“So…she’s tough? Coach Stevens?” Jules asked, eyeing her brother out of the corner of her eye, unable to keep her curiosity at bay. She ate a bite of her sweet potato with chicken and rice then took a long sip from her sweating can of Diet Coke.
“You have no idea,” Cam groaned then shifted on his couch so he was laying down and facing Jules. “And she yells. It’s a little scary to be honest.”
The image of Frankie on the ice, voice firm, presence commanding but with the easy confident way she carried herself, giving directions to a bunch of men who had never been led by a woman in that capacity before? Yeah, that did something to Jules.
“She sounds like a good coach to me,” Jules said, filling her mouth with another forkful of food.
“Hey, you should totally come with me tomorrow! Some of the guys have brought their spouses and kids to come watch a skate.” Cam sat up and pointedat her. “And you’re always one of the first people to come check out the practice facilities when I settle into a new place and with this being a brand new team and me being thefaceof the franchise… or whatever they’re saying on Sportsnet, you have to come. I want you to come and meet Frankie Stevens. It’s got to be cool for you to know there’s a woman coaching, right? You’d like her.”
Jules coughed, almost choking on her food as she tried to swallow a bite of sweet potato.
Cam jumped up and was at her side in a second, patting her on the back with more force than necessary and when the food finally made it down and she was able to take a long gulp of fizzy pop, she pushed his arm away.
“I’m fine,” she croaked, waiving him off.
“You don’t sound fine.”
“Cam, I’m good.”
“I don’t believe you. You almost died, Jules.”
“Oh my god, stop.” She coughed and playfully shoved him away. “I did notalmostdie. My food just went down the wrong way.”
“And people can die from that.”
“You’re so dramatic, has anyone ever told you that?”
Cam smirked then slid onto the stool next to her at the kitchen island. “Yeah, my twin sister, at least once a day.”
Jules rolled her eyes but smiled at her brother, her own features reflecting back at her as he brushed his shaggy bangs out of his eyes. “You really want me to come tomorrow?”
With a firm nod, he took the fork out of her hand and helped himself to the food that she’d been eating. He gathered a generous helping of rice on the fork then brought it to his lips and shoved it into his mouth. “I really, really do,” he mumbled while chewing.
What would it have been like to have a twin sister, instead?She thought as her brother batted his eyelashes, swallowed his food and grinned.
“You’re disgusting. You know that, right?" He simply stared back at her until her shoulders relaxed and she let out a long exhale. She nodded, giving in to hisrequest. “Fine, I will come to practice tomorrow if you really want me there that badly.”
“It's not the start of a season if you're not there, Jules. You know that. And besides, maybe Stevens will go easy on us knowing another woman might be watching…” Cam said, his expression hopeful as he stared off into space while shovelling another forkful of whatwasJules' dinner into his mouth.
Right…another woman watching. A woman that might actually be okay with Frankie going hard on her…but Jules would keep that thought to herself.
When Jules got back to her apartment, she took a quick shower and chose the outfit she was going to wear to the rink, settling on her favourite pair of boyfriend cut jeans, a go to pair of trendy running shoes that went well with everything and a yellow short sleeve workwear shirt stitched with the name of an auto body shop she’d never heard of across the back. She’d found it at a thrift store a few months earlier in a city she’d had a layover in and had cropped and shortened the sleeves herself.
Her brother was right, shedidtypically spend a lot of time at the practice rink with him and no one ever questioned it given their upbringing. It was common knowledge within the hockey world that Cameron Clarke and his twin sister Juliette had lost their parents in a car accident when they were young.
They were kind of a package deal and people knew they were close, the best of friends, so Jules being around was normal but she hadn’t made the trip to his new facility yet, hadn't wanted to dive in alongside Cam the way she was so used to doing.
Unbeknownst to her brother, Jules had slowly been trying to put a little distance between herself and hockey, if it were even possible given who Cam was, and she'd even considered taking on other athletes or rehab clients as a physiotherapist.
The conversation she knew she wanted to have with Cam about what she was feeling hadn’t happened yet but she knew when it did, he would look at her withsympathy filling his baby blues and say some line about needing her in his life more than anyone else needed her.
As much as she loved her brother, as much as she needed him right back, she also needed…more. She wanted her own life, she wanted to fall in love, she wanted be more than just Jules Clarke but with her life so aligned with Cam's, she didn't feel like that were possible.
But she would go to the rink tomorrow, she would show her face and meet the staff and say hi to bunch of hockey players she’d come to know in passing over the years all thanks to her brother's career.
And she would meet Coach Stevens, though they'd already met.
Weeks ago.
