Chapter 5: It Never Happened

SIENNA.

The office door was still half-open when Ethan’s voice slid through it like a knife finding the softest place between my ribs.

“What’s our captain’s sister and the coach doing together in private…?”

I froze with my hand still on the handle. Damon’s phone was face-down on the desk now, the grainy photo of us walking into the hotel lobby no longer glowing, but the image burned behind my eyes anyway. My black dress suddenly felt too thin. The ache between my legs pulsed once, like my body wanted to remind me exactly why the photo existed.

Ethan stepped fully inside, eyes moving from my face to Damon’s and back again. 

“Do you perhaps have a crush on her?” he asked, the question light enough to pretend it was a joke.

Damon’s expression didn’t change, but the air in the small office thickened. He straightened, clipboard still in one hand, and looked at Ethan the way he probably looked at players who missed an assignment.

“Watch your mouth, Ethan.” His voice was low, controlled, the same tone he’d used when he told me it couldn’t happen again. “Logan introduced her to me. That’s all.”

Ethan raised both hands in mock surrender, a thin smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Oh, I see.”

“Instead of looking for gossip,” Damon continued, “you should go work on your backhand. It was a mess in the game tonight.”

The correction landed clean. Ethan’s smile flickered for half a second before he recovered, giving Damon a joking salute that somehow still managed to feel like a threat. “Definitely, Coach.”

He turned and walked out. I watched every step. The door clicked shut behind him and the office felt smaller than it had thirty seconds earlier.

Damon waited until the footsteps faded before he spoke again. “What’s that for?” He nodded toward the door. “Do you have history with him?”

I let out a short breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Yes. He’s the reason I came to this school.”

Damon’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Well. The look you just gave him doesn’t necessarily communicate that.”

Heat crawled up the back of my neck. I crossed my arms, more to hold myself together than anything else. “The scum had a girlfriend and he was leading me on for the full two years. I flew in early to surprise him last night. I walked straight into his apartment and found his actual girl living there.”

The words came out flatter than I expected. Saying them out loud in this room, with the man who had been inside me only hours earlier standing three feet away, made the whole thing feel almost clinical.

Damon was quiet for a second, then a low laugh escaped him, completely unexpected.

I stared at him. “What’s funny?”

He shook his head, still half-smiling. “None of my boys can stay committed to a girl. Not one of them. I’ve watched it happen every season.”

I tilted my head, the hurt still sitting hot under my skin. “I guess they got that trait from their coach.”

His smile vanished. “No. No. Definitely not.”

I scoffed and the sound was sharper than I meant it to be. “Sure.”

He leaned back against the edge of the desk, arms crossing over his chest. The movement pulled the team-branded long sleeve tighter across his shoulders. I hated that I noticed. I hated that my body still remembered the exact weight of those shoulders above me.

“So who’s this mystery girl?” he asked. “The one your supposed boyfriend was cheating with.”

I blinked. “What?”

“The girl you caught him with.” He repeated. “Who was she?”

I shook my head. “I was too busy being humiliated to ask for names.”

Damon’s jaw flexed once. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay, actually.” I surprised myself with how steady the words came out. “I’m good.”

He studied me for a long moment. Something complicated moved behind his eyes—regret, calculation, maybe the same unwanted pull I was trying to ignore. Then the corner of his mouth lifted, just barely.

“So what are you gonna do about that?” I asked, nodding toward the phone still face-down on the desk.

“I’ll figure it out.” His voice left no room for argument. “You shouldn’t worry about it.”

I wanted to believe him. I wanted the photo to dissolve into nothing, the way last night was supposed to. Instead I just nodded.

“Okay.”

I turned toward the door. My fingers curled around the handle again. Behind me I heard the soft scrape of his shoe against the floor, like he started to step forward and then stopped himself.

I didn’t look back.

The hallway outside the coaches’ area still smelled like ice and sweat. Players were filtering out of the locker room in groups, some already changed into street clothes, others still in half-gear with bags slung over their shoulders. I kept my head down and moved fast, weaving between them until the noise of the arena opened up again.

Maya was exactly where I’d left her—alone on the stands, knees pulled up, phone glowing in her hands. She looked up the second I appeared at the end of the row and her expression shifted from bored to sharp in under a second.

I dropped into the seat beside her. The plastic was cold through my jeans.

“We’ve come to an agreement,” I said. “It never happened.”

Maya’s mouth curved slowly, not the concerned half-smile from earlier. Something brighter, something that made my stomach twist.

“What?” I demanded. “Why are you smiling like that?”

She tilted her head, still watching me. “It did happen though and from the way you were jumping this morning, you definitely enjoyed the shit out of his dick.”

Heat flooded my face so fast I felt dizzy. I glanced around the nearly empty stands even though no one was close enough to hear. “Maya—”

“Don’t even try to deny it.” She nudged my knee with hers. “You walked in this morning looking like someone had rewritten your entire nervous system. I’ve known you for three years. I’ve never seen that smile on your face.”

I stared at the ice below us, still glossy under the arena lights. The ache between my thighs pulsed again, slower this time, like it was answering her.

“I did,” I admitted quietly. The words felt dangerous even in a whisper. “And for some reason I kind of can’t stop thinking about it.”

Maya’s smile widened. She leaned in, voice dropping to match mine. “I’ve got a solution to that.”

I turned to look at her. “What’s that?”

She didn’t answer right away. Instead she lifted her chin and looked past me, toward the tunnel where the hockey players were still filing out in small clusters. Some of them laughed. One of them shoved another’s shoulder and a few glanced up toward the stands out of habit.

Maya’s eyes tracked them like she was shopping.

“Which of them,” she said, still watching the players, “would you like to fuck?”

I followed her gaze. Logan was nowhere in sight yet. Damon hadn’t come out either. Just a line of tall, broad-shouldered athletes in various stages of post-game exhaustion, none of them the man whose hands I could still feel on my skin.

The question hung between us, half joke, half challenge. Maya’s expression said she was completely serious about the distraction.

I opened my mouth, closed it, and felt the residual heat of last night settle lower in my body like it had been waiting for permission.

“Maya,” I said slowly. “That’s not—”

“Pick one.” She cut me off, still smiling. “Or don’t. But if you’re going to keep thinking about the coach, you might as well give yourself something else to think about.”

Below us, another group of players emerged. One of them looked up. For half a second I thought it was Damon and my stomach dropped all over again. It wasn’t, just some forward whose name I didn’t know.

I leaned back against the cold seat and let out a long breath.

Maya kept watching the players like the answer was obvious.