Page 1 of Coaching Prince Charming

ONE

Nate

Dull, throbbing pain in my left collarbone made me roll my eyes. Would it ever stop? It had been over two months since the goddamn accident, as everyone kept calling it. Accident. As if I would be clumsy enough to slam myself against the boards and break my collarbone. As if the collision had been some unpredictable act of fate. As if it hadn’t had all the marking of foul play.

I clenched my teeth and shut the office door. Anger rose from my stomach like acid, searing everything it licked.

Taking deep breaths, I counted to ten, but the higher the number got, the more agitated I was at the fact I even had to count. Stupid exercise, I thought, feeling like a sullen teenager all over again. I hadn’t been one in nearly twenty years. Getting your life ripped apart will do that to you.

Silence filled the small office. Yesterday, I had brought in the trophies and accolades when the assistant coaches eagerly suggested it. They cluttered the clean, white shelves of my new office. A framed photo of my old team on the eve of our last national championship semifinals hung on the wall to the left of my desk. To the right, a filing cabinet occupied the space uselessly, as if all of its contents hadn’t been digitized a decade ago.

My predecessor hadn’t been interested in interior design any more than I was. After retiring — in his proper time, I might add — old Coach Murray took away the few personal belongings from this office and left not a single proof he’d spent his life in here. I intended to do the same.

And soon, if there was any luck in the world.

Great job, Nate, I thought as I sat into my chair. It was an old thing, worn out by my predecessor, never replaced. The springs poking my ass didn’t bother me. I didn’t plan to stick around for too long. First day on the job, and you’re already planning to leave.

I couldn’t stop myself from shaking my head. I’d had way too much time to think in the last two months. The only problem was I wasn’t much of a thinker. A career in philosophy had never been on my radar. All my life, I had been good at one thing and one thing alone. Hockey. But fate was cruel to me, taking that life away in the blink of an eye.

My fingers drummed against the nearly empty surface of the desk. One computer screen, a notebook, and a handful of scattered pens decorated it. And a framed photo of my ex-sister-in-law and her son, Beckett, my runaway brother’s abandoned family and the only treasure in my life.

The drumming intensified. I couldn’t keep my fingers still if my life depended on it. Even when the tips began to hurt, I kept tapping the desk. Harder. Harder until my heart was hammering in my chest with the perpetual anger that wouldn’t go away. Harder until someone knocked on my door.

“Come in,” I barked.

Harvey, a thirty-something-year-old assistant coach with a head of shaggy black hair and piercing green eyes, opened the door. “We’re ready for you, Coach,” he said in an all-business tone. It was an improvement. A week ago, he had barely managed to speak to me without stammering and looking at me with such wide eyes that I half believed I’d grown a pair of horns.

That was the curse of being one of the best-known hockey wingers in the country. Or, possibly worse, one of the infamous cases of a player in his prime losing everything to an accident.

I held my breath, my heart pounding without a rhythm, as my nerves worked to twist my guts. You were once the nation’s darling, Nathan, I snapped at myself. You’re not afraid of a bunch of teenage pups who want to chase a puck for a couple of hours. But things weren’t so simple. These weren’t just any teenage pups. These were the Arctic Titans. This team had filled the ranks of the NHL for years, and the responsibility for forging the raw talent and potential into greatness was now mine. Mine because of a string of unexpected bumps in several roads.

I’m not supposed to be here, I thought with a suppressed sigh. “Get the boys out on the ice,” I said in a gruff voice.

Harvey opened his mouth in surprise, then cleared his throat. “They’re out. We’re waiting for you, Coach.”

I shot him a frustrated glare, but my annoyance was with me, not Harvey. The guy was doing his job. And he was doing it better than I could hope to do mine. So I nodded. “I’ll be right there.”

In the weeks of preparation, I had kept myself away from the ice. I inspected the locker rooms, the hallways, the rink’s exterior, a break room for the staff, and my office. In fact, I hadn’t stepped on the ice since the evening a freak crash against the boards had ended my career.

Were I a younger man, there might have been a chance for a few more good years, but at thirty-eight, more and more people believed my retirement was long overdue. “He’s lost his edge,” they said. “And this just goes to prove it.” I’d had no choice but to bow out, whether I liked it or not.

Drawing a deep breath, I pushed my chair away from the desk. These were the times when I wished we still kept bottles of whiskey in our desk drawers like some stockbroker in the 1950s. I could use a drink to steady my nerves.

What it was that sent shivers down my arms, I didn’t know. A bunch of players with high hopes and brilliant futures still ahead of them? Or the ice I had spent my best years skating on? Or the obvious mistake of accepting a job I didn’t know how to do? Perhaps the answer was a little bit of everything.

I stood up like a soldier and marched after Harvey. We went down the hall and into the vast arena that was practically empty. The bright lights in the rink were a stark contrast to the hallway that had led us there, so I blinked twice before taking in the sight. The Titans, lined up in full gear, clacked their sticks against the smooth surface of the ice and hooted and cheered when I stepped out with a small procession of assistant coaches.

The Titans greeted me with admiration I no longer deserved. I wasn’t the star winger. I was just a college coach, doing the job for the sake of keeping my sanity and waiting for this year to expire and the real coach to take over. Someone would come. Someone who knew what he was doing.

My muscles tensed as I looked around. Even the assistant coaches applauded and smiles decorated their faces. Three of them flanked me, there to ensure the job was done the right way. In fact, all I had to do was make the calls these experienced people put forward. I had to be the face of Northwood and its Titans.

“Thank you,” I said lamely, my throat dry. “Thanks.”

The cheers and clacking subsided. The boys were lined by seniority within the team, starting with my nephew, Beckett, who had been selected as the captain a year earlier. His right-hand guy and boyfriend, Caden Jones, stood tall next to him. I didn’t recognize a few of them except from seeing them play around nine months earlier, and a couple were brand-new. The new guys had been accepted on a hockey scholarship at Northwood when old Coach Murray was leaving, and another guy was officially taking over. The decisions had happened before my time.

I’d read their files, however, so I knew that one of the two was Carter Prince. Encountering his name on my computer screen had given me a bit of a shock. In fact, it made me feel old. As old as the fact that my nephew was a senior this year.

Carter Prince was my old buddy’s son. Now, with helmets on, I struggled to distinguish him between the two boys at the end of the line. But it felt like it was only yesterday that I had piggybacked him around Dana’s backyard while my old friend worked the grill. We’d been young men back then, our careers still far ahead, our futures bright.

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