Page 75 of The Dating Coach
"Blonde, connected, understood the importance of image." I shrugged. "She loves someone else too, actually. She told me to go get my girl."
"Smart woman," Frank said, joining us. "Speaking of your girl..."
"She'll be there," I said with more confidence than I felt. "Hiding, but there."
"And after?" Henry pressed. "What's the plan?"
"Win the game. Win the girl. Build a life that's actually mine." I stood, fully dressed, ready for battle. "Not necessarily in that order."
Frank grinned. "Now that's the captain I remember. Welcome back, brother."
The arena was packed, energy electric with championship atmosphere. During warm-ups, I scanned the crowd methodically. Not the lower sections where she'd be too visible, but up high where someone could hide in plain sight.
My eyes swept across row after row, searching for shoulders that would try to become invisible. She had to be here. Despite everything, despite the hurt and the silence, she had to be here.
I kept looking, kept hoping, kept believing that somewhere in this sea of faces, she was watching.
My helmet clicked into place. The puck dropped. I still hadn’t seen her—but I knew she’d show. Now all I had to do was find her before the final buzzer.
Chapter 33: Gemma
"You look like you're attending a funeral, not a championship game," Aunt Penelope observed, sliding into the booth across from me. We were at the pre-game gathering in the arena’s restaurant.
I forced a smile that felt like shattered glass. "Just nervous about the game."
"Bullshit," she said pleasantly, then turned to the server. "Whiskey sour, please. Make it a double. My niece is being a fool and I need fortification."
"Aunt Pen," I protested weakly.
"Don't 'Aunt Pen' me." She waited until the server left, then leaned forward. "I had coffee with a very broken-hearted hockey player yesterday."
My heart stuttered. "You what?"
"Lovely young man. Excellent bone structure. Absolutely destroyed by your noble martyrdom." She accepted her drink with a smile that turned sharp as she focused back on me. "Going to explain why you're sitting here looking miserable instead of with him?"
"It's complicated—"
"It's not," Uncle Mark interrupted, appearing with Mia and Karen. "It's actually quite simple. You love him. He loves you. Everything else is just noise."
"The noise is ruining his career!" I protested as they settled around me, clearly prepared for an intervention.
"His career, his choice," Karen said firmly. "But you don't trust him to make good choices, do you?"
"That's not—"
"It's exactly that," Mia cut in, steel in her voice. "You're doing what Mom and Dad always did. Deciding what's best for someone else without asking what they actually want."
The comparison hit like ice water. "I'm nothing like them."
"Really?" Aunt Penelope challenged. "They decided Mia needed to be straight for her own good. You decided Liam needs to be without you for his own good. Both based on the assumption that you know better than the person actually living the life."
I stared at my untouched water, throat tight. "I'm trying to protect him."
"From what?" Uncle Mark asked gently. "From loving someone who loves him back? From choosing a life that includes more than hockey?"
"From giving up his dreams for me," I whispered.
"Did he tell you he was giving them up?" Karen pressed. "Or did he tell you he was choosing different dreams? Dreams that included you?"
