Page 65 of Her Coach

I chuckled. “Sounds like he was proud.”

She nodded. “Very proud. He’d christen the ice every year, too. With the Zamboni? He’d come in early during game days to run the Zamboni himself over the ice. He had this insane thing he used to do where he’d fill the Zamboni tank up with treated water from the river.”

“From the river?” I asked. “Just, like, the river that runs just outside of town?”

She nodded. “That’s the one. He’d get a couple of buckets, treat it for god-knows-what, and then he’d put that into the Zamboni and use it to resurface the ice for the games.”

“Do I even want to ask why he did that?”

She grinned. “Dad was always an outdoorsman, and his belief was that since hockey started outdoors, there needed to be a little bit of the outdoors inside of the arena.”

“Huh.”

I kind of liked that.

Brynn finally cut into her steak and took a bite, and the moan she gave while she chewed pulled me into a completely different headspace. Gone was the conversation about hockey and games. Gone was the conversation about family or whatever else bullshit we would’ve come up with. I slid my foot beneath the table toward hers, not stopping until I felt my pant leg brush against her bare calf. And as she peeked over at me from across the table, the city lit up behind her like it was trying to compete, I licked my lower lip before I asked the first of many questions I wanted an answer to.

We finished dinner slowly, the way neither of us seemed to be in a hurry for the night to end. When the check came, I didn’t reach for it so much as I just set my card on top of the folder without opening it. The waiter was gone before Brynn could even clock what happened.

“You didn’t even look at it,” she said.

“No,” I said.

She watched me with that look she got sometimes, like she was trying to decide if she was impressed or annoyed. “Must be nice.”

“It’s not something I think about,” I said honestly. “That’s probably the most honest thing I can tell you about it.”

She considered that for a second. Then she nodded once, the way she did when something settled right with her. “That tracks, actually.”

“I want to say something,” I said, “and I need you to let me get through it before you say anything back.”

She set her fork down. “Okay.”

I kept my voice low. “I should’ve stopped the second I figured out what was going on the other day. You should’ve had time. More than a lunch break in my office. More than me moving too fast because I didn’t slow down enough to pay attention to the signs that were right in front of my face.” I held her eyes. “That’s on me, Brynn. Not on you. You didn’t do anything wrong. But I did, and I’m telling you that straight.”

She opened her mouth.

“Not done,” I said.

She closed it again. Her cheeks were pink, but she stayed quiet.

“You chose me,” I said. “I understand that. And I’m not going to sit here and make you explain yourself about it, because you don’t owe me an explanation. But you’re not a woman who does things halfway, Brynn. I’ve known that since the first night you stood behind that bar. So the fact that you chose me — chosen or not — means something. And I want to do right by it.” I reached across the table and covered her hand with mine. “I’m not going anywhere. And I’m not going to go weird on you. But I am going to be more careful with you than I was. You deserve that.”

She stared at me for a long second. “You’re not going to make it weird?”

“Not weird,” I said. “Just better.”

The breath she let out told me she’d been carrying that since Tuesday. She picked her fork back up. “Okay.”

“Okay,” I said back.

“Tell me something,” I said as I picked up my fork and stabbed at my potatoes. “How did you end up working at The Hideout?”

26

BRYNN

I loved the way he said things. The way he softly demanded, but never commanded. He told me to do things, but never with malice. Never with any ill intent.