I Want You Back (Want You #1)(87)

Between the laughter and the clapping, I don’t know how I heard Lucy’s relieved intake of breath.

Then Margene blew her whistle to quiet everyone down.

Oddly enough, Nolan spoke first. “I’ll advise you, Coach Whoever you are, that the forms Mr. Lund signed are to protect his minor child, and any disclosure to the press that puts her—or any other child on this team—in the spotlight because of you purposely disclosing privileged information will have immediate legal repercussions.”

“Who are you? His lawyer?” Coach Douchebag sneered. “Of course Mr. Lund can’t go anywhere without an entourage.”

“I’m a lawyer,” one of the parents said, “and I couldn’t have phrased it any better. You are skating on thin ice, Coach Dyklar, if you’ll pardon the pun. Don’t make this worse on yourself by playing an ‘alert the media’ card you don’t have. I highly doubt the owner of this establishment, even if she is your relative, will want to tangle with lawsuits resulting from your reckless behavior endangering children.”

A harried-looking older man I’d seen around the rink moved quickly to reach our fun little lynching party.

“Coach Olin is head of personnel at Lakeside,” Margene said by way of introduction.

“I was here doing paperwork when the ref tracked me down. What’s this ruckus I’ve heard about how a coach called forfeiture?”

Coach Dickweed immediately jumped in with accusations, which Gabi countered, but with them talking over each other the main point had gotten lost.

Margene blew her whistle again. “I’m a neutral party.” She shot Coach D a hard look when he snorted. “I’ll give the play-by-play.”

After she finished speaking, the head of personnel said, “You’ll both get a chance to tell your side of the story. That won’t happen tonight; it may not even happen this week with this bug that’s been going around. The only action I can take is to suspend you both from coaching until this is settled.”

Gabi managed to look crestfallen and murderous.

Coach Dickhead kept a smug smile. He didn’t care about getting suspended, but Gabi assisted with two other age groups. This was a huge blow to her and her players.

“If you’re suspending both coaches, who’s gonna coach our kids?”

Murmurs sounded in response.

“Again, that is a matter for personnel to handle. But we’re short staffed, so it might be a few weeks until a replacement coach can be arranged.”

“What if a parent from this group could coach in the interim?” Lucy asked, shocking the crap out of me.

“I imagine you have someone in mind?”

“Stonewall would make an excellent coach,” Gabi blurted out. “I’ve been watching him working with his daughter on her skill set, and I don’t need to list his accomplishments to prove he’s qualified.”

Lucy squeezed my arm when I started opening and closing my fists.

There were a chorus of yeahs from the other parents.

Coach Olin’s expectant eyes zoomed to me. “You on board with this, Lund?”

Blood rushed to my head, and I had to swallow twice before I could eke the words out. “I’ll already be here, so yeah, I’ll do it. Both the skills class and game coaching.”

“Happy now?” Coach D said to Gabi. “You got what you wanted—your precious hockey pro working here.”

Gabi’s face bloomed pink.

Next to me, Nolan muttered, “Shit.”

Coach Olin said, “Enough, Dennis. My office. Both of you. Now.”

Margene said, “You’ll have to fill out all the applications to coach in USA Hockey before you leave tonight, so we can get them faxed in ASAP and don’t miss the registration cutoff deadline.”

“Some of the paperwork should already be on file with them, since I helped out at training camps and skills events the last year I played in the NHL.”

“Excellent, Jax. After you get done here, meet me in my office.”

Through the excitement buzzing around us, Lucy stood on her tiptoes and whispered, “You got rid of him and you didn’t even have to throw a punch.”

I caught her lips with mine and kissed her, not giving a damn who watched.

The pleased little hum vibrating from her let me know she didn’t care either.

“Daddy?”

No reason to break away guiltily. We said we’d deal with this as it happened, and Mimi just happened to return when I was kissing her mother.

“Hey, squirt. Are you all right?”

How would she react? Happily? With confusion?

Her gaze moved from me, to her mom, to Nolan, to the coaches on the bench removing their skates and back to me. “Did Coach Welk get in trouble?”

Or option C, choosing to ignore it entirely.

“She and Coach D have to sort through some issues with their bosses, so in the meantime, I’ll be coaching your team.”

“You will? Like coaching everyone?”

“That’s what team means.”

She scowled.

A niggling sense that she wasn’t happy about this development surfaced. “What’s wrong?”

“But you’ll still coach me alone sometimes, right?”

“Wouldn’t dream of missing our ice time together, Meems.”