Page 24 of Uncoachable

“Of course she’s confident. Wouldn’t you be, with your dad upstairs making sure no one touches you?”

The voice belongs to Miller, a veteran winger who’s been coasting on a high shooting percentage for three seasons. He says it just loud enough for the guys on the bench to hear; a pebble tossed into a still pond to see how far the ripples go.

I don’t stop the practice. I don’t even blink.

But inside, that old, familiar fire flares up in my chest. It’s an exhaustion that lives in my marrow—the constant need to be twice as good just to be considered half as worthy.

I look past Miller and lock eyes with Callahan.

He’s standing by the circles, leaning on his stick.

I see the conflict in his face—the part of him that wants to agree because it’s easy to dismiss a woman as a “daughter,” and the part of him that just spent the last hour running the most efficient transition drills of his career.

He doesn’t defend me. He isn’t my knight in shining armor. But he doesn’t laugh, either. He just watches me, his gaze heavy and unreadable, as I direct the next line into place.

By the end of the session, the team is exhausted.

The work speaks louder than lineage ever could.

As they clear the ice, Noah skates over—clumsily, since he’s better with a computer mouse than a stick.

“The numbers are improving faster than projected,” he says quietly, looking at his tablet. “Even accounting for the variance in Miller’s laziness.”

“Good. Keep tracking it.”

“They’ll notice soon,” he adds. “The logic is undeniable.”

I meet his eyes. “They already are noticing, Noah. That’s why they’re getting louder.”

Noah’s brows pull together for a moment, before he turns and skates away with a slow, deliberate push.

I gather my things and leave without ceremony.

The hallway swallows me, my footsteps echoing against concrete. Cold air trails after me, sharp and clean, carrying the scrape of skates and the muffled locker room chatter behind closed doors.

I walk past the photos on the wall.

I don’t stop this time. I don’t look at the championships or the captains or my father when he was young.

Because if I do, I’ll start thinking about the difference between earning something and being assumed to have earned it, and I don’t have time for that today.

Tonight, there will be drinks with Jenna.

Tomorrow, there will be practice again.

And somewhere between those two things, they will decide what story they want to tell about me.

I intend to make it very hard for them to choose the wrong one.

7

Iveline Talvi St. James

Rick added you to “THE ADULTS”

7:13 PM

Jenna: She’s coming. Or at least she said she would…