Page 46 of Uncoachable

“I’m surrounded by hockey players in their natural habitat,” I say, staring straight ahead at the driver’s neck. “I’m adapting.”

He snorts. “Is this your version of small talk?”

“This is my version of survival.”

“Fair enough.”

He maintains eye contact, letting it linger just a bit too long.

We stay like that for a few minutes, the din of the bus dimming around us until his eyes drift down to my lips and stay there. It’s long enough for me to feel a familiar tension settle into my chest, a heat that has nothing to do with the bus’s overworked heater.

The bus slows to a crawl at a red light in the heart of the city. We are idling near a sidewalk crowded with rowdy fans from the game.

A man, clearly not on speaking terms with sobriety and wearing a rival jersey, recognizes the team logo. He lunges toward the vehicle, banging his fist against the window right next to my head.

The glass shudders. The man presses his face against it, his eyes dragging down my body in a way that makes my skin crawl even through the thick window.

“Hey! Open up!” he slurs, his mouth leaving a fogged smear on the glass. “Didn’t know they let girls on the—”

Callahan is moving before the guy can even finish the thought.

He leans across the aisle, his chest inches from my shoulder, his warmth blooming over me like a blanket. He doesn’t say a word to the man outside. He simply reaches past me and snaps the heavy black curtain shut, blocking out the world, the man, and the light.

He stays there for a second too long, his arm braced against the window frame, effectively shielding me.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“I know,” Callahan replies. He shrugs as if it were the simplest thing in the world. “Did it anyway.”

I blink, momentarily disarmed by his bluntness. Confusion and a strange warmth rise in my chest. It wasn’t the typical alpha-male posturing I’m used to seeing. There was no shouting, just a surgical intervention.

It irritates me that I liked it.

It irritates me that for a single, flickering second, I let myself lean into the shadow he cast.

I’ve fought so hard to be the one in charge, yet here is Callahan Eli Moore, the very man I called a distraction, acting like my personal guard.

The night stretches on as the bus winds through the D.C. streets.

I end up drinking more of the “emergency stash” than I intended—just enough to feel the edges of my world soften. I laugh at Cash’s absurd stories about his time in the minors. I listen as Marcus quietly explains a specific play from the second period, the pride soft in his voice.

Then Kovács vaults over the back of a seat like the bus is his personal jungle gym, landing beside me with a grin that could power a small city.

“Coach,” he declares, pointing at me with a plastic cup, “if we win like this every night, I’m getting your face tattooed on my thigh.”

“Please don’t,” I say.

“Too late,” he winks, even though I know he’s lying. Hopefully…

We reach the hotel, but the team refuses to get off.

The guys are still riding the high of the win, passing the bottle around like we’re parked outside a frat house instead of a four-star hotel.

I slip down the steps and into the cold night air before anyone notices.

The cold D.C. air hits me immediately, making my breath fog in front of my face in the streetlights. Relief seeps in alongside the shock of the cold.

Less than two minutes later, the bus door opens with a hiss, and movement flickers in the glass of the hotel window in front of me. Broad shoulders. Dark jacket. A posture I could pick out in a crowd of thousands.