Awk-Weird (Ice Knights, #2)(51)

“Good.” She nodded. “It’s nice to see you again.”

It had been weeks. Again, he couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed.

“You too. Did Mr. Wall Street enjoy the game?” Look at him being all mature and shit, asking her about her boyfriend.

“Wouldn’t know.” She shrugged. “He’s old news.”

“That’s too bad,” he said—and he meant it.

She grinned at him, orneriness sparkling in her eyes. “Not really.”

“I’ll second that,” Coach Peppers said as he sat down behind his desk. “He tried to give me coaching tips. Can you believe that shit? What an asshole.”

Marti sighed and rolled her eyes. “Daddy.”

“I know, I know,” Peppers said, the conversation one they obviously had more times than not. “Your private life is your own.”

“Exactly.” She gave Cole a quick hug and headed around him toward the door. “See you later.”

Cole was still trying to figure out his reaction—or more precisely his non-reaction—when Coach asked him to shut the door and sit down. Now, if there was a moment that struck fear in a professional athlete’s life, it was that door-shutting thing. Nothing good happened after that. If a coach wanted to chew your ass, he did it in the locker room or on the bench. If he wanted to end your career with the team, he asked you to shut the door.

“I know you’ve been working on the new system,” Peppers said, his tone measured. “I appreciate your efforts, but it hasn’t been enough. You staying at the same level while everyone else continues to up their game isn’t enough. I’m shaking up the lines to see if playing with a different winger and center helps.”

Cole sat there like he’d been hit with a stun gun, his body frozen and his brain jumbled.

“What does that mean?” Sure, he knew what the individual words meant, but together it all sounded like a rocket train blasting through hell—impossible to imagine.

Coach didn’t hesitate, just laid it out there. “You’re moving to the second line.”

If he hadn’t already been sitting, that would have knocked his legs out from under him. He’d been first line since he’d been drafted.

“I know change is not your thing,” Coach said before taking a sip from his sugar-milk-with-a-few-drops-of-coffee concoction. “However, if you tread water at this level, you can’t compete. Everyone from the grinder to the future hall of famer is doing whatever it takes to get an extra tenth of a percentage of improvement. For you, that improvement needs to come in your ability to adapt to game changes.”

A mix of frustration and desperation made Cole’s palms clammy as he tried to unravel what was going on and figure out how in the hell he could fix it. “Give me another chance.”

Coach dead-eyed him, laying it out there with a look. “I have.”

“What do I need to do to get back?” There. A goal. He had one and he’d do whatever it took to reach it.

Peppers took another drink, eyeballing him over the top of the mug as if he was judging just how blunt to be—a first as far as Cole knew, and he’d known the man since juniors.

“Figure out how to work in the new systems,” Peppers said after putting his mug down. “Get the plays to feel like ones you’ve been running forever. Stop being distracted. Yeah, I’ve noticed. Whatever is going on in your personal life, leave it outside the arena. When you step on that ice, it needs to be all hockey.”

“I’ll make it happen.”

He would. There wouldn’t be anything for him except for hockey for the rest of the season. He’d make this work. He had to.

“I have no doubt. Phillips, you’re a hell of a player. You could be in the hall of fame if you buckle down and figure this shit out. The difference between NHL good and NHL great is in the sweat equity paired with talent and skill. You have to want it more than you want anything else. Do you?”

He nodded, ignoring the mental flash of Tess in that ultrasound room. “Yes.”

“Then I want to see it in the next game and the one after that. Use the road trip we’ve got coming up to knock my fucking socks off.”

Cole got up and said his goodbyes before heading to his car in the private parking lot and the short ride across the harbor that would probably feel like a million years. The worst had happened. Change had found him and cross-checked him hard into the boards.

He headed out to his car, his brain a fucking scattered mess. Hockey wasn’t just his job; it was his life plan. Getting moved to the second line put everything he’d worked for into jeopardy—all because of a torn condom and a night he hadn’t meant to have happen.

That’s bullshit and you know it.

The voice in his head wasn’t wrong. As Cole drove out of the player lot and onto the parkway that would lead him over the Harbor City bridge and home to Waterbury, he couldn’t ignore the truth of it. Tess and the baby hadn’t fucked his routine. He’d done it to himself. Well, he wouldn’t be anymore.

From now on, he’d be shutting his bedroom door so that cat couldn’t get in and mess with his morning schedule. He’d ignore the draw that tugged him toward Tess every time he got anywhere near her, thought about her, or—lately—even breathed. He’d get back to how his life had always been, and that’s how he’d claw his way back up to the first line.