Page 118 of Uncoachable

I look toward the bench, my head spinning.

Ivy has lost every ounce of the icy, professional composure that earned her the nickname Ice Queen. She is leaning so far over the boards she’s nearly falling, her face inches from the referee’s. Her eyes are wide, manic with a protective fury that makes the veteran official flinch.

She isn’t arguing the logistics of the hit; she is demanding blood. She’s yelling, her voice cracking as she demands a five-minute major, a game misconduct, an expulsion.

And then, the Finnish starts. It’s a rapid-fire torrent of vowels and consonants that sound like a curse, her face flushed, her teeth bared.

The cameras are already on her.

I can see the overhead jumbotron from the corner of my eye. Her image is plastered across the screen—the “Ice Queen” melting down in front of a national audience. The other coaches are trying to pull her back, trying to get her to settle, but she shakes them off.

The trainers are gripping my jersey now, talking to me, but I can’t stop looking at her.

Then, as they start to help me up, I see her do something even worse for her career.

She doesn’t wait for the whistle to resume play. She doesn’t wait for the period to end. She turns her back on the game, on the bench, and on Rick who is screaming her name. She storms toward the tunnel entrance, her heels clicking a frantic rhythm on the rubber mats.

She is abandoning the game in the middle of a tie-score conference final.

The crowd’s murmur turns into a roar of confusion. The broadcasters will be losing their minds. Where is she going? Why did Talvi leave the bench?

I know why.

The walk down the tunnel is a slow-motion nightmare.

Every jolt of the trainers’ shoulders as they support me sends a fresh spike of agony through my collarbone. The biting cold of the rink shifts to the stale warmth of the back hallways. The roar of twenty thousand people dissolves into a dull, muffled hum trapped behind concrete walls.

We reach the medical room—the real one, tucked away from the prying eyes of the press. They guide me toward the padded exam table, and as I sink onto it, the door slams open.

Iveline’s breathing like she just finished a marathon. Her hair has fallen loose from its bun, dark strands sticking to her forehead, damp with the sweat of her exertion. Her eyes scan me with a desperate, frantic intensity.

“Callahan,” she says, her voice raw and stripped of all armor.

“Ivy, you left,” I rasp, my teeth gritted against the pain. “The game… you can’t just walk away.”

“Shut up,” she says, moving toward me.

She pushes past the head trainer, ignoring his confused look. She’s in my space, her hands trembling as they hover over my shoulder, afraid to touch but unable to pull away.

The room is a hive of activity. Trainers are cutting away my jersey, the fabric falling to the floor in heavy, sweat-soaked strips.

“Älä liiku,” she whispers.

(Don’t move)

She grabs an ice pack from a nearby tray, her movements sharp and unsteady.

She is rattled.

And the fact that I rattled her—not a blown call, not a losing streak, but the sight of my body hitting the boards—makes my chest ache worse than my shoulder ever could.

She presses the ice pack to the joint. The cold burns, bright and vicious, and my vision blurs again.

“I shouldn’t care this much,” she whispers, so low the trainers can’t hear.

“Iveline—”

“Don’t.” Her voice cracks. She steadies it with a sharp inhale, forcing the professional mask back on, but it’s slipping at the corners. “You scared me. When you didn’t get up… I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t care about the game. I didn’t care about the score. I just needed to be where you were.”