Page 19 of Changing the Playbook
“Sophie?” Dad’s voice cuts through my spiral, and I realize he’s looking at me. “You look flushed. You OK?”
Twenty-four heads swivel toward me with renewed interest, and the ghost of a smirk appears at the corners of Mike’s mouth. I can’t help but look, then force myself to look away just as quickly. Spectacular. Someone please film this for my eventual therapist.
“Just warm.” The lie tastes like copper. “These rinks are always so…”
“Hot?” one of the players offers helpfully. “Not my experience…”
Mike’s lips twitch, then he catches himself, expression smoothing back to neutral, but the damage is done. I know that tell. I know all his tells. I know how his breathing changes when he’s turned on, how he bites the inside of his cheek when he’s trying not to laugh.
And now I have to unknow all of it while looking at him in his natural habitat, surrounded by his teammates, wearing the jersey of the sport I swore off, sitting in my father’s locker room like some cosmic joke designed specifically to humiliate me.
Dad’s still talking.
The players are nodding along.
And Mike?
Mike is undressing me with his eyes while sitting ten feet from my father.
And there’s not a single thing I can do about it.
six
MIKE
Why thehelldidn’t I ask for Sophie’s surname?
The thought tortures me as I watch Sophie standing next to Coach Pearson, her gray eyes locked on mine with the kind of horror usually reserved for finding your parents’ sex tape. The same Sophie whose breathless moans have been my personal soundtrack for two weeks.
The same Sophie who’s apparently Coach’s daughter.
My stomach plummets like a severed elevator cable, probably cratering straight through to the arena’s foundation and beyond. Around me, the locker room’s familiar cocktail of sweat, body spray, and industrial disinfectant suddenly feels like it’s choking me.
Coach keeps talking—something about Sophie hating hockey—but his words blur into white noise. Because my brain decides now is the perfect time for a highlight reel: Sophie arched against her kitchen counter, head thrown back, my name spilling from her lips as I thrust into her from behind for our farewell.
Christ. Stop. That’s your coach’s daughter, you absolute disaster.
The cosmic joke writes itself.
Of all the women on this campus—hell, in this entire state—I had to fall into bed with the one who’s completely, catastrophically off-limits. Right when I’ve finally gotten my shit together after last year’s ankle-induced spiral. Right when scouts are circling. Right when hockey needs to be my focus.
Coach continues, blissfully unaware that his team captain is imploding three feet away. “Don’t go breaking any bones just to get her attention.”
The guys laugh.
I force my mouth into something that probably resembles a smile.
And Sophie?
Well, her cheeks bloom pink, the exact shade they’d turned when I’d whispered filthy promises against her skin that night. But she’s handling this way better than me, her gaze fixed somewhere past my left shoulder like I’m just another forgettable face in hockey gear.
Maine springs forward, because of course he does. “Sophie! I’m Maine Hamilton, left wing and future NHL star. Currently single, if that matters!”
Half the team groans. Coach’s eyebrow climbs toward his hairline.
“And currently operating without any filter between his brain and mouth,” I add, surprising myself with how normal my voice sounds.
The team cracks up, laughing and giving Maine shit for trying it on with the coach’s daughter, and I catch Sophie’s lips twitch before she schools her expression back to neutral. That tiny fracture in her composure shoots straight through me like lightning finding ground.
