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“I know it’s a big ask, and I’m a selfish asshole for doing it,” he said, “but there is no one in the world I’d rather spend my last year as a coach with than the person who has spent almost as much time rinkside as I have. We’ve always been an amazing team, and I just want to have that for my last season.”
Her dad wasn’t wrong. They’d been a team of two for as long as she could remember, so it had been natural for her to go into the family business. She brought her organizational mindset, and he always came with the chaotic determination. It had worked, and she’d loved every minute of it. Yeah, she did the same personal organizing with her clients now, but it wasn’t the same. Something was missing.
“Do you remember when Alec Parvo taught me to check when he found out Amy Salter was mocking my lack of spin skills on the ice and just being an all-around mean girl off of it?”
“Oh yeah.” Her dad laughed. “And every member of that Riverkings lineup remembers it, too. They all had to bag skate until they promised not to give you any additional lessons.”
“It was one chipped tooth,” Astrid grumbled. “She was an eleven-year-old bully.”
“And you were a nine-year-old in beginner’s ice-dancing lessons, not in brawling camp.” He turned and set the puck back down but not so fast that she didn’t catch his grin. “Now I was thinking more about how you came up with the locker room layout for the Rage. Moving the defensemen to the back and sandwiching the rookie forwards between the vets built cohesion and made a big difference in our playoff run.”
The whole vibe of the locker room had changed after that. “They had to make connections off the ice to make a difference on the ice.”
“Exactly.” He clapped his hands together, rubbing them with glee. “That’s one of the things I love about you. You see things—and people—as they can be. That’s a gift.” He paused long enough to send her a hopeful look. “So what do you say? Will you spend my last year as a coach with me? Like old times?”
This was not a good idea. It didn’t even live in the same zip code as a good idea, but that quiet buzz of excitement she hadn’t felt for about five years was back. It was only for one season. How bad could that be?
“On three conditions. One, my in-person dealings with the team are limited. Two, don’t think this will change my mind about hockey. It’s still dead to me after this season. Three, absolutely no dealing with the press, no telling the press I’m helping, no press period.” Letting out a huff of breath, she shot her dad her best no-nonsense glare as he nodded in agreement to all her demands. “I better not regret this.”
She most definitely would probably regret this, but she wouldn’t regret the way her dad’s face went from hopeful but worried to absolute joy.
He rushed over and pulled her up from the couch, then wrapped her up in a bear hug. “You won’t, I promise.”
He spun her around, and if she’d been the same size as the Stanley Cup, he probably would have hoisted her over his head in triumph. She was about to squeak out a plea for him to loosen his hold so she could take in a full breath when the doorbell rang, and he released her like she was a hot potato.
“That would be the coaching staff,” he said, the tips of his ears turning the shade of red that only appeared when he was about to get tossed out of a game or was embarrassed.
What in the world was she going to do with this man? She pitied the residents of the active living community he’d move to after retirement. The man was nothing but infuriating, adorable trouble.
“What would you have done if I’d said no?” she asked, trying to sound annoyed when they both knew she wasn’t really.
“I had faith you’d make the right decision. You usually do,” he said as he started for the door and then paused, turning back to her. “One last thing: no one else knows about the retirement. I want this year to be about the team, not about me doing a year of goodbye interviews with the press.”
Fine. He’d never been a fan of the hockey media, but still, this was going to be a huge deal for the sport.
“You’ve been in the league as a player or coach for thirty years,” she said. “You deserve a farewell tour.”
He got that stubborn tilt to his chin that never boded well for trying to convince him of anything. “It needs to stay just between us.”
She rolled her eyes but nodded in agreement.
A flood of familiar faces passed through the door as soon as he opened it. She may not have had consistency in when she went to bed or where she lived growing up, but the core group of her almost-uncles on her dad’s staff remained the same. There was Alec Parvo, who’d transitioned from player and how-to-deal-with-a-bully lessons to being behind the bench as an assistant coach. Stan “The Bear” Berns, who’d already been one of her dad’s assistant coaches and was the one who made her wear a helmet when she watched practices in case a puck went flying off the ice and into the bench. Constantine Baranov was in the front office now, but he’d been the one who’d helped her with her calculus homework her junior year. There were a few new folks, too, but it really did feel like a little bit of a homecoming.
Bear was showing her pictures of his latest grandchild wearing a baby-size hockey jersey when her dad answered the door again.
“Sorry I’m late,” a familiar gruff voice said. “I took the wrong train.”
Astrid froze. No. It couldn’t be.
Turning, she caught sight of Cal half a second before he spotted her.
Oh God. Her therapist was going to love this.
Chapter Nine
Cal didn’t believe in fate or luck or the magical workings of the universe, and yet here he was in a city of eight million people standing in the same room as her. Why was Astrid here? He had no fucking clue, and asking about her had only gotten him a few cautious looks and a snarly grunt from Bear.
Now, he was in the middle of a debate about how good a goalie Jacques Plante would be in today’s game (correct answer, he’d be fucking amazing), but Cal couldn’t stop sneaking peeks at Astrid. Her long, dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail that curled into a twist at the end and bounced as she went from one grizzled hockey-old-timer-turned-coach to another. She chatted and laughed with them as if she’d known them her whole life.
