Page 33 of Uncoachable

A few guys glance at Hale. He’s flushing a deep red now.

She doesn’t stop.

She’s on a roll, and the hangover seems to have stripped away any desire she had to be “polite.”

“I coached for eight years overseas in leagues you wouldn’t last a week in,” she says, her voice like a knife. “I earned licenses you don’t even know exist. I’ve rebuilt teams older than you are. And if I wanted my father to help me, I wouldn’t be here in Boston. I’d be somewhere much quieter, much richer, and with a hell of a lot less patience for players who think their shooting percentage excuses them from having a brain.”

I skate a little closer to the center, my hands clenched around my stick. I’m feeling a confusing mix of admiration and irritation. Watching her dismantle Hale so effortlessly is unsettling.

Hale opens his mouth to respond, but she steps even closer.

Every head in the rink is leaning in now.

Every eye is on her.

“If you have a legitimate issue with my coaching, bring me data. Bring me film. Bring me effort. But don’t you dare bring me excuses dressed up as misogyny.”

The word lands like a physical slap.

It hangs in the freezing air, as visible as the breath leaving our lungs.

Most coaches would have danced around it. They would have called it “disrespect.” But Iveline called it exactly what it was, and the silence that follows is heavy enough to break the ice beneath us.

Hale looks like he’s just been doused in a bucket of cold water.

He’s a big guy, a power forward who prides himself on being the toughest man in the room, but he looks incredibly small standing in front of her right now.

And then I see him.

William St. James is posted behind the rink-side glass, hands clasped behind his back, observing everything without a word.

He doesn’t move. He doesn’t tap on the boards or blow a whistle to intervene. He just stands there like an ancient, judgmental god.

The resemblance between him and Iveline is terrifying in this light—the same tilt of the head, the same absolute refusal to blink.

I realize then that she isn’t just fighting us. She’s fighting the man in the suit up there. Every word she just yelled at Hale was meant for her father, too.

She’s telling her worth at the one person who probably never gave her enough of it.

“Now—are we done crying about my last name, or do you actually want to skate?”

No one says a word.

“What?” she snaps, her irritation finally cracking through the professional veneer. “You all had plenty to say five minutes ago. Where’s that energy now?”

She turns to head toward the bench—and then she freezes. Her shoulders bunch up just a fraction. It’s a tiny movement, but it’s enough to catch my attention because I’m looking for it.

She’s seen him.

For once, in the history of this franchise, no one in the arena breathes at all.

9

Iveline Talvi St. James

The worst part isn’t that my father heard me.

It’s that I didn’t notice him until it was already too late.