All Chapters of The Forbidden Puck: The Coach's Daughter Is Off Limits : Chapter 41 - Chapter 43

POV: RileyI went to the practice anyway.Camera bag over one shoulder, the same way I had walked into every Falcons practice since September, and nobody watching me cross the parking lot would have known anything had changed. That was the point. I needed my ordinary self intact, the one who showed up and shot drills and filed assignments on schedule, while the other part of me, the part that now knew a name, sat very still underneath the surface and watched everything differently.Her name was Carol Bishop. Registrar's assistant. Special advisor, Office of Faculty Affairs, buried in fine print nobody was meant to read closely. I had seen her exactly four times since arriving on campus. Orientation week, where she processed my enrollment paperwork with brisk efficiency. The skating placement confirmation, signed at the bottom of an email I had read with nothing but relief. A brief hallway exchange in October about a transcript request. And once more in November, when I dropped off a f

POV: RayShe picked the same coffee shop where she'd once told me to call her back.I got there first this time, the corner table near the window, my hands wrapped around a cup I had no intention of drinking. Riley sat across from me, close enough that her knee touched mine under the table, the small steady contact that had become its own kind of language between us. Naomi waited outside in the car, engine off, watching the door.The woman came in at exactly the time she said she would. Plain coat, hair pulled back, the kind of unremarkable presence that had clearly been cultivated rather than accidental. She sat down across from us without ordering anything and folded her hands on the table."Two months ago," she said, no greeting, no preamble, "I was at the Falcons game against Brandt. I had a note in my coat pocket. I was going to put it directly into your hand, Ray, during the pre-game equipment check, when you'd be alone near the visitor's tunnel for ninety seconds while the rest