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“No need to leave, Mason, son.” His hand landed on my shoulder, squeezing. “Harper won’t be staying.”
Ouch. His words landed like blows, and Harper flinched, hurt filling her expression and dulling the usual sparkle in her eyes.
“Dad, come on, please.” She lowered her voice, glancing around the bar. But we were away from the crowd, everything quieter at this end of the bar. “You shouldn’t be here; you know that.”
“Go back to your friends, Harper. We’ll talk about this another time.”
He was so dismissive of her, so cold. It made me wonder what had gone down between them.
“Dad—”
But Coach turned his back on her and laid his elbows on the bar. Tears clung to her lashes, but I didn’t know what to do. They were clearly on the outs, and I was way out of my territory here.
Her dejected gaze slid to mine, and she looked ready to say something, but a couple of the rookies came over.
“Coach D, we thought that was you,” Ward said.
“Just wanted to run something by Mason. Come on, get in here. We should toast the win tonight.”
Ward and Leon looked to me, but I shrugged. He was our Coach, for fuck’s sake, our elder. It wasn’t like we could send him on his way even if the whole thing didn’t sit right with me.
“Oh, hey, Harper,” Ward said, finally noticing her standing there. “What’s—”
She turned around and stormed off, melting into the crowd before I could say anything.
“Okay, that was weird.”
“Always been a handful, that one.” Coach Dixon blew out a steady breath. “Don’t know what I did in a former life to end up with a daughter like that. But the big man upstairs must have really had it in for me.”
“She give you a lot of trouble growing up, Coach?”
“Something like that,” he murmured, nursing his drink which I noticed was neat liquor.
My eyes flicked back to where Harper had disappeared, a strange feeling going through me.
“The problem with women is they don’t know when the hell to stay out of your business,” Coach went on. “Honestly, do yourselves a favor and focus on the game. Women are a dime a dozen. But hockey”—he lifted his glass and held it toward us—“hockey will never see you wrong.”
Ward arched a brow at me over the top of Coach’s head, and I frowned. He wasn’t talking any sense. Then as quick as he’d arrived, Coach stood up, drained his drink, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“I should probably head out,” he said. “Leave you guys to enjoy your night. I’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t stay out too late.”
He disappeared into the crowd, and I let out a strained breath.
“Want to tell us what that was all about?” Ward asked as I stared after Coach D, trying to make sense of what had just happened.
“Mase?” Leon added, and I blinked over at both of them.
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
* * *
“I’m heading out,” I said to Austin.
At some point, the team had thinned. My friends had all left with their girls, and the rookies had found their bunny of choice for the night. So Austin and I had kicked back and watched the ESPN highlights while the celebrations went on around us.
He looked up from his phone, and I lifted a brow. “Fallon?”
“Yeah. She wants me to go over.”
