Page 108 of Uncoachable

I feel his attention anyway—it’s like a physical pressure between my shoulder blades, like a heat I refuse to acknowledge. Every instinct in me wants to explain myself to him, to clarify what is happening, to anchor us both.

Instead, I do what I’ve always done best.

I control the distance.

When he finally approaches me near the bench—his movements careful, measured, and painfully professional—I can feel the air around us turn static.

“Everything okay?” he asks.

“Yes.”

My chest tightens with a fresh surge of guilt and a small, sharp flare of longing.

He nods once and skates away, accepting my answer at face value because that’s what professionals do.

I can see the tension in the way he holds his stick—the tightness in his forearms and the way he doesn’t chirp at Cash or joke with Nico during the drills.

He’s mirroring my distance, but he isn’t doing it because he wants to. He’s doing it because he respects me enough to follow my lead, even when that lead is taking us both off a cliff.

Every time our paths cross on the ice during the scrimmage, the air feels heavy, as if it’s saturated with all the things we aren’t allowed to say.

I see Callahan at the top of the circles, his jersey billowing as he stops, and I realize the silence I’m imposing on us is a different kind of violence.

I’m asking him to be a ghost in the one place he’s most alive.

I want to tell him I’m sorry. I want to tell him that my father’s voice is stuck in my head. I want to tell him that seeing his hand on my waist in that video didn’t make me feel ‘compromised’—it made me feel safe for the first time in years.

But I say nothing.

I blow the whistle for the next drill. I point to the whiteboard and draw lines that look like a cage. I act like the ice between us isn’t melting into a dark, freezing pool that could swallow both of our careers.

By the time I leave the rink, the arena is nearly empty. I check the parking lot from the window; his car is gone.

Good, I tell myself. This is how I protect what I’ve spent my entire life building.

I pause by my car, letting the freezing air fill my lungs, trying to ground the swirl of adrenaline, shame, and reluctant tenderness in my chest.

I know there is no undoing the surge. There is no soft landing back in the real world where we are just a coach and a captain. But somewhere beneath the panic, I can still feel the bond we’ve built—a trust, a tether, an awareness that even in the middle of this chaos, he would still meet me halfway if I just asked.

I turn toward the street, the cold creeping under my coat, and for the first time in days, the panic loosens its grip. Because even with the distance between us, I know he hasn’t checked out. He’s steady; he’s present; he understands more than I can say right now.

And for the moment, that has to be enough.

29

Callahan

Tomorrow Round Two starts, and I should be thinking about matchups and forecheck pressure—not standing here waiting for a woman who’s been avoiding me like I’m the next mistake she can’t afford.

The video room is quiet in a way that feels intentional. The lights are dimmed, the massive screens are dark, and the chairs are pushed in too neatly, as if someone designed this space specifically for distance.

I stand near the long laminate table and wait.

I am the captain of this team. I’ve been trained for years to lead, to be the steady hand when the game goes into overtime, and to be the voice of reason when the bench starts to boil over.

But standing here in the dark, I don’t feel like a leader.

I feel like a man watching his world catch fire and realizing he’s the one holding the match.