Brutal because I couldn't concentrate worth a damn.
My mind fractured in ways it never had before. I'd stand at center ice calling plays, watching the forwards execute breakout patterns, and suddenly I'd be thinking about the tremor in her hands when she'd apologized. The way her voice had caught on the words "please don't fire me" like she'd been swallowing broken glass.
I missed a whistle cue.
Barrett shot me a look—brief, questioning—but didn't call me out in front of the team.
Small mercies.
I forced myself back into the drill. Watched Maddox drive hard toward the net, all explosive power and barely controlled aggression. Watched Crown thread a pass through traffic with that lazy precision that made it look effortless. Watched the defensive pairings I'd spent months training execute zone coverage that should've had my full attention.
Instead, I kept circling back to the café. To the moment her eyes had gone wide with recognition. To the coffee spreading across my hoodie while she'd stood there frozen, terrified I'd destroy her for an accident. To the realization that she thought I was the kind of man who'd fire someone over spilled coffee.
That gutted me worse than anything else.
My skate caught an edge during a transition drill. Not enough to fall—I recovered instantly, muscle memory compensating before conscious thought could interfere—but enough that several players noticed.
I never stumbled. Never lost focus on the ice.
This was my domain. The one place everything made sense.
Except today it didn't. Today I was distracted by a girl half my age, whom I had no business thinking about at all.
Practice ended twenty minutes later than scheduled.
Barrett kept us running power-play sequences until even Maddox looked winded, until the ice had more grooves than a vinyl record, and my legs burned with the kind of exhaustion that should've cleared my head.
It didn't.
I stripped off my gear in silence while the locker room emptied around me. Players filtered out in clusters—some heading to physical therapy, others to the weight room, a few straight home. The usual post-practice exodus.
I took my time. Let the space clear. Gave myself the illusion of control by waiting until the noise faded and I could think without twenty voices layering over each other.
Then I shouldered my bag and headed for the exit.
The hallway stretched long and fluorescent-bright, concrete walls lined with championship banners and framed photographs of players I'd either coached or competed against. My footsteps echoed in the emptiness.
The café sat halfway between the locker room and the parking lot.
I could take the side exit. Avoid it entirely. Add thirty seconds to my walk and eliminate any chance of seeing her.
Smart move. Professional.
I kept walking straight.
Just passing through. Not stopping. Not looking.
The café came into view through the wide glass front—afternoon light slanting across clean counters, chairs stacked on tables, the espresso machine silent for once.
I told myself I wouldn't look.
My gaze cut sideways before I could stop it.
She stood behind the counter wiping down surfaces with methodical precision, hair pulled back, apron slightly crooked. The late afternoon light caught the strands that had escaped her ponytail, turning them copper-gold. She moved with focus now. No tremor in her hands. No fear in her posture. Just quiet concentration on a simple task.
Something in my chest tightened—sharp and uncomfortable and entirely unwelcome.
She looked... settled. Calm. Like maybe the morning's disaster had faded into just another first-day mistake she'd survived.
