CHAPTER 2
Cole POV
I almost kissed her. I almost kissed Mia Vance, my head coach's daughter, completely off-limits, carrying something heavy in her eyes that she worked hard to hide and the worst part was, I had been thinking about doing it for three weeks. Tonight just almost made it real.
If she hadn't pulled back first, I would have crossed every line I spent eighteen months building.
Her father's voice faded down the hallway. The closet went silent and she was still pressed against me, her breath uneven, her body trembling for reasons I didn't understand yet.
I had my hand on her jaw. My thumb on her lip. Her fingers curled into my shirt like she wanted to kiss me too.
Then she turned her face away.
My jaw tightened.
"Don't," she whispered.
I let go immediately as I stepped back, putting a distance between us.
My heart was slamming against my ribs like I had just played five periods of overtime on a broken knee with nothing left in the tank.
Stupid. So incredibly, embarrassingly stupid.
She was off limits for a hundred reasons and the loudest one was the one standing ten feet away behind a closed door.
I had promised myself when I took this job that I would keep my head down, do the work, collect the paycheque and survive the season. Then I would figure out what came next for a man who used to be somebody and was now a footnote with a limp.
David Vance, her father.
That was reason enough to step back. That was reason enough to walk out of this booth, go home, pour a drink, and make peace with the fact that some things were permanently off the table.
I looked down at my knee. The one that ached every morning, the one that popped in the cold, the one that had ended everything.
I didn't blame the game, I never blamed the game. I blamed the man on the other side of that wall. But she didn't know that and she didn't need to, not tonight.
And now this. Her in the dark, those green eyes and that sharp tongue, the way her whole body had locked up when she heard that name through the wall. She was carrying something heavy, and I wanted against every sensible thought in my head to help her carry it.
I hated that.
I hated that she made me want things I had no right to want. I hated that she made me forget, for about thirty seconds in a cramped dark booth, exactly who her father was and what he had taken from me.
Some things couldn't be forgiven, some lines couldn't be uncrossed, but I still wanted to kiss her anyway.
She slipped out of the closet first, and didn't turn back to look at me. "Lock the door," she said, trying to hide the way her voice shook. But I heard it. She walked out of the office like nothing happened. I stayed behind, counted to sixty. Pressed the back of my head against the wall and stared at the ceiling.
Avoid her, I told myself. Keep your head down, do the job and survive the season.
I had been telling myself the same thing for three weeks.
It was working great.
*****
The next morning, I was on the ice before sunrise, running drills with the junior affiliate, a bunch of kids who thought they were gods because they got drafted in the third round.
My job was to keep them from destroying each other before the season started. Three Stanley Cup rings on my shelf at home, and this was what I was doing with my mornings.
I was the assistant coach.
I said that to myself every day like it might hurt less if I got used to it. It didn't.
"Again," I barked. "Faster on the breakout. You're skating like my grandmother."
They laughed, but I didn't. My knee ached, it always ached. The cold made it worse but I refused to wear a brace. A brace meant admitting I was broken and I would rather be limp than admit anything.
I scanned the stands before I even knew I was doing it, an old habit or a new one.
Mia wasn't there.
Good, I told myself. And then hated that I'd had to tell myself that at all.
I was engrossed in my thoughts when I heard screaming. Fucks sake. Carter and Reeves. They were both nineteen and still acted stupid. Carter slashed Reeves across the shins, and Reeves dropped his glove and threw a punch.
I blew the whistle. "Enough."
They didn't stop. Carter grabbed Reeves by the jersey. Reeves swung wild, missed, hit me instead... His elbow connecting with my ribs.
I stumbled back. My skate caught a rut in the ice.
I went down hard. .my left leg twisted underneath me. The same knee.
The same sound, a wet pop that I heard before I felt it. Pain exploded up my thigh, my hip, white and hot and familiar in the worst way.
I stifled the scream. Pressed my palm over my knee and felt it already beginning to swell beneath my hand. Oh no.
In a flash I was twenty-eight again. Same ice, same sound, same fire in my leg and the same sick feeling of knowing that something was over that could never be undone.
My breath came out in uneven pulls.
"Coach?" Carter called, his face going pale. "Oh shit. Coach, I'm sorry..."
"Get off the ice," I forced out. "Both of you. Now."
4yThey scrambled. The rest of the team followed. Within thirty seconds, the rink was empty, leaving me alone, flat on the back staring at the scoreboard that hadn't changed in years.
My knee was on fire. My chest was tight with anger. I should have left them to their stupidity.
And now, I couldn't even stand. I was still too proud to ask for help.
Eighteen months, eighteen months of physical therapy, of injections, of lying to myself that I could still be part of this world without paying for it and now this. Two kids who wouldn't listen.
I couldn't remain lying on the floor forever. I needed to stand up. I tried but my legs bucked, hitting the ground.
I exhaled.
I remained on the ice, the cold seeping through my clothes and I thought about her. Mia. The way her body pressed against me.
This was the wrong moment to be thinking about her but the moment her face flashed in my memory, somehow my heart relaxed.
I heard someone running on the concourse.
"Cole?"
Her voice. Of course it was her.
