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“Pretty sure that’s baseball.”
Something passes through our stare, something that I feel in the pit of my stomach, a heavy feeling in my gut that is gone just as quickly as it came.
Before I step out onto the ice, I grab my stick off the boards. Thankfully, Caroline’s even smaller than a fourteen-year-old boy, so while the stick isn’t the perfect height, it’ll work for our playful game.
“Alright, I’m goalie. Caden, you’re on left D; Brent, you’re on right. Wren, you’re left wing. Michael, you’re right wing. Jared, forward center.” I turn to Caroline as I lean on my stick. “You’ve got one goal, Caroline. Hit the puck—” I shoot it to her, and at the last second, she stops it with her stick. “—into that goal.”
I lift my stick toward the goal behind me and smirk. “Think you can do that?”
Her blue eyes roll in mock annoyance. “How about you just worry about guarding the net, old man?”
Snickers ring out around me, and my smirk only widens into a full-blown grin. I glance over at the guys, who have the same shit-eating grins on their faces, and say, “Let’s take it easy on her, shall we, guys?”
“How about you stop talking and block the damn puck,” Caroline retorts, slapping the puck at me, which goes right between my legs and into the net with a woosh.
The guys erupt in laughter, slapping their sticks on the ground as Caroline grins, wide and proud of the shot she got right between my legs.
“Easy to hit a puck when I’m not looking, but how about we try it when I am?” I ask her.
She shrugs.
I fish the puck out of the net and slap it back to her as a look of sheer determination ghosts across her face.
Surprisingly, Caroline’s quick on her feet and even better with a puck than I expected, making me question whether or not she was honest when she said she’d never played.
She has no problem getting the puck into the net, and each time she does, she smirks and tosses me a wink, leaving me with my jaw slack.
That girl knew exactly what she was doing when she goaded us into a game.
Caden skates up, out of breath after chasing the puck for the last thirty minutes. “Coach,” he pants, bending slightly at the waist, “I think Ms. Carolinemighthave hustled us.”
“Youthink?” My eyes narrow at the beautiful girl across from me, her jaw set in self-satisfaction and a sly grin on her lips. “That woman gives NHL rookies a run for their money.”
“Mad I made you eat your words,Coach Rome?” she says as she taps me with her stick when she skates by, slapping the puck right by me while I’m distracted.
“Shit,” I curse as the puck sails straight into the net, her team hollering and whooping as they celebrate their surprising win.
How the hell did this happen?
“Next time, you might want to save the shit talking forafteryou’ve won. Don’t you know that hockey is a mental sport?” Caroline giggles and disappears into the circle of kids chanting her name like she hung the damn moon. And I guess showing up their coach is a reason for her to have hung the moon.
“The guys love you.” I nod toward the ice as we sit on the bench, unlacing our skates after the last of the kids have finally cleared out and headed home, leaving us alone in the rink. “You’re a natural working with kids.”
Her cheeks flush from the compliment while her shoulders lift slightly. “They’re easy to work with. I love these guys already.”
“Is that what you want to do? Work with a kids team, or do you plan to work with a professional team?”
She pulls her lip between her teeth, hesitation written on her features before meeting my gaze again, lifting her chin slightly as if gathering the courage to share something more personal with me. “Uh, yeah, ideally, I’d love to work with kids. I’d like to work with an organization like this or even for a sports rehabilitation clinic that specializes in younger kids. I’m not really into the hype of professional sports.”
I chuckle. “I gathered that when you had absolutely no clue who I was that night.”
She shrugs, offering a quiet laugh of her own as she tucks a blonde wisp of hair that pulled free from her ponytail behind her ear. “I’ve done my best to steer clear of anything hockey related because of my dad, honestly. It was always a… touchy subject. It’s crazy that I chose sports medicine in the first place, but it’s something I’ve always been drawn to. And I don’t want to let my dad’s career hold me back from something that I’m passionate about and believe in.”
I nod. I knew she hadn’t ever really been around much, or I would’ve recognized her that night, but I didn’t know she had such a strained relationship with her dad.
“I’m actually really surprised to see how well you work with them.”
I arch a brow at her.
