home?

My whole worldview tipped on its axis. I rewound the tape and searched for all the times he was at the house.

It was usually in the afternoon, right after school or in the morning on the weekends.

What seventeen-year-old was up at eight thirty in the morning on a Saturday?

I couldn't help it. I still wasn't able to sleep in, even after staying up until two in the morning.

Naps had become my friend since coming to Douglas.

Chase exhaled. "I wasn't stupid enough to think I'd make it straight to the NHL, but hockey was my best option to get out."

I chewed on that for a moment. "It's not stupid to go for something big. And you were so good."

"'Were' being the operative word there."

Tension radiated off of him. I lowered my voice. "Injury?"

He shook his head. "Nope. Just not good enough."

The woman at the counter held up our sandwiches, and Chase stalked forward to take them. He smiled and thanked her, and I followed him to the door.

We walked through the main entrance and down the hall. Chase unlocked the door to the hockey offices with a grunt and a shoulder nudge. The door stuck a little in the frame, and there was no receptionist to greet us this time. What time was it? "Do you need to be at practice?"

Chase glanced at the clock above the door. Four fifteen. "It's fine if I'm a bit late, but we still have forty-five minutes."

We passed the front desk and entered one of the small offices in the short hall. He flicked on the light even though there was plenty of sunlight coming in from the full window in the door. This was a welcome change from the study room.

A corkboard hung on the wall crowded with player schedules and tournament flyers, and a hockey stick leaned against the filing cabinet like it might be called into action at any moment. Was it his?

Chase dropped his sandwich onto the desk and rifled through a drawer.

I took the rolling chair in front of the desk and opened the lid on my salad.

Normally I'd wait until whoever I was with started eating, but my stomach lining was beginning to digest itself.

I took a bite, and the crisp lettuce and tangy dressing sent a flavour burst through my mouth.

"Good?"

I glanced up. Chase held a thick folder in one hand. "Mmhmm," I mumbled while chewing.

His mouth quirked as he pushed the folder toward me on the desk. “Shot counts, time on ice, zone entries. Last six games.”

I brushed my hand on my jeans and flipped over the cover, taking in the highlighter markings and cramped handwriting. He was thorough, I’d give him that. There wasn’t a single missed entry.

I swallowed and scanned the data. It was messy, but the patterns started to jump out fast. “Do you have baseline numbers?”

He grabbed a second folder. “First semester. November and December.”

I nodded, flipping pages, salad temporarily forgotten. “You’ve got Axel starting in the offensive zone way more than anyone else." I tapped the page. “But you’re not adjusting for that. It makes his possession look way better than it is.”

He blinked. “Should I be?”

“Only if you want accurate data.”

I scribbled a quick adjustment on the edge of the sheet, showing how weighting by zone starts gave a clearer picture of who was driving play.

Chase sat and unwrapped his sandwich. "I didn't know I could feel so useless in such a short amount of time."

"Hm. Not useless." I gestured to my salad.

He chuckled. I was already halfway back inside the numbers. I frowned at one of the sheets and tapped the top corner. “Wait—what’s this column? Plus-minus?”

Chase leaned over, a piece of lettuce stuck to his thumb. “Yeah. It’s the goal differential stat—shows how many goals were scored for or against while a player was on the ice. Doesn’t include power plays or penalty kills, just even strength.”

I blinked. “So . . . if your team scores while you’re out there, you get a plus. If they get scored on, you get a minus?”

“Exactly. People say it’s flawed, but it gives a snapshot. Tells you if a player’s generally on the ice when good or bad things happen.”

I nodded, letting that click into place. “So you could play solid defense and set up beautiful plays, but if your goalie lets in a soft one, you get dinged?”

“Pretty much. But over a season, it starts to show patterns. Scouts pay attention to it, especially when they want to know who’s reliable in close games.”

I glanced back down at the page. “Huh. Then Bear’s getting screwed.”

“What?”

I shifted the paper so he could see. “He’s got a rough plus-minus, but look at who he’s out with and when. He’s starting nearly every shift in the defensive zone. No support, no momentum. Of course his numbers are trash.”

Chase blinked. Bear’s plus-minus was deep in the red, but it didn’t take long to see why—he was constantly deployed in the worst possible scenarios.

Late shifts, heavy forecheck from the other team, and line changes that left him stranded.

He wasn’t sloppy. He was set up to fail.

With a better rotation, he could hold the blue line better than half the roster.

“Damn.” Chase’s brows pinched.

I picked up on other patterns. Nick and Bear had solid synergy, but only when paired together. Their shot suppression went up dramatically when they were on the ice at the same time. Split them up and their efficiency tanked. I circled it and made a note: keep them as a unit.

And then there was Rob. His power play stats were impressive, as were his shots and goals. No surprise there.

I flipped to Logan’s sheet and pursed my lips. I didn’t hate the guy since he’d put on his big boy pants and apologized to Shar, but he still wasn’t my favourite person. But numbers didn’t take into account personal feelings.

“Impressive, right?”

I nodded. “No wonder he was scouted.” I exhaled and leaned back in my chair, fingers smudged, my head somehow clearer than it had been all week.

Chase swallowed his bite of sandwich. I hadn’t even realized he was eating. “So who sucks at the penalty kill?”

“Tim, but I didn’t need to look at the stats to tell you that.”

Lowered eyes, a small puff of air, and that smile. Chase wadded up the parchment paper and threw it in the trash. “I should’ve emailed you. About the tutoring.”

“This was all it took to convince you?” I took another forkful of salad.

He picked up a pen from his desk and fiddled with it. “Maybe I was caught up in my own shit. I wasn’t remembering.”

My breathing slowed. “Remembering what?”

He shrugged. “How good you are at this. The math, but more so the teaching.”

I swallowed. “I really don’t understand how you could forget. You aced your Math 20 midterm because of me.”

Chase didn’t speak. Just watched me.

Right there. It was moments like this.

He’d always been throwing curveballs, never responding as I expected him to. That’s what gave him such an air of mystery in high school. I could never tell exactly what he was thinking. That damn puzzle I couldn’t solve.

His gaze made me self-conscious enough that I reached for the highlighter sitting in a wooden pen holder on the desk. In the process I knocked it over, sending his writing utensils sprawling.

“I’m so sorry, I?—”

“It’s fine. Here.” Chase started scooping up the pens and pencils, while I again went for the highlighter, and somehow, my hand was suddenly trapped between his.

We both froze. My fingertips logged every modicum of sensory input available to them. His palm was warm. Rougher than mine. His fingers extended past my wrist—I hadn’t realized his hands were so large.

And my brain? Misfiring. Because I enjoyed this feeling, and it felt as if I’d been waiting for it. Thirsting to feel him. Like I’d been biding my time since . . . well, since I was fourteen. Since I’d seen his hand tapping a rhythm on my kitchen counter.

Now here I was. Taking full stock of the heat flashing over my skin, the tingling at my fingertips, the shortness of breath. Here I was collecting data.

I yanked my hand back, sending the highlighter flipping into my lap. “I was—so you’re bleeding possession minutes on your third line.” I pulled the sheet toward me and clicked the cap off the pen. “Swap Axel in when you’re up a goal. He can eat the zone time and buy you breathing room.”

Chase dropped the pens back in the wooden box. “Noted.”