The Hockey Alpha Rejected His Plus Sized Mate

A Second Chance

Chapter Three: A Second Chance

Nora's POV

"You're staring at my door like it owes you money," I said, arms crossed.

Theo Hart didn't smile. "I came to talk. Not stare."

"It's one in the morning."

"I know what time it is."

"Then you know this could've waited."

"It couldn't."

I stepped back to let him in. He walked past the boxes by my bookshelf and stopped.

"Moving?" he asked.

"Packing things away. Not the same thing."

"Looks the same from here."

"Did you come to critique my apartment, Theo Hart?"

"I came because I watched you build three championships for a team that never put your name on anything."

"You know my name."

"Everyone knows your name tonight."

"That's what the last person who knocked on my door said too."

"Someone else came by?"

"A reporter. I sent him away."

"I'm not a reporter."

"You're the captain of a team that hasn't made the playoffs in three years."

"Don't round up on us. We've got enough problems."

I almost laughed. "Why are you here, Theo?"

"The Iron Wolves are dying. I'm done watching it happen."

"That's a team problem. Not mine."

"I think it could be."

"I'm not a player."

"I don't need a player. I need someone who sees the ice the way you do."

"Lots of people build plays."

"Not like the one I watched eleven times trying to figure out who designed it. It had a signature."

"So you want me coaching a team that's never once asked my opinion?"

"I'm asking now."

"After tonight? After a man rejected me in front of the entire league?"

"I don't care what happened on that ice."

"Everyone cares what happened on that ice."

"I care that you think the game like nobody on my roster does anymore. That's the whole pitch."

"That's barely a sentence."

"Is it working?"

"No."

"Liar."

"My team mocks anyone who doesn't fit some idea of what a player should look like," he said. "I won't pretend otherwise. But I think you'd walk in there and make every one of them regret it."

"Big promise."

"I don't make promises I can't keep."

"Everyone says that right before they break one."

"Then watch me not."

"I need to think."

"Take the night."

"Might need longer."

"I'm not going anywhere."

My mother called before I'd decided what to tell her.

"Theo Hart," she said. "The Iron Wolves captain."

"That's the one."

"And he wants you coaching."

"He wants help. There's a difference."

"With you, baby, there's always a difference, and you always end up doing the help anyway. That boy on the ice took something from you tonight in front of the whole world. Don't hand him the rest of it too, out of fear."

"I'm not scared."

"You don't have to be brave on the phone with me. Just don't let tonight write tomorrow's answer for you."

"I'll think about it."

"That's all I'm asking."

Kenzie called twenty minutes later, already mid-thought before I said hello.

"Iron Wolves. Last place. A locker room full of guys who think rejection's contagious."

"I know who they are."

"And you're still considering it."

"I'm considering a door that's actually open, Kenz. That's rarer than it sounds."

"Fine. But you walk in there and you make them earn the right to underestimate you twice. Once is free. Twice they pay for it."

"That's almost a good line."

"I've been saving it."

Every head turned when I walked into the locker room beside Theo.

"This is a joke," someone muttered, not quietly enough.

"Say that again," Theo said, "and you're running suicides until Christmas."

"No," I said. "Let him say it again. I want to hear it clearly."

"I said this is a joke."

"Good. Now watch the joke and fix your power play."

At the whiteboard, I drew the breakout they'd been running wrong all season, the one that stranded their left wing every time.

"Your wolf wants to charge straight through," I said. "That instinct's not wrong. It's early. Wait one beat. Let the gap open itself."

"And if it doesn't?"

"It will. Trust the play before you trust your legs."

"Easy to say from a whiteboard."

"Easy to say from a man who hasn't scored in six games either."

A few players laughed before they caught themselves. He didn't.

"You don't know this room," he said, quieter now. "You weren't here for the losing. You weren't here for any of it."

"No. But I've been studying it since October, and I know exactly where it broke."

He didn't answer that. His jaw stayed tight, like he hadn't decided yet whether I'd earned anything.

"Run it tomorrow exactly how I drew it. If it fails, blame me."

Finn dropped a box of old Falcons tape by the rink before practice.

"Coaching the Iron Wolves," he said. "Grayson's going to lose his mind."

"That's not my problem anymore."

"I know. I'm telling you anyway, because somebody should warn you before it shows up at your door instead. He's not eating. He skipped practice twice this week. I've known him for twelve years and I've never seen him like this."

"You came here to tell me he's suffering."

"I came here to drop off tape. The rest just came out."

Alone in the film room, scrolling through footage, the box of tapes still unopened beside me, I caught it. Faint at first, almost nothing. I told myself I'd imagined it. It came again on the next breath, stronger, pine and snow curling up from the box like it had been waiting for me to notice.

I still went.

It had passed through Grayson's hands before it reached mine. His locker. His fingerprints on every case, long before Finn ever touched them.

My phone buzzed. Kenzie's name, no caption, just a video.

I pressed play.

"I can still feel the bond," Grayson told Finn, off camera, his voice cracking in a way I'd never once heard from him. "It's tearing me apart."

I sat there in the dark, pine and snow still clinging to a box he'd never touched directly, and watched a man fall apart over something he'd thrown away with his own mouth.