The Hockey Alpha Rejected His Plus Sized Mate

Wolves in the Locker Room

Chapter Six: Wolves in the Locker Room

Nora's POV

"Say it again."

Theo didn't blink. "Navy and gold. Iron Wolves colors. That's what the kid at the gate remembers seeing."

"That's a color. Not a name."

"It's a start."

I slid the folder across the table like it had teeth. "You knew before I said a word. Your face didn't do the thing faces do when a person's actually surprised."

"What thing is that?"

"The thing where you're surprised."

"I was hoping I was wrong about who it wasn't."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I've got tonight."

"Give me a name, Theo."

"No." Flat. Final. "We pull the whole roster. Every man in this building, one at a time, like we're scouting somebody else's team. Not hunting our own."

"You already suspect somebody. I can hear it in how careful you're being."

"I suspect three men and I trust none of my suspicions yet. That's worse than suspecting nobody."

"Then we go faster."

"We go smart. There's a difference, and you know it."

"Smart got us a stolen phone taped under a filing cabinet and a jacket color. Smart isn't moving fast enough."

"Smart is the only thing standing between us and accusing an innocent kid in front of his whole pack. You want to be the coach who does that?"

I didn't answer. He knew I didn't have to.

Practice had a smell to it the next morning. Not sweat. Something underneath the sweat.

"You're staring," Marchetti said, gliding past at half speed.

"I'm coaching."

"You're staring at Delacroix."

"I coach everybody with the same amount of staring."

"Sure you do." He laughed and skated off.

One player kept his head down after the whistle while every other man in the drill looked up to check the clock. Just one.

Theo found me at the board. "Anything?"

"One."

"Say it."

"Not yet."

"Nora"

"If I'm wrong, I've made an enemy out of a boy who's done nothing but skate hard for a coach the whole league told him not to trust."

"And if you're right?"

"Then I've still got nothing but a stare he hasn't earned yet. Instinct isn't evidence."

"Fine." His jaw worked. "But the second you've got more than instinct, I'm the first to call."

"You'll be the only call."

"Say that like you mean it."

"I mean it, Theo. I'm not running to Grayson with this. Not after everything."

"Wasn't thinking about Grayson."

"Then what were you thinking?"

He didn't answer that one either. Some things a captain doesn't say out loud on an open rink.

Security paged me at ten past ten. "Coach, a man's asking for you at the gate."

Theo beat me there, standing between Grayson and the glass like a wall somebody built on purpose.

"She's working," Theo said. "You're a distraction."

"I'm not here to be a distraction." Grayson's voice came out rougher than it used to sound under stadium lights. "I couldn't stop the car from driving itself to this lot three nights running."

"Then turn it around and drive it somewhere else."

"I will." His eyes found mine over Theo's shoulder for exactly one second before Theo blocked the line. "Tell her I'm not asking to be forgiven. I'm asking to stand somewhere near the wreckage I made."

"She doesn't owe you anything."

"I know what I'm owed. Nothing."

"Then you already know why you're not walking through this door."

"I do." Grayson's gaze didn't leave the space where mine had been. "Tell her the offer doesn't expire. Tell her I'll be standing in every parking lot in this league until she's ready or until she isn't. Either way, I'm not disappearing quietly this time."

"She heard you the first time you disappeared quietly. Worked out fine for her."

Grayson didn't argue that. He turned and walked into the rain like patience was the only currency he had left to spend on me.

I found the paper on my way out folded twice under my wiper so security wouldn't catch him leaving it. Ten numbers. No name. Like he already knew I'd recognize the handwriting.

I stood in that lot longer than any self-respecting woman should stand reading a phone number in the rain.

I put it in my pocket anyway.

Theo came into the film room at nine, dropping into the chair beside me. Close enough that his heat reached me. Not one inch closer than that.

"You didn't have to run him off," I said.

"Somebody did."

"I can handle Grayson."

"Didn't say you couldn't." He nodded at the frozen screen. "Delacroix's edges are late again."

"I noticed."

"You noticed three seconds of the same clip for twenty minutes and haven't touched your coffee once."

"Maybe I like it cold."

"Maybe." He didn't push it. "You did well today. All of it."

"The practice was sloppy."

"Wasn't talking about the practice."

"Then say what you mean."

"I mean you carried a building full of people who don't know they're being hunted, and you didn't let one of them see your hand shake. That's not coaching. That's something else."

"What else, Theo?"

"You tell me when you're ready to hear the answer."

"I'm asking now."

"You're tired now. Ask me again when you've slept."

"Go home, Theo."

"Will. In a minute."

"You said that an hour ago."

"Clock's wrong."

The minute lasted longer than a minute. Neither of us said anything about that either.

I went back for my charger a little after ten-thirty. The office sat dark the way I'd left it except for one thing.

The tape under the filing cabinet was gone.

Not peeling. Not loosened. Gone. No residue, no scuff where that second phone had sat for three days while I worked out whose secret it belonged to. Somebody hadn't stumbled onto it by accident. Somebody had walked in already knowing the exact inch of floor to reach for, and left without a mark to prove they'd ever stood there.

That meant a key. That meant a short list of people with any right to carry one.

I pulled out my own phone and called Theo before I'd even decided to.

"It's gone," I said.

Silence on his end. Then: "The phone under the cabinet?"

"You knew exactly which phone I meant before I finished the sentence."

"Nora"

"How did you know, Theo?"

"Let me explain in person."

"Explain now."

The line stayed quiet just half a second too long, the kind of pause a man makes when he's choosing which true thing to say first.

And that pause told me more than any name on any roster ever could.