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She wasn’t in this godforsaken place to get off with the hot temporary coach who was only here for the season.
No.
She was here because this was her dad’s last season and she was going to do whatever it took to make it his best one ever.
That meant no fucking, no sexting, no orgasm contests in the pantry with Cal.
She could totally guarantee that none of that would happen again.
Somehow.
Some way.
Oh God, she needed a plan.
Chapter Sixteen
Aaaaaaaaaaaand her plan turned out to be acting like a chicken—minus the feathers and bwauck-bwaucking.
She’d spent the past week tiptoeing around her apartment so Cal wouldn’t know she was there. She’d turned down shifts at the Flying Sow Pub on the off chance he’d come in. And thanks to the wonders of modern technology, she’d been able to do her job even with showing up late for Tig’s sessions and leaving early to avoid any in-person run-ins with Cal. Every morning she’d sent Cal an email with her recommendation after watching the full video from their workouts, talking with psychologists who specialized in performance issues, and researching the latest standard practices for coming back from the yips—plus adding in a whole lot of insight from knowing how Tig reacted to things and was most likely to respond positively to. If she played her cards right, she could probably get through the entire season without being in a room with him again.
Was it mature? No.
Was it working? Hell yes.
And that’s all that mattered. So when she walked down the tunnel to the rink and out to the bench ten minutes after she was supposed to, it should have been empty. Cal and Tig should be on the ice snarling at each other per usual by now. They weren’t. Instead, Tig sat on the bench in his practice goalie gear minus his helmet. His hair—as always—was perfect, and he was giving her that look. It was the one that said we’ve-seen-each-other-naked-and-should-do-it-again.
Embarrassment made her cheeks burn when she recalled just how many times that look had worked. What had she been thinking when she’d gotten back with him over and over and over again?
Despite her better judgment, she’d loved Tig Jones for most of her life, crushing on him in silence before he ever actually really saw her as anything other than the coach’s daughter.
They’d been on-again, off-again since high school, but even when they were off, Tig was stocking her fridge with the dark chocolates she really liked or stopping by to help move the couch that seemed like it weighed more than her first car from one end of the living room to the other.
Like clockwork, he would check in with her every May sixth whether they were together or not and listen to her wonder for the millionth time how she could miss her mom so badly when she’d only known her for all of fifteen hours.
On the less sad side, he’d send her tickets to her favorite bands before they even went on sale just because he said he loved to see her horrible dance moves—he wasn’t wrong, she danced to the lyrics not the beat and had never been able to change that about herself.
Then there were all the times that Tig had just shown up at her door with fresh beignets and a six-pack of hard cider for their annual pre-Halloween viewing of Shaun of the Dead.
In the past decade, Astrid had wished a million times that Tig could just be the asshole version of himself all of the time. That would have made her life so much easier. But the truth of it was, Tig Jones was the best worst boyfriend a person could have, and that’s why she always took him back after every breakup.
Well, almost every breakup.
“No,” she said as she crossed her arms and glared at him, her clipboard pressing into her boobs so hard it was definitely going to leave a mark.
His grin didn’t dim at all. “I was just gonna see if you wanted to go grab lunch after this. There’s this great diner you have to try.”
When people in Harbor City talked diners, they meant one place. “Vito’s?”
He stood up and sauntered over, somehow managing not to look like a toddler robot walking on his skate blades, stopping next to her and draping an arm across her shoulders like they were buddies. “Yeah, you know it?”
“Of course.” She shoved his arm off and glared up at him. “I’ve been in Harbor City for three years.”
The amount of awkward between them was thicker than the late July humidity in Mississippi, but Tig pushed forward.
“Where were you during the other two since…” His words died off, and he gulped hard, some of the bravado leaking out of him. His gaze remained glued to the floor as he finally finished, “You know?”
Really? Their almost wedding was “you know?”
