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I was a deer in headlights. At least fifteen seconds passed during which I wasn’t sure if I’d gone into cardiac arrest. And the first time he stepped foot in my house?

He probably thought I was mute. I don’t think I said a word to him until he asked for help with his math when I wandered into the kitchen.

Math had been a mask to hide behind back then, but now?

What was I supposed to do with all that?

I wasn’t in grade nine anymore, and yet the second he stood in front of me, I may as well have been sprouting breast buds and wearing braces.

Which made no sense, considering all that coolness didn’t seem to translate into anything impressive for Chase as an adult.

He was back home coaching a hockey team.

Like an ordinary person, not the demi-god I made him out to be.

I tuned back in to Crystal chatting about the after party at Ranchman’s, trying to forget about running into Chase for the first time at Douglas near the washrooms, and nodded to show I was listening as I pulled into a parking spot at the back.

Thankfully, the lot wasn’t full despite our tardy arrival.

The hot dog and popcorn-laced air inside the arena hit us like a wall the second we pushed through the doors.

Crystal pulled her earmuffs off with a dramatic flourish and tucked them into the pocket of her coat.

The pink in her hair had faded from Barbie to Alberta rose.

I’d always been a little jealous of her light hair.

My hair was so dark, I’d have to bleach it to colour it.

When I tried that in grade twelve, the ends of my curls had broken off. Not my best moment.

The arena wasn’t packed, but the lower bleachers were full. Thankfully, Shar had already saved our seats. The student section was a mosaic of maroon and gold, and we spotted her waving at us from our usual spot—third row, just off centre ice, right behind the penalty box.

“Did we miss the goalie warm-ups?” Crystal craned her neck as we made our way to the stairs.

By the way our guys were already skating through drills, I was sure we had.

A travesty. “Do you think we’re bad people for objectifying them?

” Thoughts like that were a dime a dozen in my brain.

Most premises couldn’t sit undisturbed for long, and this was one I revisited often.

Would I be offended if men openly discussed watching female athletes gyrate their hips?

Absolutely. Though I couldn’t think of a sport where women were as fully clothed as hockey players.

Except for, you know, actual women’s hockey.

Crystal scoffed. “Pfft. No, we’re not bad people. First of all, they’re our friends, and I would say anything I think about their groin stretches straight to their faces. They’d think it was funny. Second, they’re the ones fake-moaning when Tim goes spread-eagled.”

That was a fair point.

Crystal paused on the stairs for a couple sitting on the aisle to stand, then slid in to sit next to Shar. I dropped onto the bench beside her.

“Who’s going spread-eagled?” Shar shoved over a bag of popcorn.

“Your mom.” Crystal grinned.

Shar ignored her, but the corner of her mouth lifted.

“Okay, so they’ve got that massive defenceman—uh, Birkett?

” She motioned to the Edmonton players running drills and pointed at number twenty-one.

“Six-foot-four and made of cement blocks. Rob said he checked Bear into the boards so hard last year, they had to replace the glass.” I winced.

“Oh, and their goalie’s new,” Shar went on.

“Transferred from U of S mid-season. Rob says he’s good.

Like, shutout-three-games-in-a-row good.

But a total headcase if you rattle him early. ”

Crystal smirked. “Am I flashing him, or are you?”

I sighed. “If he saw my girls, he’d only be more amped up. Can’t give them that advantage.”

Shar laughed and reached for the popcorn, and the familiar ritual settled into my bones.

Out on the ice, the teams were lining up for the anthem.

The lights dimmed slightly, and after a brief introduction of the high school tenor from Airdrie, the first few notes of O Canada echoed through the rafters.

The kid was good. Not that I was a singer, but standing in front of an arena full of people to do anything that drew attention was impressive. Also my personal hell.

The arena burst into cheers and applause as the last notes reverberated, and the boys set up for their first shift. I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, frowning. Something was off. Was their starting lineup different tonight?

As my eyes swung to the bench, I froze. My mouth went dry. There he was. Back behind the Outlaws’ bench. Leaning over the boards, arms crossed, mouth tight.

Chase.

Even though I’d seen him face-to-face the week prior, the sight of him made my stomach flip.

Had he gotten a haircut since that night at Ranchman’s?

No, maybe it was that he hadn’t shaved. That scruffy jaw thing he’d only barely pulled off at nineteen was now annoyingly, unfairly hot.

He wore a black Outlaws jacket with the logo stitched over his heart, and when he shouted something to a player on the ice, I caught a brief clip of his voice.

My teenage golden calf.

Though Chase had been my stepbrother briefly in high school, we barely lived in the same house since he was constantly partying and sleeping over at his girlfriend’s house. Melody Sanchez.

When I saw Chase at Ranchman’s, I thought of her for the first time in probably five years. Later that night as I lay in bed, memories flaring to life, I remembered why I hated her so much.

That year was brutal. Mom and Dustin—Chase’s dad—weren’t getting along, and the walls in that house were thin enough to hear everything. Chase was seventeen and his mythic self. Always grabbing his hockey gear and disappearing out the front door if he deigned to appear at home in the first place.

I rarely initiated conversation with him at school, even though I watched his every move and thought about him more than what was probably healthy.

But there was this one afternoon when we were both home, our parents still at work.

I pumped myself up for a solid thirty minutes before gathering enough courage to ask if he’d take me to a book launch downtown the following day.

It was stupid. Just a YA author I liked who was doing a signing at Chapters.

But it felt monumental at the time. I didn’t have friends who read like I did, and Mom was too wrapped up in work and her failing relationship to notice I hadn’t left the house for anything that wasn’t school in over a month.

Chase had looked up from tying his shoes and said, “Yeah. Sure. I’ll drive you.

” He didn’t even hesitate. I rode that high for a full twenty-four hours.

Then, the next afternoon, I waited on the porch for forty-five minutes.

In jeans I’d ironed. Lip gloss I’d borrowed.

A copy of the book clutched so tightly, the pages curled.

I didn’t think he’d be impressed or see me as anything but a dorky kid, but there was always a small part of me that hoped. That fantasized he’d look over at me and really see who I was.

That made his no-show cut even deeper.

I ended up walking to the corner store and buying a Coffee Crisp with my babysitting money.

When I got home, he stood beside his car with Melody.

She laughed at something he said in her cropped denim jacket and high ponytail.

Chase had his hand on her waist, and she leaned in and kissed him. With tongue.

I hated her for that. For being cool and older and easy to want. I hated him more, but I didn’t understand that yet.

The one-sided feud fizzled when he started needing math help.

Easy to forget when he was paying attention to me.

Then he left to play hockey, and I never saw him again.

Our parents broke up, and that was that.

It was water under the bridge, but it felt a little like self-betrayal that I was now sitting here ogling his forearms. Chase Wilson didn’t care about me.

He never had. He cared about his grades, his social life, and his hockey career.

I needed to cut this weird obsession with him free once and for all.

But damn. Those forearms.

“I don’t see Axel. Or Rory.” Crystal squinted at the lineup as the puck dropped. “They’re not starting?”

Right. That’s what I’d been investigating. My attention snapped back to the ice. I was correct in thinking something was off. Number sixteen, Axel, and number five, Rory, the Outlaws’ top forward line, weren’t anywhere near the face-off circle.

Crystal’s jaw dropped as we found them behind the bench without their gear on. “What the hell? Are they benched?”

Shar wet her lips. “Rob told me they aren’t allowed to play until they get their grades back up.”

I straightened, the words clicking through me like tumblers in a lock.

“They were serious.” It wasn’t a question.

Of course they were serious. This wasn’t the United States, where the NCAA brought in TV spots or sponsorship money.

Canadian universities prioritized academics, and they didn’t give special privileges to student athletes.

While plenty of our friends on the Outlaws were hopeful they’d get a shot at a WHL or AHL tryout, those opportunities were rare.

Though Logan had proven it wasn’t impossible to get back in the running for pro consideration.

He left only a few weeks into the semester to play for the Fredericton Canadiens and put his degree on hold.

A slow heat crept up the back of my neck as my brain revved.

I needed service hours. I could offer to help them, but was tutoring athletes a thing?

This couldn’t be just an “Oh, I spend time volunteering at the animal shelter on weekends” kind of thing.

I needed something official—something that looked impressive—to add to my application.

The first period dragged. Without Axel and Rory, the team lacked bite. If someone told me Edmonton had been on the power play for the first eight minutes, I would’ve believed them. We barely visited the neutral zone.

“Bear’s already gassed,” Shar muttered halfway through the second. “They’re double-shifting him again.”

The scoreboard reflected exactly what they were seeing on the ice. It was 2–0 for the Prairie Devils, and the crowd started feeling it. Less cheers, more groans. The guy beside me spilled half his nachos, yelling something about line changes, and even Crystal had stopped heckling.

By the time the third rolled around, it was painful. Edmonton scored again on a power play that left the Outlaws' defence hanging their heads. Rob was trying to rally the guys, but wasn’t having much luck.

“They’re unravelling,” Crystal murmured.

She wasn’t wrong. After losing Logan and now without Axel and Rory, there was no spark. No flow. Rob was stranded out there.

“What if I tutor them?” I pushed my curls behind my ears. Sharla and Crystal’s eyes widened. “What? How bad could it be?”

“Babe, you don’t exactly have a bunch of extra time.” Crystal gave me a skeptical look.

“And have you met Axel and Rory?” Sharla added.

I held up a hand. “Okay, let me put it this way. I could look into tutoring them.” My brain circled around the idea.

It was a good option. Something I was already good at, something I felt passionate about.

“I need service hours for my scholarship application, so maybe I can work something out with the coaches?—”

“You mean with Chase?” Crystal raised an eyebrow, and the rest of that sentence died on my tongue. “He’s the compliance coach. You’d have to coordinate with him on that, right?”

I cleared my throat. “I guess so. Probably.”

Sharla jabbed Crystal playfully. “You aren’t going to leave her alone about this, are you?”

Crystal laughed. “Nope. Not as long as she keeps blushing like that.”

I rolled my eyes, immediately second-guessing myself. What if Oxford didn’t care about student athletes? Did they even have hockey in England, or did they only play cricket and . . . football?

Wait—I was thinking about this all wrong. It wasn’t Oxford who made the selections. It was the committee at Douglas, then the provincial committee. I’d read that somewhere in the packet. Hockey was a sure bet for them, wasn’t it?

“I think it’s a great idea.” Sharla looped an arm over my shoulders. “I’m sure Rob would help make it happen if you want.”

The Prairie Devils scored again, and a collective groan sounded throughout the arena.

I clenched my fists with resolve. These guys were my friends, and I wouldn’t let their season end like this.

Plus, tutoring would be a win-win. Whatever weirdness I felt around Chase would have to take a backseat because this was the Rhodes freaking Scholarship.

And I was going to earn it.