Coasting (Gold Hockey Book 8) Read online

  She called it that loosely, since her living space was basically one large room with a kitchen tucked into one corner, a battered, round table and chairs she’d scooped up from a neighbor’s yard sale in the other, and her ridiculously expensive, but insanely comfortable couch taking up a third. The front door was between her “family room” and kitchen and looked directly into the short hall that led to the bathroom and two bedrooms.

  Her condo wasn’t luxury by any means, but it was newly built, backed up to some nice hiking trails, and it was hers.

  The first piece of property she’d been able to afford to buy instead of renting. Funny story, women’s hockey didn’t pay a whole lot, but she’d been lucky enough to be on the squad when they’d received equal compensation to that of their male national team counterparts.

  Used to living on a shoestring budget, or working another job while training, the pay increase had meant she’d been able to focus on playing.

  Although, she had missed her day job.

  Running the hockey programs for kids at a local rink as well as coaching a few of the teams there.

  Practice plans for corralling thirty four-to-six-year-olds on the ice—all of whom were armed with sticks and had skate blades with varying degrees of sharpness strapped to their feet—were her specialty.

  They’d been great.

  More exhausting than her own practices, sometimes, but great.

  And her connections meant that when she’d blown out her knee—shredding through her ACL and MCL in a major tear that had required three surgeries and still didn’t feel quite right—she’d had something to fall back on.

  By the time she’d rehabbed, someone had taken on her role at the rink, so she’d begun coaching a few local travel and high school teams. Then a friend of a friend had recommended her for a local college. She’d spent a season with the college, then one with the Gold’s AHL affiliate, before Bernard had asked her to fill the shoes of their former offensive coach, Todd, who’d gotten a chance to be a head coach in North Carolina.

  So now, instead of renting a room or a shitty apartment, she could afford to buy.

  And thank God she’d gotten a place with two bedrooms.

  She’d warred with herself over the decision—it wasn’t like she had family who’d visit. Her parents were gone, her siblings scattered and well-established in their own lives.

  Two bedrooms had been an added and unnecessary expense.

  Now, she was glad she’d fallen in love with the sunny, corner unit and had splurged.

  It would mean more room when the baby came.

  When the baby came.

  Oh God.

  She was having a baby.

  Why it really sunk in at that moment didn’t make any logical sense. She’d peed on the stick and seen the plus sign, then had the blood work to confirm the results. She’d had the physical examination and ultrasound today, had been moved to tears over hearing her baby’s heartbeat . . . and still it wasn’t until she realized that she’d need to fill her home office with a crib and changing table and whatever stuff a baby needed that she finally realized just how much her life was going to change.

  No spontaneous trips without planning ahead for childcare or to bring the baby. She’d need sitters and maybe a nanny for the road trips she’d be away. Hell, she’d need a lot more than that—diapers and onesies and . . . baby shampoo.

  She didn’t even know where to start with that.

  Which brands were the best? Would she be able to figure out how to breastfeed? Also—fuck—was labor going to be as scary and painful and terrifying as they made it look on TV?

  Her phone buzzed again, and she grabbed it, knowing it was probably Jason making it clear that he was serious and didn’t want anything to do with the baby he’d played sperm donor to, but not caring.

  Because she’d rather deal with an asshole than all the scary voices in her head.

  Like the ones that were calling her insane for keeping the baby, telling her that she didn’t know anything about kids, except how to help them learn to skate and stick-handle, and she didn’t think that would be a particularly helpful skill when it came to figuring out how to keep a newborn alive or changing a poopy diaper or figuring out how in the fuck she was going to get some sleep.

  She needed to talk to—

  Her cell vibrated in her palm and she blinked away the voices, glancing down at the message previewed on the screen.

  It was from an unknown number.

  It was from . . . Coop.

  Or at least, she assumed it was since the message said,

  I get why you need to create distance between us. I didn’t like the words you used in the process, but I get it. I shouldn’t have pushed. I also need you to know I would never do anything to fuck with your career.

  Calle yanked her hair back into a ponytail, wrenching all of the pieces into a tight grip that meant no stray hairs would escape.

  She didn’t need to be quite so aggressive with her locks any longer, it didn’t matter if a piece got in her eyes, wouldn’t be risking fucking up a play by her field of vision being compromised. But she’d wrestled with her hair for so many years that she couldn’t stand the smallest piece tickling her forehead or her cheek.

  And . . . none of those random thoughts had a single thing to do with the fact that she now had Coop’s number, that he’d sent her a text. A very reasonable and professional text if one ignored the f-bomb stuck near the end of it.

  Although, hockey.

  So really, the word fuck wasn’t exactly out of place.

  Her phone vibrated once more and as she processed the words Coop had written, her pulse picked up and her guilt from earlier burned even brighter.

  God, she was an asshole.

  Also, if your brain is taking you down a path that is making the nerves ramp and you question yourself, just know that you’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met. You’ve got this. The team has your back.

  “Fuck,” she muttered, setting her phone down and thumping her head onto the back of the couch.

  The man was too smart for his own good.

  And she had yelled at him.

  How was that for professional?

  She sat up, grabbed her phone, and began to type out a reply. But then she remembered his face, the anger mixed with hurt. She’d done that. She’d hurt him when he’d been lovely and kind and a good man. All because her life was a dumpster fire and she didn’t know what the fuck she was doing and—

  Her cell dropped back to the cushion.

  Her fingers rose and fixed an imaginary stray hair, tightened the tie around her ponytail.

  Her lids slid closed.

  No. No reply. Nothing but cool, calm, professional distance.

  Because she needed to keep that dumpster fire far, far away from anyone else, but she most especially needed to keep her dumpster fire, soon to be doctor and lawyer and diaper-filled life far, far away from Coop.

  Her intention to stay far, far away from Coop lasted less than twenty-four hours.

  Which was to say, he was the lucky soul who walked into the Gold Mine and happened to see her losing her early dinner into a garbage can.

  So much for her nausea being manageable.

  She’d turned her head when she heard the beep from the lock disengaging, trying to stop puking long enough to pull her shit together and hightail it to her office. But the moment she straightened, the storm in her stomach that had been settling roared to life, and she lost some of the oatmeal she had for breakfast, too.

  Her eyes had processed that it was Coop coming through—because of course it was Coop—but then she’d been lost in misery and trying not to process what was coming out of her mouth in order to hit the black garbage bag in front of her.

  When she eventually stopped, cool fingers lifted her ponytail from the back of her neck, and something damp and cold was draped over the sweaty skin there.

  “Okay?” Coop murmured, his expression careful.

  S
he nodded, swallowed, and then immediately wished she hadn’t because the aftertaste was . . . she shuddered. “Sorry.”

  “Nothing to be sorry about,” he said softly and handed her a bottle of water he’d grabbed from somewhere. “You good?”

  She straightened slowly, used the wet paper towel Coop had placed on her neck to wipe her mouth, then dropped it into the garbage can, stepping away and wanting to forget the entire experience. “Five minutes ago, I would have said, I’m great,” she said and took a sip of water. “Now? I’m . . . forever traumatized by industrial trash cans, I think.”

  His lips quirked. “Morning sickness has turned into evening sickness?”

  Calle sighed. “Apparently.”

  “That sucks.”

  Silence then she straightened her shoulders, took another cautious drink. Her stomach felt better now, actually. Almost as though she hadn’t been sick at all.

  If only that were true.

  “Thank you,” she murmured. She bit her lip, wanting to apologize for last night. “Coop. I’m—”

  He took a step back. “I’m going to go get ready.”

  She nodded. “Right.”

  Apologize. Just tell him you’re sorry you were a dick and apologize and put this all behind you—

  “Coop. I’m so—”

  The wave of nausea swelled up so quickly that she barely spun around in time. And then she was puking, round two.

  “Here.” Coop took the bottle from her hand, rested his palm on her nape—

  The outside door opened, voices filtering in.

  The hand on her neck disappeared.

  “Calle!” Brit exclaimed. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded as much as she could, given her current situation. But even as she struggled to reassure Brit then Stefan, who came in behind his wife, she felt Coop move away. Some sixth sense told her he was leaving, moving down the hall, and melting out of sight. And when she managed to stop throwing up—or more likely, she ran out of things in her stomach to expel—Calle turned her head.

  Yup. He was gone.

  “I’ve been better,” she told Brit. Stefan stepped away for a moment, slipping into the workout room that was just a couple of doors down and reemerging with a small white towel and a bottled sports drink.

  “Thanks,” she said, accepting the items. “But go on. I’m fine. I think I got it all out.”

  “Dinner didn’t sit well?” Stefan asked.

  Yeah, that and the baby in her uterus had decided to tap dance on her stomach. “Not so much. Thanks for these.” She waved a hand in the direction of the locker room. “Go. Don’t let me mess up your routine.”

  “Sure you’re good?” Brit asked.

  “Totally fine.”

  Stefan studied her face, concern dancing across his blue eyes, and Calle felt a pulse of humor. These guys. This girl. Hell, it was these players. They were eagle-eyed, didn’t miss a beat or a change. And . . . they cared. They’d built a family and wanted to keep it whole and healthy.

  “I promise I’m fine.”

  A pair of blond brows joined the concerned blue eyes.

  And that was enough of that.

  Calle sighed. “Remember who does the practice plans? Maybe I need to go old school, like I used to with my kids? Throw in a few ladder drills?”

  Ladder drills consisted of skating back and forth between every line from one end of the ice to the other. They were awful and basic and . . . these guys definitely didn’t need their on-ice conditioning to be conducted with old childhood drills.

  But it was still fun to threaten the team with them.

  Case in point, Stefan shuddered.

  “Why don’t you throw in some circles, too?” he muttered.

  Calle’s lips tipped up. “I can do that.” A beat. “I’ll tell the team it was your special request.”

  “You’re evil again,” Brit said. “Which means, you’re back!” She did jazz hands for a moment before trying and failing to smother a smile. “Also, Stefan loves ladder drills.”

  Stefan wrapped an arm around Brit’s shoulders. “Not cool.” To Calle, he said, “See you in a bit.”

  “He’s getting old,” Brit stage whispered as Stefan led her away down the hall. “Ladder drills will help him with his conditioning—”

  The teasing was cut off with a kiss as he tugged her into the changing room.

  That kiss was cut off by catcalls.

  Or at least Calle assumed it ended when the voices from the other players reached her ears in the hallway, teasing and shouted one-liners running rampant. But no one could ever know with Brit and Stefan—they’d been together long enough to not be too worried about their audience.

  Hence, the reason the most famous picture of the two of them was after they’d won the Cup, helmets tossed to the ice, arms wrapped tight around one another, lips pressed together.

  The door finished its slow slide closed, and the noise disappeared.

  Calle pushed the longing away—missing being a player on a team like this, missing playing the game itself, longing that things had turned out differently, longing . . . to have someone in her life like Stefan.

  And knowing it wouldn’t happen.

  Her life didn’t have happily-ever-afters.

  It had a hardened heart and was filled to the brim with putting her head down and hustling, of making the best of and finding her happy with whatever shitty hand had been dealt her.

  Stifling a sigh, she picked up the bottle of water Coop had left, carrying it along with the towel and sports drink down the hall to her office.

  She’d set it all on her desk and sat down before she saw what was on the surface.

  A package of saltine crackers and a ginger ale.

  Coop.

  Unbidden, a sliver of affection for the wonderful, pushy, quietly intervening man wove its way through the hardened exterior of her heart.

  And Calle didn’t know whether to be terrified or hopeful.

  Terrified.

  She was going with terrified.

  Seven

  Coop

  He left the water running, steam filling the shower room, knowing that someone else would be right in behind him to use the hot water.

  There was no shortage of stinky hockey players post-game who needed to shower.

  Probably not the best move to leave it on when living in drought-ridden California, but sometimes old habits were hard to break, and not wanting to make his teammates wait forever for the water to heat—something that definitely took less time in an NHL team’s locker room than what used to pass as showers in the rinks he’d played at growing up—was one of those old habits he’d never grown out of.

  And considering the rest of the team did the same, he supposed he wasn’t the only one.

  Old dogs. New tricks.

  Also, when had he become an old dog?

  He wasn’t by any means, he supposed. At twenty-seven, he was smack dab in the middle of the guys’ ages. Some—Stefan, Mike, and Blane—were considering retirement . . . or at least what their lives would look like once their contracts were up.

  In their early to mid-thirties, they were the old dogs, they were the ones who were at the ends of their careers. A brutal fact, yes, but professional sports tended toward a young man’s game and they’d won the Cup, had great seasons, been part of a great team. Hockey, especially when they were getting paid to play, and needed to treat it like the job it was, didn’t get much better than that.

  Coop knew.

  He’d been on a few rosters that had almost managed to suck the soul out of him.

  Players who were prima donnas. Coaches who thought they could only get the best out of their teams by screaming and throwing shit and punishments.

  Look, sometimes a team needed their asses chewed between periods or after a game, but they didn’t always need it, and it certainly took away any of the shock and fired-up response they might pull from the roster if the team knew they would be facing their coach’s temper ta
ntrum any time they were in the locker room.

  So, it was lucky that Coop had ended up here.

  With the Gold.

  With Bernard and Calle and the rest of the coaching staff. They might hold them to a high standard, but they held themselves to the same expectations and because of it, the players knew if they fucked up or had a bad game or hell, if the hockey gods didn’t happen to be speaking that night, that their backs were still covered.

  They might get extra tape or pulled into an office for a chat, but that Coop got, that made for better players.

  That made for a family.

  He walked out of the locker room, snagged a towel from the rack just outside the doorway, and saw that Calle was sitting next to Blue, now dressed in his suit, both their eyes on the tablet in front of them.

  Coop shook out the towel, started to wrap it around his hips.

  But then Blue nodded and Calle stood, closing the cover on the tablet, her gaze leaving Blue and heading in his direction. And so, maybe he took a little bit longer than normal wrapping the cotton around his hips, especially when her eyes hit his and froze before darting down, and those lush pink lips parted slightly.

  He slowly tucked one end of the towel into the other and strode through the changing room to his stall.

  Calle’s head jerked away, feet retreating toward the door.

  “Calle?” Blue called.

  Hesitantly, she spun back around. “Yeah?”

  “Can you show Coop that same play?” he asked. “I think it’ll help for the next game.”

  Coop froze, searching his teammate’s expression for a moment before relaxing.

  Blue’s was both a completely innocent suggestion, as well as a totally professional one, seeing as they’d had a home and home series against the Ducks (the Ducks played at the Gold Mine for a game and then they went down to Anaheim for the next). Plus, Blue wasn’t known for his poker face. His heart lived on his sleeve, and that was part of why he’d been able to snag the beautiful, reticent, and several years older PR-Rebecca. If he was matchmaking, Coop would know it, and that was because his friend was known for out-stubborning Rebecca into giving him a chance.