Page 25 of Mile High Coach

“Lovie,” Harrison whispers, his eyes sparkling from where he still kneels in front of me. The question on his face is clear, and I’m sure that if he asks it, I’m going to hear myself saying yes.

But he doesn’t get to answer the question, because in that moment—maybe through divine intervention—a ringing noise pierces through my office, the lights on the wall spinning to life and casting the room in flashes of ruby red.

I sit up, face hot as I jump off the desk and straighten my skirt, moving back around the other side of the desk to open the window.

“Lovie—” Harrison starts, his deep voice behind me sending another shiver up my back. He makes a noise like he might go on, but a knock on the door interrupts him.

“Lovie?” The voice is vaguely recognizable to me—that PR guy?—and he knocks again. “Hey! It’s just a fire drill. I can show you the evac route. Are you in there?”

Harrison frowns at the door, but I walk over to him, putting a hand on his chest and flattening him against the wall, meeting his eyes and using my most dominant voice. His eyes flick up to mine, a note of appreciation there.

“Stay here,” I hiss, palm tingling at the contact with his chest. “Wait to leave until the coast is clear.”

He raises his eyebrows, amused, “I’m hurt, Lovie. You’d really leave me here to burn up?”

I don’t answer him as I reach out and grab the door handle, wrenching it open and smiling at the guy on the other side.

“Hi,” I say, stepping out quickly, the cool air brisk against my cheeks. Can he tell what I’ve been up to?

If he can, he doesn’t show it. “Fire drill! They do this once a month. We all have to go on the lawn. Let’s walk together.”

“Sure,” I smile, nodding, and when he leads me away from my office, I manage to keep myself from glancing back even once.

I avoid Harrison as much as I can the next week.

Instead, I call and talk to Chrys and my dad. I try a Thai place down the street from my apartment. Game days send me home early, so I don’t have to deal with the crowds around the arena. On my tablet, I tap through spreadsheets, process data, and draft new plans for the team.

One of which turns out to be very controversial with the coach—who finds me in my office the moment he hears about it.

“Mandatory therapy?” Harrison asks, eyebrows in his hair, glancing back and forth from the paper in his hand to me.

I force myself to finish the bite of salad on my fork and don’t allow my body to conjure up any physical memories of what itwas like to be touched by him in this room. What it was like for his hands to scrape up my legs, the rough brush of his facial hair against the inside of my thigh.

It doesn’t help that he looks hot when he’s angry. He stands in front of my desk, with one arm crossed over his chest, his clipboard tucked up under the other, a piece of paper loose in his right hand. That piece of paper is the information about the mental acuity training I’ve arranged for the team.

“It’s not mandatory therapy,” I say, calmly dabbing at my mouth with a napkin and slowly letting my eyes travel up to his. Instantly, I know it’s a mistake—he’s wearing a snug, short-sleeved collared shirt with enough white to show his tan and enough blue to make his eyes hypnotizing.

“Oh, really?” he asks, tilting his head and returning to the paper, eyes jerking as they travel down the page. “…each player is required to attend a consultation in the following two weeks. That sounds like mandatory therapy to me.”

“Consultation,” I return, crossing my legs under the desk and hoping it’s not too noticeable. “And it’s not therapy—it’s mental toughness and acuity training. They’re not even close to the same thing.”

He blinks at me, then lets out a small, incredulous laugh. “You can’t take all this time from my players, Waters. We need that time for them to actually train and practice.”

I stand, bracing my hands on the desk, not missing the way Harrison’s eyes dip to my chest briefly before returning to my gaze. “The data shows mental acuity training returns gains far beyond the time commitment necessary.”

“If you have all my players jumping through these hoops? We don’t have time for this! We almost lost to the Fire last week and our match-up against the Red Stars is going to be fucked if Canton can’t play.”

I’m aware of that. Fixing John Canton’s recurring injury is on my list of things to do. I’m convinced it comes from a lack of flexibility training.

“They’re only required to complete the consultation,” I say, working hard to keep from gritting my teeth at the look on Harrison’s face. “Then we’ll decide which players would benefit most from continuing with the sessions.”

He shakes his head, then runs a hand through his hair, his eyes sparking when they meet mine again. “Unbelievable.”

I know what he’s thinking—this is all nonsense. Harrison Clark is a traditionalist—he believes in doing things the way they’ve always been done. He thinks of hockey as his craft, and doesn’t want new tools taking away the satisfaction of the work.

What he doesn’t know is that I can respect that. I can respect him wanting to go about things the old-fashioned way, keeping data and analysis out of it, computers off the ice.

But I need this job. And I need to prove to the Baltimore Blue Crabs that I can turn a profit on this team. I can get them to the Stanley Cup Finals.

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