Page 62 of Blindsided By the Enforcer

“Sadie, Cade. Cade, Sadie. She’s my roommate,” I say quickly. “Come, let’s go.”

Cade shakes Sadie’s hand quickly as I walk past him out the door and Sadie closes it.

I head down my front steps, which have a light smattering of snow over them, but I don’t feel Cade following me from behind so I turn around.

He’s watching me. “You look. . .”

I wait for what he’s trying to say, raising my brows.

“Hot,” he finally says.

I give him a megawatt smile.

“Thanks. What is this errand you need to run?” I ask.

“I need to coach an underprivileged peewee hockey team for the next hour. I hope you won’t be cold in that skirt,” he says, his eyes glued to my legs.

He finally blinks.

“You can sit in the bleachers and use my jacket to cover your legs if you need to,” he offers.

“Thanks.” We get into the car and Cade drives off. The snow is only starting so it isn’t heavy yet.

“Do you coach often?” I ask him.

“Once a week,” he explains. “They didn’t have anyone to coach their team so I stepped up.”

We make our way over to an arena across town. It’s a small town called Goesby. It’s an underprivileged area. These kids didn’t have money to buy equipment or pay to be a part of a league. Cade got his dad to sponsor them and he’s the coach.

“That is really sweet of your dad,” I tell him. “And you for coaching.”

“My dad is always looking for philanthropic opportunities. He’s a broadcaster for one of the main NHL channels. It gives him side things to discuss,” Cade explains. “Nothing my dad does is from the goodness of his heart.”

We arrive to the arena and Cade parks his car. He comes around to open my car door, even though I do it myself. He walks around to his trunk and takes out a duffel bag.

“The community center is old and a little run down,” he warns. He isn’t wrong. It looks like this place was built in the 80s and it hasn’t been updated.

“You can sit up there on the bleachers.” he points when we enter the arena as he passes me his jacket.

“Oh, that’s okay. I don’t want you to be cold,” I tell him.

“I’m not going to wear it. I wear my Riverside jersey, the kids get a kick out of it,” he explains. “So please, take it. I can see you shivering already.”

I take his jacket and find a place to sit on one of the metal bleachers, but because it’s so cold in here the metal is frozen and I feel it through my skirt. So I stand and place Cade’s jacket on the bench then I sit and wrap my legs in his jacket. Now that I am cocooned, I feel warm and cozy.

The kids begin to arrive. Some of them come with fathers and some with their mothers. Cade leaves what I am guessing is a locker room with his jersey on and his skates on his feet. He also has a whistle around his neck.

Slowly the kids leave the locker room in their gear. They are a group of very excited boys.

I watch as Cade high-fives each of them.

One kid comes up to him and says he couldn’t find his hockey stick and Cade heads into the locker room and tells him he can use his old one. The kid isn’t wearing a helmet and his brown eyes light up like Christmas lights.

The parents begin to move toward the bleachers as Cade takes the kids on the ice.

“Are you a new hockey mom?” one of the mothers asks me.

“She’s too young,” a guy sitting one row down from her says.

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