Page 98 of Uncoachable

I want it to remind me that I’m awake and that all of this is actually real.

I watch the guys pile into Ubers, shouting friendly insults and laughing into the night.

They are a mess of massive egos and raw talent, but they are my mess.

I look up at the dark sky and take a deep, steady breath.

The playoffs are coming, and the pressure is only going to get worse from here. But for the first time in my life, I know for a fact that I don’t have to carry that weight alone.

Behind me, I hear the heavy door of the restaurant open and a familiar, steady tread on the concrete.

I don’t have to turn around to know exactly who it is.

I just wait, letting the warmth of the dinner and the sting of the cold settle into a perfect, terrifying balance.

26

Callahan

The door clicks shut behind me, and the cold hits like a clean slap—sharp enough to cut through the leftover noise of the restaurant.

Ivy is already at the curb, her coat still open, looking up at the sky as if she’s trying to memorize the stars over Boston.

There’s something different about her tonight, something softer around the edges, and for the first time since she walked into our locker room months ago, I’m not looking at the Ice Queen. I’m looking at the woman who stood in front of a room full of exhausted players and made them believe in themselves again.

She doesn’t turn around immediately, but I see her shoulders drop just a fraction of an inch.

She knows it’s me.

She always knows where I am on the ice, and apparently, that radar extends to the sidewalk too.

“You’re going to catch another fever standing out here like that,” I say, my voice low. It carries easily in the quiet of the street.

She finally turns, her cheeks flushed pink from the cold and the wine. “I’m fine, Callahan. The cold helps me think. It clears out the noise.”

“I’ve heard that one before,” I counter, stopping a few feet away.

I want to move closer. I want to bridge the gap and wrap my arms around her just to see if she’s still as warm as she was that night in the apartment, but I stay back.

Professional optics, even on a dark sidewalk, are a bitch to maintain.

“That was a hell of a speech, Ivy.”

“It wasn’t a speech,” she insists, though the corner of her mouth twitches. “It was a statement of facts.”

“Whatever you want to call it, the boys would follow you into a burning building right now. You saw Cash’s face. I thought he was going to ask you to adopt him. Even Brick looked like he was considering a smile, and that’s a medical miracle.”

She lets out a soft, genuine laugh that puffs into a white cloud in the cold air.

We stand there for a moment, the silence between us feeling a lot more comfortable than it used to. The tension is still there, but it’s not the kind that makes you want to fight.

It’s the kind that makes you want to stay.

“I talked to your father,” I say, the words slipping out before I can talk myself out of it.

“You did what?”

“Relax. I didn’t ask for a trade,” I say, trying to keep the mood light. “I just told him what everyone else was too afraid to say. That he’s lucky to have you. And that he needs to start acting like it.”