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“I owe you an apology for the way I reacted in the past. I wasn’t there for you the way I should have been when you got injured. I know I already told you that I regretted it, but I never truly explained how sorry I am for it. I never fully accepted responsibility for the way I treated you.” He paused with his lips pursed for a moment. “I should have been there for you as your father, not from a coaching perspective. I’m sorry for not supporting you the way I should have.”
His words surprised me. My father wasn’t really one to dive into his emotions like this. He had expressed a little bit of this before, but never in depth like this. “It’s okay, Dad,” I told him as I made my way over to sit on the bench next to him. He dropped his gaze from mine and looked down at his hands as he pressed his thumbs together. “I’ve moved on from that and let it go. I appreciate your apology, but don’t beat yourself up over it.”
“It killed me to know that I couldn’t protect you from that. It was hard enough with you being in college, living your own life, and then the accident happened… I just—I just wanted to do whatever I could to help you, and there was nothing I could do.” His voice cracked and he cleared his throat to cover it up. “When you have children, you will do everything you can to protect them. When something happens that is out of your control, it is very hard to deal with that. But that doesn’t excuse my behavior. I should have been more focused on you and what you needed rather than my own feelings.”
Reaching out for him, I grabbed his hand and gave him a soft squeeze. He turned his head to the side and looked at me. “Dad, it’s okay. There was nothing anyone could have done. I was the only one who could have controlled that outcome, but neither of us can go back in the past to change it now. All we can do is move forward, you know?”
He nodded slowly. “I know. I just don’t want to see you get hurt again—emotionally or physically.” He paused again, looking around the locker room as he slowly sat up straighter. “This is all so amazing, Juliette. I don’t think I’ve told you how proud I am of you and the life you’ve made for yourself. Even after not being able to play hockey anymore, you never strayed from that track.”
“If I can help other kids get to where I wanted to be, I want to be a part of that.”
His eyes met mine again and he nodded. “So, Mac Sullivan…”
“He’s a great guy, but I think you already know that.”
He let out a sigh, breaking eye contact, and slumped forward again as he hung his head, closing his eyes. “That’s the problem. If he was someone I didn’t like, it would be a hell of a lot easier for me to get him traded or tell you to stay away from him.”
“I have a better idea,” I suggested as he looked over at me again. A smile pulled on my lips. “You don’t trade him and you don’t tell me to stay away from him. You let me make my own decision and just let things be the way they are intended to be.”
“Juliette… Mac should know that you don’t get involved with your coach’s daughter or your teammate’s sister. You don’t mix business with pleasure.”
“Does it really matter?” I asked him, keeping my voice light and soft. “Look, I understand what you are saying and where you are coming from, but for a second, can we just put all of that stuff to the side? You said you wished you had been there to support me in the past when I needed you, so maybe this is your chance to do things differently. You didn’t offer your support then, but you can offer it now.”
His forehead creased. “You are asking me to support one of my players dating my daughter. Do you realize how that goes against everything that has been instilled in me for a long time?”
“I’m asking you to let me choose who I want to date and not tell me who I can or cannot see.” I paused, inhaling deeply before finally speaking the words. “I love him, Dad. I tried to fight it, but it’s so hard not to. When I realized he was my new neighbor, I knew he was going to be trouble for my heart, but I didn’t realize that it wouldn’t be a bad thing. I know what I want. I know what my heart wants. And it’s him.”
“How long has this been going on?” my father asked, his voice quiet with no accusation in his tone.
“Long enough that I should have come to you about it sooner.”
He clenched his jaw and nodded. “That’s my fault. If you felt more secure and trusted me, you would have told me about it. I’m sorry, Juliette.”
“Hey, it’s okay. You don’t have to keep apologizing. All I’m asking is for you to hopefully hear what I’m saying.”
“I hear you.” He let out a sigh with a contemplative look on his face. “You love him.”
It felt amazing to have the words off my chest, but I knew there was someone else who needed to hear them even more. I needed to come clean with Mac. I needed to tell him the truth about how I felt.
“I do.”
“Okay,” he said slowly as he reached over for my hand. “I won’t do anything to change or disrupt his career. Sullivan is good and not worth losing because of personal matters. If you feel that strongly about him, you have my support. If he breaks your heart, I can’t promise his name won’t be smeared after that.”
I couldn’t help the laughter that escaped me. I shook my head at him with a smile on my lips. “If he breaks my heart, you can do whatever you feel is fitting.”
“Deal.” My father smiled as he released my hand and took my other to shake on it. “I do have one favor to ask, though.”
As I let go of his hand, the two of us stood up together. “Okay, what’s the favor?”
“Don’t say anything to Mac yet.”
I raised an eyebrow with a curious look on my face. “Why not?”
“Let him sit with this a little bit. I want to see how he works under the pressure.”
“So, this is just a test?” I asked him, not feeling the best about his idea. I saw the look on Mac’s face when he all but ran from the locker room earlier. If I let him sit with this, who knew what it was going to do to his head.
“I need to have a talk with him,” my father said with a shrug. “I can be the one to tell him that his position on the team is safe, but I want to wait until after the game tomorrow night.”
