Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 113072 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113072 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
Why, yes. You can order the whole team to schedule sessions with me. Instead of saying that, I ask for something specific. “Actually, there’s one thing you guys could do.”
“What is it, Coach Zoe?” Petrov vaults over the boards instead of opening the gate. “Is not enough to make me try new blades?”
The other two guys laugh.
“This one’s easy,” I protest. “Tell Chase Merritt how helpful you found the session and that he should schedule one, too.”
Alexei frowns. “I will try. But the kid does what he wants.”
O’Connell frowns, too. “Coach is pissed, too. He really stank it up in last night’s game.”
My spine tingles. It’s like he’s broken inside.
“A slump can happen to anyone,” Tremaine says quietly.
“Yeah, but it’s bad,” O’Connell says with a shake of his handsome head. “The guys are worried that the two-asshole rule might get ’em.”
“The… Sorry?”
O’Connell crosses his arms over his strong chest and grins. “It’s a rumor that management has a two-asshole rule,” he says.
“Rumor, ya?” Alexei says. “If anyone has two assholes, there should be a rumor.”
Tremaine snorts.
“Nah, Lexei,” O’Connell argues. “It’s like this—the team will only tolerate two assholes at a time on the roster—one of the coach’s choosing, and one of the GM’s. Some guys think Merritt is the coach’s asshole.”
Alexei rolls his eyes at me. Can you believe this shit?
“And if Merritt doesn’t improve his game, Coach is going to trade him in for a new asshole. It’s just math.” He shrugs.
I rub my forehead, feeling a headache coming on. If something is going seriously wrong with Chase, I don’t want to pile on. Yet it’s my job to work with every skater on the roster. Even the assholes.
Even Chase.
“Less gossip, more gym time,” Tremaine says, clapping the younger man on the shoulder. “Let’s go, boys. Coach Zoe probably has a bunch more sessions to run.”
If only that were true. After they all leave, it’s just me on the rink, wondering where Jean-Luc Moreau is. He’s my next and final appointment. I take a stack of orange cones and set them up for a warm-up drill that will make a good starting point.
But after fifteen more minutes, he still hasn’t arrived. I check my phone to see if he’s left me any kind of message, but I come up empty. As the minutes tick by, dread pools in my stomach.
I’ve been ghosted. He never shows.
So I gather up the cones and put them back in the milk crate, until movement in my peripheral vision causes me to turn and spot the outline of someone on the other side of the plexi. Someone who’s watching me.
There’s a glare, though, so I can’t see who it is. But my skin prickles as I wonder if it’s Chase. “Hello?” I call.
But whoever he is, he doesn’t answer. I see another flash of movement and then hear a door open and shut.
Hell. Whoever it was, he sure didn’t feel like hanging around to talk to me.
I find an ice shovel, which I use to tidy up the surface. No need to leave a mess. Then I take my expensive skates off and carry them into the locker corridor, where I wipe down the blades with a paper towel from a dispenser on the wall. They’ve thought of everything.
I open my locker to tuck the skates away. But my gaze snags on a piece of paper that’s resting on top of my gym bag. I grab it up and turn it over. Then my heart clatters to a halt.
Scrawled in pen across the page are just three words. GO HOME BITCH.
For a fractional second, my heart stops. But then adrenaline kicks in. I scan the corridor to make sure I’m alone. Then I hastily wad up the note and throw it away, the way you’d fling a scorpion off your hand. As if pretending it doesn’t exist will make the note go away.
Then I take a gasping breath and try to calm down.
“I’m not so easily dismissed,” I whisper into the empty corridor. “And I’m not easy to scare.” I’ve got a lot riding on this job. It’ll take more than a nasty note to send me home.
Slowly, I do another round of deep breathing. Stress can be conquered. Usually. And so can angry coworkers. The people in this building don’t even know me yet.
Well, except for one.
I grab my gym bag and leave the locker corridor, looking over both shoulders as I go.
Chapter 8
Nine and a Half Years Ago
She’s not going to show.
Chase is seated on a deck chair on the far side of the dormitory’s roof—the boys’ end of the building. He’s got a pizza propped up on a plastic bin that he’s carried upstairs from his room. He’s got cold beers and lime wedges. He’s even got tunes playing on his Bluetooth speaker.