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“That’s what makes him a great coach,” he said.
Bear nodded. “True.”
The big man sat down on the couch and patted the cushion next to him. It wasn’t an invitation he could turn down. Cal bit back a groan and sat down.
There had been a million new-guy tasks—yeah, some would call it hazing—that he’d had to do when he’d finally gotten called up from the minors to join the Rage for his first and last season. The coaching staff probably had a system of their own.
“Kind of crazy how you and Astrid disappeared at the same time,” Bear said.
Cal’s gut dropped. “Uh-huh.”
The other man waited a few beats, then went on. “Then she came down from her dad’s room in an Ice Knights T-shirt she’d borrowed from him since she got water all her shirt, and then not five seconds later, you show up with your hair all fucked-up six ways to Sunday and say you’d had to go plunk yourself in some secret corner to take a call from your mom.”
White-knuckling his beer while trying not to look like it, Cal took what he sure as shit hoped looked like a casual drink. Thank God he’d found a blow dryer under the bathroom sink and had blasted the damp from his shirt. That would have been all but a confession. “She’s stressed about her cat eating all of the dog’s food instead of the kitty kibble.”
The other man let out a low huh. “So you said.”
It was like being a rookie all over again, that feeling of awe that this guy was talking to him mixed in with Cal’s stomach twisting up with a mix of anxiety and the urge for approval. But he knew now what that kid hadn’t—he had to chirp right back.
He sat up a little taller, turned his head, and looked the other man in the eye. “Is there something you’re trying to say?”
“Nope.” Bear shook his head. “Just making observations. I’m gonna write a book someday, you know. Life behind the bench insight and all that.”
Cal wasn’t buying it, and judging by the dead look in Bear’s blue eyes, he didn’t give a shit.
“Of course, there’s tons I couldn’t write about,” the other man said. “Things like how O’Malley almost went old school on a certain goalie after the wedding that wasn’t, and how he’s right now on the phone with that same goalie promising depraved, painful, awful things that I don’t even have the imagination to create that will rain down on that goalie if he causes even the slightest annoyance to a certain new member of the staff.”
Cal glanced over at Coach, who was indeed on the phone. He was standing at the windows that looked out over the Harbor City skyline, his body completely relaxed as if he was discussing the weather. Then he turned around, and Cal got a glimpse of the unhinged glint Bear must have seen in Coach’s eye before that epic game-seven battle.
“Yep. He’s having some words with Jones, all right.” Bear rubbed his chin and looked up thoughtfully. “I was with him, you know, that morning when Astrid left alone for what was supposed to be her honeymoon. I tell you, I had no idea that he even knew people who could do the things he wanted done to the man who’d broken his daughter’s heart. Hell, I grew up with folks who’d happily shank a guy for lunch money, let alone for two tickets to a Yetis game, and even I didn’t know the kinds of people who do the jobs he wanted done. Meanwhile, O’Malley knew half a dozen.” He chuckled and shook his head. “Of course, I talked him out of it, but the man takes his daughter’s happiness very seriously. Hate to see what would happen to someone who tilted her smile in the wrong direction.” He clamped a huge hand down on Cal’s shoulder with the force of a sledgehammer. “Ah, but what am I rambling about? It’s not like you and her had snuck away into a kitchen pantry or anything. You haven’t been hit in the head with enough pucks to make a dumb move like that. Fuck around with the coach’s daughter? Nope, there’s too much going on between those oversize ears of yours for that—especially since this is pretty much your last shot at getting back into the game and if you fuck things up here you’re back to, what, fixing up cars or chasing pigs or whatever it was that you were doing that wasn’t hockey? No one would risk that.”
The old man was about as subtle as a hot pink Cadillac in a Minnesota blizzard, but that didn’t mean he was wrong. It also didn’t mean Cal would get a second warning.
“No one would make that call,” Cal said.
“Exactly,” Bear said. “Now I’m gonna go grab another beer before Parvo starts recalling his glory days. He only had four years of them and still manages to make each one sound like a decade.” He stood up and flashed Cal a smile that would scare small children and a whole pack of German shepherds. “Good talking with you.”
Cal spent the train ride back to the Breakwater neighborhood analyzing the situation and coming to the only correct conclusion there was. Nothing and no one was worth risking his last chance at the game he loved. So he’d handle his shit like a man and be professional, but that was it.
No thinking about Astrid.
No chatting her up.
No touching her.
No kissing her.
No fucking her.
No problem.
Cal kept his gaze locked forward when he passed by The Flying Sow Pub’s front window. He did not need to look inside. There was nothing on the other side of the glass for him.
He was still telling himself that when he punched in the code that opened the door to the small lobby of the apartments above the bar and stepped inside. It wasn’t a big space—just enough room for the stairs, a bank of mailboxes, and a fake palm tree that still had Christmas lights wound around its base even though it was early September. That meant it was impossible to miss Astrid sitting on the stairs drinking from a Vito’s Diner shake cup.
Shock and lust and confusion about what she was doing in his building and—fuck his life—excitement at seeing her whipped through him as he stood there rooted to the spot like some kind of ice sculpture titled “Dumbass.”
“The Oreo is supposedly the best flavor, but I’m a chocolate malt girl myself,” she said, breaking the silence. “So it seemed to be the smart thing to just tell you that I live here, too. Second floor. The apartment right below yours, in fact.”
