Page 72 of Uncoachable

No one is measuring my worth here. There are no expectations, no scrutiny, and no famous last name attached to every breath I take.

I don’t need to be sharp or guarded or strategic; I can just be kind.

“Coach Talvi!”

I turn around and find a kid whose helmet is on backward. I fix it without comment, sliding the cage into place.

Another kid asks me if falling hurts. I tell him that sometimes it does, but it hurts a lot less when you know how to fall properly. I demonstrate a controlled fall, exaggerating the motion and letting myself slide a little too far on the ice.

They laugh, and I let them.

From the bench, I hear someone clear their throat loudly.

“Unfair,” Jenna mutters.

I glance over my shoulder.

She is leaning against the boards with her clipboard tucked under her arm and a coffee balanced precariously in her hand. Her blonde hair is pulled into a messy knot, and she looks more relaxed than I have ever seen her. An intern stands beside her with his phone out, already filming the scene for the team’s social media.

“What’s unfair?” I ask, skating closer to the boards.

Jenna gestures vaguely at the ice. “You’re good at this in a way that makes the rest of us look emotionally unavailable, Ivy. It’s bad for our reputations.”

Sam nods solemnly from her other side. “That kid just imprinted on her like a baby duck. It’s adorable and sickening.”

“I don’t want legal responsibility for any ducks,” I say, shaking my head.

Jenna snorts. “Too late. You’re the Mother of Ducks now.”

A kid barrels straight into the back of my legs mid-conversation, nearly knocking me over. I catch him automatically, steadying his small frame. “Oof. You okay there, speedster?”

He nods seriously, looking up at me through his cage. “You smell like winter.”

The comment hits me softer than I expected. It tugs at something nostalgic and quiet, like a memory I didn’t even know I was missing.

Winter.

In Finland, winter isn’t just a season; it is a feeling. It is the smell of my mother’s heavy wool coat after she had been out gathering wood in the crisp air.

It was the smell of safety.

I haven’t thought about that in years. I have spent so much time in climate-controlled rinks and sterile hotel rooms that I forgot the world actually had a scent of its own. To hear it from a six-year-old with a backward helmet feels like a tiny earthquake in the middle of my chest.

Miguel’s laugh pulls me back to the present. Jenna is pressing her fist to her mouth, her shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter.

“That’s it,” she says. “I’m putting it on the team website. Coach Talvi smells like winter. The fans will lose their minds.”

I shake my head, laughing as I send the kid back toward his group. Jenna watches me for a beat longer than necessary, her expression turning thoughtful.

“You ever think about doing this full time?” she asks.

The question lands heavy in my gut. I open my mouth to give my standard answer about my career goals, then I close it again.

I settle for a tight, noncommittal smile. “One crisis at a time, Jenna.”

She nods, understanding that some answers just aren’t ready to be spoken yet.

That is when I feel it—that subtle awareness I’ve learned to ignore whenever he is in the room. I glance up toward the far end of the ice. Callahan is standing by the boards, his arms crossed and his posture loose. He is supposed to be working with the older kids, but his eyes are locked on me.