06

𝐁𝐞𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐭

"Where exactly do you need help with?"

I decided right then I was going to be professional about this, whatever ‘this’ even was. I packed every single feeling I had into a box, shoved it somewhere deep, and locked it.

I had survived worse than one smug hockey captain looking at me like he already knew exactly how this conversation was going to go, or at least that's what I kept telling myself.

Michael or Micah's smirk didn't move. "You left without saying goodbye."

Here we go.

"And you blocked my number." He tilted his head, like he was genuinely confused about it, like it was some great mystery he needed solved before he could sleep tonight. "That hurt, Coach."

It did not sound like it hurt.

It sounded like he found the whole thing hilarious.

"That was a one time thing." I said leaving no room for argument, even though my heart was doing something stupid and fast in my chest that had nothing to do with being flat about anything.

I focused on keeping my expression neutral, the same face I used to give job interviewers back when I actually had to convince people I was qualified for things.

Micah—or was it Michael, God, I really needed to figure that out, maybe I could just ask someone on the roster later without making it weird—raised an eyebrow. "A one time thing?"

"Yes."

"Funny, it didn't feel like a one time thing to me." He leaned against the boards, arms crossing over his chest, way too relaxed for someone who was supposed to be intimidated by his new coach.

"Felt like a pretty good time, actually." I felt my face heat up as he said that, and hated myself for it.

"I'm your coach." I said it slowly, like I was explaining something to a child, mostly because I needed to hear it slowly, needed my own brain to actually process the words coming out of my mouth.

"You're a student here. My student, actually, since apparently you're also the captain of the exact team I was hired to coach. Do you understand how insane that sounds? Out loud? To an actual adult?"

"Small world."

"Small, terrible, cursed world." I muttered it under my breath, but he heard it anyway and the corner of his mouth twitched like he was trying not to laugh.

"I'm under contract to get this team to a championship." I kept going, mostly because if I stopped talking I was scared of what I'd actually say instead, and silence right now felt like giving him an opening he absolutely did not need.

"I don't have time to be playing hide and seek with a student, and definitely not with the captain of my own team. Whatever happened last night, it happened. It's done and it won't happen again. Ever. I need you to actually hear that part."

"You sure about that?"

"Very."

He didn't look convinced.

If anything he looked more amused, exactly the reaction I was going for after standing here basically begging him to take me seriously.

Fuck me.

"We had a good time though." He said it quieter this time, like it actually meant something to him, like it wasn't just a line. "You can't tell me that wasn't—"

"A good time, yes." I cut him off before he could finish that sentence, because I already knew where it was going and I did not have the emotional bandwidth to hear the rest of it, not tonight, not when my whole team could be watching us from a distance for all I knew. "That's exactly what it was. A good time, nothing more."

"That's it? A good time?" He said as if repeating it would make me change my mind. "That's really all you're going to call it?"

"What else do you want me to call it?"

He didn't answer right away, and for a second I thought maybe I'd actually won this round, maybe he was going to let it go, back off, give me the space I so clearly needed to keep my job and my sanity intact.

For a second, silence passed between us.

"And now we both know what we really are," I said. "Coach, and student."

I watched something shift across his face, quick, there and gone before I could name it.

Maybe disappointment.

Maybe something else.

I didn't have time to figure out which, and honestly I didn't want to know, because knowing would mean caring, and caring was not on the agenda tonight.

"We should stick to that." My voice came out steadier than I felt, which I counted as a small win. "Coach and student. That's it, that's all this is."

He didn't say anything right away.

Just watched me with that same sharp look, the one that made it feel like he could see straight through whatever professional mask I was currently failing to hold together. It was unfair, honestly, how good he was at that, at making silence feel like a whole conversation on its own.

I was fine with this—yes I was, after all why won't I be?

Walking away right now was the smart thing, the only thing, the thing that let me keep my job and my dignity and whatever was left of my ability to trust myself around men who bought me shots at bars.

I mostly believed it.

I turned to walk out.

My legs actually moved, which surprised me, since every other part of my body seemed to want to stay exactly where it was standing, close enough to him that I could still feel the heat coming off his skin, close enough that leaving felt like it was costing me something I couldn't quite name.

I made it a few steps before I stopped.

‘Beckett keep walking, don't turn around!’

I turned around anyway.

He hadn't moved either, still standing right where I left him, watching me with an expression I couldn't fully read, somewhere between amused and something a lot more serious underneath it.

The rink lights caught the side of his face again, same as before, and I hated that I noticed that. I hated that I noticed a lot of things about him I had no business noticing, like the way he stood, like the way he watched me even when I wasn't looking directly at him.

"Do you understand what that means?"

I asked it quiet, but firm, the kind of firm I needed him to actually hear, because I needed this to land, I needed at least one of us to walk away from tonight with our head on straight, and it clearly wasn't going to be him if I didn't spell it out plainly, slowly, in words even he couldn't twist into something else.

Coach and student.

Nothing more.

I needed him to say it back to me, needed the words out of his mouth so I could believe they were real, so I could believe that whatever had happened between us in that bar, in his bed, in the hours before the sun came up, could actually stay contained in the box I'd built for it, the same box I was already failing to keep shut.

Because if he said it back, if he actually agreed, then maybe I could convince myself this was manageable.

Maybe I could survive an entire season standing this close to him on the ice without doing something incredibly stupid.

I stood there and waited for his answer, my heart doing that stupid stuttering thing again, half of me hoping he'd just say yes and let this be over, and the other half, the half I refused to acknowledge existed, hoping he wouldn't.