Page 7 of Coaching Prince Charming

“There’s nothing he should worry about. I wouldn’t let you slack off any more than I would Beckett.” Nate crossed his arms over his chest. It was a great pose. I wished I could snap a photo for my little hidden gallery.

“How lucky we are, the kids of the greats,” I joked.

“Don’t look at it like that, Carter,” he said. “You have raw talent I haven’t seen in a long time.”

So they keep telling me, I wanted to say, but Beckett showed up at the top of the stairs while I gazed up at his uncle with wide eyes. I couldn’t help it. My eyelids simply knew not to obscure my view when Nate was around.

“Uncle,” our team captain greeted Nate. “Sorry I kept you waiting.”

“Don’t worry. Prince kept me entertained.” Nate shot me a grin, reverting to a more coach-like speech pattern. I felt more like a fool than a prince, no matter my name. “Ready?”

Beckett said he was ready for whatever they had in mind, and the two men walked away. Nate shot me a look over his shoulder, thanking me for the water and company.

I drummed my fingers against the smooth surface of the kitchen island, then dragged my ass back to my room. Crashing into the bed, I swiped and tapped the screen of my phone, found the secret gallery, and scrolled through the images of the single most attractive man I had ever seen. These were all publicly available photos, of course, from his long career and the many, many public appearances.

One after another, I swiped through them. Nate Partridge in full hockey gear like a young god or Nate Partridge advertising an expensive underwear brand. In winter attire or nothing more than a pair of swimming shorts, it was all my new coach. My dad’s best and oldest friend. The gruff, straight dude who had known me since before I could walk.

I’d always had a thing for the unattainable men. Young, cocky guys didn’t interest me. Especially not when Nate Partridge was aging like fine wine, growing hotter every year.

I had had a crush on him since I was sixteen, just before Dad left the NHL, and their relationship became more long-distance. In the years that followed, seeing Nate on TV and online never failed to send flutters through me. It also never failed to squeeze my heart with melancholy.

Here was a guy who would never notice me. He was drop-dead gorgeous, tall, broody, hot as the fires of hell in which I’d burn if I tried some foolish thing, and kind on top of it all. Despite witnessing me sprout from a child to a young man, Nate never patronized me. He never spoke to me like I was a foolish kid. Seeing me play my guitar didn’t earn me a lecture about wasting my time when I could be doing extra drills.

I scrolled through my gallery. Over the years, I had collected more photos than was strictly healthy. I didn’t care. Viewing the difference between the photo and the real thing always thrilled me. And coming across some of the hotter photos he’d done for the thirsty fans always turned me on, my legs pressing together on their own, thighs rubbing, fire blazing in my groin. Fuck. The things I would let him do. The things I would do for him…

Despite the fact that my crush on him was only a little over three years old, Nate had had an impact on me since forever. His body, when he was a lot younger and slimmer, had triggered my sexual awakening. A particularly raunchy set of images had been swirling around the internet for a cologne campaign. Some geniuses imagined that putting Nate Partridge into the bottom half of a Roman soldier’s attire would sell the manly scent they had produced. It worked like a charm, making me desperate to own the cologne and, more importantly, slamming me with the realization that I wanted men in all the ways that mattered.

After stumbling through the years of discovery, my heart returned to the man who’d started it all.

Some years later, after a few bad hookups and a tiny number of good ones, I knew nothing would ever cure me of my feelings for this man. He would always be the leviathan in my life. The monument to sex appeal and the embodiment of desire. He would also remain an unattainable wish that I would carry to my grave.

I might as well flirt my ass off around him. It’s not like he’ll notice me, I thought.

And what if he noticed me making moves? I would look as ridiculous to him as an ostrich, performing my little seduction routine and hoping for a laugh. It wasn’t like he would take me off the team. Besides, even if he did, would that be such a loss? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been on ice and loved the game. Not the way all the other guys did. The burning passion to play and win was so visible on their faces. All I had to offer was that raw talent they went on and on about.

For the first time in my life, I was away from Dad and near Nate. For the first time ever, I could dream of shooting my shot, even if I didn’t have the balls to do it for real.

Ron was wrong.

I didn’t need four years to make bad decisions. I would get mine out of my system by the end of the semester.

THREE

Nate

My apartment was sparsely decorated. I’d bought it on a whim, adding the property to a list of places that sparked some kind of an idea on my first viewing, only to be abandoned and gather dust. “Increasing in value,” all my financial advisors said.

I didn’t care. My lifestyle wasn’t lavish. I didn’t fly in private jets or spend months globetrotting. If I didn’t earn another dime for the rest of my life, I would still live a comfortable life. And there would be something to leave to Beckett someday.

Those were the thoughts that roamed through my head as I sat on the flat black-and-gray sofa, looking at the pitch-black screen of the TV hanging from the wall across. Around it, almost indistinguishable from the soulless light gray walls, were the abstract paintings the previous owner had left behind. Dull hues splattered across the canvas sparked nothing in me except confusion. Perhaps that was the point.

I didn’t dwell on the weird art. This was a place near Northwood and more than enough for sleeping in. I did little more than that in here. Mixing myself a drink in the evening was the extent to which I used the state-of-the-art kitchen. Judging by how well maintained it was, I suspected the previous owners weren’t chefs either.

My nights were often restless, if not totally sleepless. Every sound would wake me up. My dreams were vivid and brimming with anxiety. My eyelids, heavy throughout the day, would be lighter than feathers in the middle of the night. Closing my eyes would be an invitation to the thoughts that inevitably alerted my senses. The memory of being broken never really left my mind. It lingered and tainted every other thought. And when I entertained it, trying to face the memory full-on, it only tempted worse things to join it. Is this what you’ve done with your life, Nathan? That was my own voice speaking. An empty apartment, a cold bed, and a companionless life. Well fucking done.

I wondered why I thought of this so much lately. Perhaps the absence of hockey left a vacuum I didn’t know how else to fill. Then again, one in the string of therapists had recently told me that my career might have just been a distraction. Without it, I had nothing else to keep me from facing the things that bothered me my entire life.

I lay in my bed, awake and bored out of my mind. It was well after midnight. I had a staff meeting early in the morning, but it wouldn’t be my first meeting after a sleepless night.

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