Page 174 of The Pucking Coach's Daughter
“You think I give a shit that she gave plays to St. James?” He throws his hands up. “Not so much, gentlemen. What I would’ve expected was for you to play better. But no—you realized what happened and you all threw in the towel. It was a bloodbath you deserved.”
Well, he does have a point.
“Instead, you blamed a girl who had nothing to do with the game. Not the SJU coach who authorized the use of it. Not the player who brought it to him in the first place.” Disgust colors his tone. “You hold this grudge through to a new year, and you still blame my daughter for your past failures. Enough that a fucking gossip column writes about her almost daily.”
“Coach—”
“QUIET,” he roars. He points at the player who spoke. “If I want your opinion, Bradley, I would fucking ask for it.” He pauses. Eyes us. Then asks, “Do you respect me?”
“Yes, Coach,” comes the unanimous reply.
“And how is disrespecting my daughter respecting me?”
I press my lips together. My gaze slides to Oliver, who seems equally disheartened.
“If any of you want to skate for me again, you’re going to do better.” He meets each of our gazes one at a time. “To be perfectly clear: I am horribly disappointed in how you all have handled yourself. But your captain has set the tone. So the responsibility of making things right falls to him.”
Oliver opens and closes his mouth.
Coach lifts his eyebrows, almost like he’s expecting him to argue. When no words come out, Coach nods once and heads for the bench.
“Dismissed,” he calls.
I blow out a slow breath. When everyone else moves, scurrying for the doorway to the locker rooms like Coach might change his mind and call us back, Oliver stays on the ice.
“What is it?” I’m dying to get out of these pads, but I’m not going to leave him out here alone.
“He wants me to make it right.”
“Yeah.”
“He doesn’t know the full story.” His gaze lifts. “I can’t make it right, I just need to stay away.”
I grimace. “Hate to break it to you, dude, but I don’t think that’s going to work. Walk her home and apologize again, then you can tell Coach you tried.”
He grunts. His hand flexes on his stick, and he finally nods. Turns out, my scheming was unnecessary. Coach solved my problem for me.
fifty-four
sydney
Dylan didn’t speak to me yesterday. We had the one class together, and she sat on the other side of the room. Which is fine—I kind of expected her to be completely furious with me. It hurt, but not as much as I was expecting.
In a way, I think I prefer that she’s the type of anger that makes her want to avoid me. I don’t know how I’d react to someone yelling in my face.
Today, I’ve got two classes with Brandon. I speak to each professor before class, apologizing for missing an entire week’s worth of work. I even missed the Econ presentation I’d been stressing over, although they let me reschedule my presentation for the end of the lineup.
Crisis averted.
In my writing class, I talk to Professor Page in a low voice just outside the door. I don’t really have any good excuse, but she seems to read between the lines anyway. She pats my shoulder and gives me an out.
The only class that doesn’t is Crime Fiction. I take a zero on the paper that was due last Thursday, although if I somehow manage to hand it in before this Thursday, I can get some points for it and salvage my grade.
Brandon is in both my writing class and crime fiction. But it isn’t until we’re walking out of the last class that he calls my name.
I stop in the hallway and slowly turn around.
“I’m sorry,” he says.