2
877 Words
Cole POV
I almost kissed her. I almost kissed Mia Vance, my head coach's daughter, a woman young enough to be my rookie, and the only person who's made me feel something other than rust and regret in two years.
If she hadn't pulled back first, I would have crossed every line I spent eighteen months building.
Her father's voice faded down the hallway. The closet went silent and she was still pressed against me, her breath uneven, her body trembling for reasons I didn't understand yet.
I had my hand on her jaw. My thumb on her lip. Her fingers curled into my shirt like she wanted to kiss me too.
Then she turned her face away.
My jaw tightened.
"Don't," she whispered.
I let go immediately, stepping back. My heart was pounding like I'd just played a triple overtime game. Stupid.
She was off limits for a hundred reasons and the loudest one was the one standing ten feet away behind a closed door.
David Vance. Her father. The man who destroyed my knee.
She doesn't know that, of course. She thinks I retired because of a bad break, a freak accident. She doesn't know her father looked at my MRI results, shoved them in a drawer and told me to get back on the ice. "One more shift," he said. "We need the cup."
That shift tore my ACL, my MCL, and every dream I had left. I hadn't touched a hockey stick in eighteen months. Not because I can't.
But because every time I look at a rink, I see his face smiling behind the bench. And now looking at her in the dark... Those green eyes, that sharp tongue, the way she flinched when she heard the name Marcus... All I saw was him. Her father's DNA runs through her veins.
The daughter of the man who stole my body.
I hate that I still wanted to kiss her.
She slipped out of the closet first, and didn't turn back to look at me. "Lock the door," she said, trying to hide the way her voice shook. But I heard it. She walked out of the office like nothing happened. .I stayed behind, counting to sixty, trying to calm my racing heart.
Avoid her, I told myself. One more lie won't kill you.
*****
The next morning, I was on the ice before sunrise, running drills with the junior affiliate, a bunch of kids who thought they were gods because they got drafted in the third round.
My job was to keep them from killing each other before the season started.
It was a joke. I was the assistant coach.
"Again," I barked. "Faster on the breakout. You're skating like my grandmother."
They laughed. I didn't. My knee aches. It always ached. The cold made it worse but I refused to wear a brace. A brace meant admitting I was broken and I would rather be limp than admit anything.
Mia wasn't there. Good. I scanned the stands out of habit. Just me, and the kids.
I was engrossed in my thoughts when I heard screaming. f***s sake. Carter and Reeves. They were both nineteen and still acted stupid. Carter slashed Reeves across the shins. Reeves dropped his glove and threw a punch.
I blew the whistle. "Enough."
They didn't stop. Carter grabbed Reeves by the jersey. Reeves swung wild, missed, hit me instead... His elbow connecting with my ribs.
I stumbled back. My skate caught a rut in the ice.
I went down hard. .my left leg twisted underneath me. The same knee.
The same sound, a wet pop that I heard before I felt it. Pain exploded up my thigh, my hip, white and hot and familiar in the worst way.
I stifled my scream. I groaned, grabbing my knee and felt it swell. Oh no. In a flash, I was twenty eight again, lying on the ice while Mia's father watched and did nothing.
My breath came out in uneven pulls.
"Coach?" Carter called, his face going pale. "Oh s**t. Coach, I'm sorry..."
"Get off the ice," I forced out. "Both of you. Now."
They scrambled. The rest of the team followed. Within thirty seconds, the rink was empty, leaving me alone, flat on the back staring at the scoreboard that hadn't changed in years.
My knee was on fire. My chest was tight with anger. I should have left them to their stupidity.
And now, I couldn't even stand. I was still too proud to ask for help.
Eighteen months. Eighteen months of physical therapy, of injections, of lying to myself that I could still be part of this world without paying for it and now this. Two kids who wouldn't listen.
I couldn't remain lying on the floor forever. I needed to stand up. I tried but my legs bucked, hitting the ground.
I exhaled.
I remained on the ice, the cold seeping through my clothes and I thought about her. Mia. The way her body pressed against me.
This was the wrong moment to be thinking about her but the moment her face flashed in my memory, somehow my heart relaxed.
I heard someone running on the concourse.
"Cole?"
Her voice.
Of course it was her.
- Writer
