Page 102 of Hearts on Ice
Miguel’s text came through just as I sat down on the edge of the bed.
Miguel: Home safe.
Relief hit first—a short, clean breath—but it didn’t last long enough to be useful. My thumb hovered over the keyboard, halfway through the message:Good. Get some– sleep,when the phone buzzed again. It was the front office.
“Coach Mackenzie.”
“G’morning,” the general manager said. “Can you be in at nine? Conference B.”
My pulse jumped. “Sure. Something wrong?”
A pause—three seconds, maybe four. “We’ll talk when you get here.”
The call clicked off before I could answer.
By the time I pulled into the rink’s lot, the sun had climbed high enough to make the ice posters in the windows fade to gray. I killed the engine and sat there, watching my reflection ghost across the windshield. I looked calm.
That was a lie.
The team offices smelled like coffee and disinfectant, the kind of clean that meant someone was expecting visitors. The receptionist said, “They’re waiting.”
Conference B was on the second floor, blinds half-drawn. Three people sat inside: the GM, the assistant GM, and Kendra Lewis from PR. No one offered coffee. No one smiled.
“Coach.” The GM gestured to the chair opposite him. “Appreciate you coming in early.”
I sat, palms flat on my thighs. The contract folder sat in front of him—my copy, the one I’d signed at the start of the season. A pen rested diagonally across it.
He cleared his throat. “We received a report this morning. From a player.”
He didn’t name the player. He didn’t have to.
“Alleging that a member of the coaching staff engaged in a personal relationship with someone on the roster.”
The air left my lungs slow and hot. I kept my eyes on the tabletop grain, counting the thin scratches left by coffee mugs over the years.
Kendra’s voice came next—smooth, trained. “We’re not here to accuse, Drew. We’re here to address perception before it escalates. You understand how fast rumors move through a locker room. Or online.”
“Has it gone online?” My voice sounded steadier than it felt.
“Not that we’ve seen,” she said. “But we can’t assume it won’t.”
The assistant GM flipped the folder open and turned a page toward me. His finger tapped a paragraph highlighted in yellow.
All coaching and support staff are expected to maintain professional boundaries with players and employees to avoid any appearance of favoritism, bias, or impropriety.
I knew that line. I’d skimmed past it when I first signed, thinking it was common sense. Now it looked like a sentence already underlined for a court date.
The GM leaned forward, elbows on the table. “You know what that means, Coach.”
“Yes, sir.”
“This isn’t a firing conversation,” he said quickly, maybe reading the expression on my face. “We’ve got respect for the work you’ve done here. But we need to get ahead of this. For the team, for the league, and for you.”
Kendra slid a smaller stack of papers toward me—public-relations protocols, the kind you give players after bar fights or tweets gone bad. “If anyone asks, you keep responses short and factual.Team matter being handled internally.Nothing else.”
I nodded, the motion small, controlled. My pulse hammered behind my ears.
They talked about optics, chain of command, potential suspension “if the situation developed further.” I heard pieces of it, not all. The words blurred into the hum of the vent.
