Page 21 of Mile High Coach

He moves back out near the center of the ice, turning like he might do another drill, but instead turns and looks up sharply, his gaze connecting with mine.

Before he can say anything—or acknowledge that we’re the only two people here—I turn and practically run down the hall and to my office.

I think I’m safe, that he’s gone home, but the moment I step out of my office, I nearly run face-first into Harrison. Again.

“Shit, sorry,” he says, reaching out to steady me, and the brush of his thumb over my bicep, just under the sleeve of my blouse, sends shivers racing up my arms.

“My bad,” I mutter, drawing my bag back up onto my shoulder and shifting to go past him.

He’s impossibly handsome right now, his hair wet and his cheeks flushed. I didn’t know coaches still practiced like that. Maybe they don’t—maybe it’s just Harrison.

“Wait, Lovie?—”

Just from the tone of his voice, I know that he wants to talk to me about the program this summer, but I still don’t have an answer for him. My job is to make sure the Blue Crabs can be asefficient as possible, and giving up ice time and player energy for a camp just might not be the right choice.

I wish that I could just okay it. Maybe it would convince him to cool his hatred for everything I’m doing, his consistent campaign against my data-collection methods and my suggestions for improving the team.

“Harrison—” I start, but when he reaches out for me, he accidentally snags the strap of my bag.

My purse swings out to the side, and, in the next moment, my binder—the binder full of confidential donor information—goes spilling out onto the ground, papers sliding over the smooth concrete floor like playing cards on a pool table.

Heat rushes to my face, and I feel like a schoolgirl dropping her diary, the thing fluttering open for everyone to see. He looks confused for a moment, probably wondering why I’m reacting like this, then his eyes travel down, landing on the paper just beyond his sneakers.

It’s one of the profiles I’d tagged as a potential top choice. The one I’d most recently been considering.

Male, Caucasian. Twenty-two. His genetic marker profile is lying alongside his picture on the floor.

I see Harrison’s eyes moving over the papers, and I know there’s no way I can talk my way out of this, lie about what, exactly, the documents are.

“Oh my God,” I gasp, dropping to my knees to pick them up at the same moment Harrison bends down, keeping our eyes locked.

“My bad,” he mutters, seeming dazed as he reaches out and picks the scattered mess up before I can. His eyes scan over the documents, and this time, when my body heats, it’s not from lust, but embarrassment.

I shouldn’t be embarrassed. Many single women seek to build families on their own. Dr. Cohen says it’s empowering.

But that doesn’t stop me from seeing this through Harrison Clark’s eyes—an old, dusty spinster of a woman, trying to make a baby with science before it’s too late for her to have a family at all.

Finally, unable to stand the tension, I croak, “Well?”

“Well?” he asks, shaking his head a bit and closing the binder, then holding it out to me. I take it, hands shaking as I try to tuck it back into my bag.

“Aren’t you going to make a joke?” I ask, knowing my voice sounds weak and hating myself for it. There’s a long enough pause that I almost think Harrison might have walked away, but when I look up, he’s still standing there, a serious look on his face.

“Lovie,” he says, voice low. “I would never make a joke about that.”

“I’m probably not even going to do it,” I blurt, immediately regretting the admission. First, because it’s none of his business. And second, because I don’t have any other choice. Not if I want to have a baby.

It might be wildly expensive, time-consuming, and stressful, but it’s the path I’m choosing to take.

“You’re not?” he asks, raising an eyebrow, his eyes skipping between the binder in my bag and my face.

“Uh, I mean, it’s really expensive.” I cup my elbows with my hands and shift from side to side. Why am I even telling him this? There is not a single man on the planet—with the exception of Harrison Clark—who could get me to word vomit like this. “And my clinic is actually back in Portland, so…”

“It’s really expensive?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. “Don’t they get that stuff for free?”

Why are my cheeks so hot? I’m an adult—he’s an adult. This is a perfectly mature thing to be discussing. With the man I fucked on an airplane.

And who I wanted to fuck in a supply closet.

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