My Dad's Hocky Coach Is Obsessed With Me

Chapter four

Maya's POV

By the next morning, Marcus had already been busy spreading lies about me.

I started to hear the gossip floating around. First, I heard it in the locker room before practice, when I stepped in. The conversations dropped to half a volume as I walked into the room, and I noticed Jade and Priya staring at me.

I paid no attention to them and moved to my locker, pulling it open. I listened to the murmuring behind me build back up carefully, as if they thought if they were careful enough about it I wouldn't notice.

"She literally used her dad to...."

"That's what I heard too, apparently she...."

"And what she did to Marcus too. Crazy!"

Finally, I was so angry that I whirled around. "If any of you have something to say about my personal life, say it to my face or don't say it at all. And if you're not on the ice in four minutes, I will make sure Coach Garrison runs you into the ground for the rest of the week."

Everyone in the locker room stared at me in surprise, then Dani summoned the courage to ask:

"Um, Captain? We were just wondering about something. We heard that you and Coach Garrison were a little too um... physically close during your private session yesterday, that you guys might be..." her voice trailed off. "Is that true?"

I paused, astonished. "What, is this the lie that dingbat Marcus has been feeding you?"

"Is it a lie, though?" A new voice chimed in, and I glanced at the door to see Sienna walking in. She was already in her hockey gear. "I saw you guys at the ice as well. Weren't you practically hugging?"

"Nothing like that happened, Sienna!" I growled. "Stop spreading lies!"

"I only asked." Sienna shrugged, stopping right in front of me. Her cold, gray eyes were filled with venom. "I wonder what your dad would have to say if he knew about this. His precious daughter, getting up close and personal with the new hockey coach. Who, if my memory serves me right, was fired from his last coaching job for being inappropriate with a student athlete. Can you imagine that? What would the president of Harlow University do if he found out?"

"Like I said," I glowered at Sienna. "Stop spreading lies. And as for you all..." I turned around, glaring at all the girls in the room. "You seem to be forgetting that I am the captain of this team, and whatever I say goes. I do not want to hear anything about this issue from anyone ever again. Do you understand?"

"Whatever you say, Captain." Sienna mockingly raised her arms in surrender and stepped back. But there was still a look of contempt in her eyes.

"Let's go, girls!" I yelled. "Get on the ice!"

I followed them as they all filed out of the locker room. Marcus had always been good at this, taking a version of events and sanding it down until it looked like something else entirely. I knew what he was doing. He was getting ahead of the story and telling his own version of it, so that people wouldn't believe me when I told him he cheated on me with a girl from another college. The craziest part was that his plan was apparently working.

Everyone now believed something was up between the coach and I.

Practice was already set up when we got on the ice. Coach Garrison was at the far end, running through something on his clipboard without looking up. I took my position and waited.

Finally, he looked up from his clipboard. "Good morning, ladies. We will be starting with a few personal sessions—"

"Like the personal one you had with Captain Fletcher yesterday?" Sienna asked with a fake innocence on her face. Coach Garrison's face hardened.

After practice, I stayed back to re-tape my stick near the tunnel entrance. I took longer than was really necessary, because I needed a minute alone before I could deal with the rest of the day. I heard voices coming from around the corner, two staff members, a man and a woman I recognized vaguely as being from the athletic department.

I wasn't trying to listen, but it was hard to tune this particular conversation out.

"...the new coach Garrison's situation at his last program," the woman was saying to the man. "I heard that the whole thing was fabricated, the athlete admitted it eventually, but by then the damage was already. Who would have thought?"

"He lost everything though," the man added with an amused tone. "And he was the youngest hockey coach in the bay area too, can you imagine that? His reputation was in the mud."

"But you have to wonder if it was smart, putting him in charge of a women's team again after..."

"Stop eavesdropping, Fletcher."

I flinched in shock as I turned around to see that Coach Garrison was standing two feet behind me. He was watching me with the first look of amusement I had ever seen on his face.

"I wasn't eavesdropping" I protested. "It's impossible not to hear what they were saying.... they were being so loud!"

"Which means you were eavesdropping," he said.

I looked at him, and because I couldn't think of a reason not to, I asked directly. "Is it true? What they were saying about your last coaching position? Were you really fired because of..."

He didn't look away. "Yes."

I processed that for a second. A false accusation involving a female athlete. And now he was here again at Harlow University, running another women's hockey program, reporting to my father. Not to mention that the rumor mill was already working overtime, telling people that something was going on between us.

The similarity between his old job and this new one was so glaring that it made me uncomfortable. And it made me realise something else entirely.

"That's why you're so hard on me," I whispered. It wasn't really a question.

"What you're doing is taking half a conversation you heard, and building a story out of it. Stop." He ordered. "It's not your business, Fletcher. Whatever you think you must have heard about me, whatever you think you understand about this situation, leave it alone before it comes back to bite you. Practice is over. Shouldn't you be at a class or the other?"

Coach Garrison turned around and made to walk away before I could answer that question. He was right—I did have classes. But I wasn't letting him get off that easily.

I picked up my bag, and I followed the Coach as he walked away.