Page 21 of Wildcat
“Right. You probably know the schedule.” His mouth pulls into a tight smile. “After home games, we usually go to a bar called Wild’s. It’s a couple of blocks from the arena. Meet me there and let me make it up to you for not calling sooner.”
It would be so easy to give in. It would feel good. I know it. My body freaking knows it, too. Every nerve ending crackles with desire. Easy and good, but also dumb.
Ignoring the heavy thrum of my heart, I step back. “I’m not interested, Leo Lohan.”
The next morningI’m in the kitchen eating a bowl of cereal while I replay yesterday like a horror movie. LeofreakingLohan. Of all the guys to go home with, I would pick the one that’s totally off limits to me. I’m a freaking mess.
Mom’s voice cuts through my thoughts. “Can you run this to your dad at the arena on your way to class? The man was going to wear a suit from the nineteen nineties in his team photo.” She groans and lays the garment bag over the chair beside me.
The seemingly simple request sends panic pulsing up my spine and I sit straight. “I can’t.”
Mom fills her travel mug with coffee and grabs her lunch bag from the fridge before she responds. A wrinkle forms between her brows. “Why not?”
I don’t come up with an answer quickly enough because I don’t have a good excuse.
She cocks her head to the side. “Please? I cannot bear the thought of your father being the worst-dressed NHL coach two years running. I’ll never live down the shame.”
“Worst-dressed coach?” I ask. “That’s a thing?”
“I believe the exact words of the online article were,That suit belongs in the dumpster along with the Wildcats post-season performance.”
“Man, the internet sucks.” Except for odd animal friendship videos and military members reuniting with family. Those can stay.
“Well, they aren’t wrong, at least about the suit.” She has her hands full but comes around to lean in and place a kiss on my forehead.
“I don’t even know where his office is.” It’s true. I haven’t been to visit Dad at work since I’ve been back. It wasn’t intentional. At least not until twenty-four hours ago.
“You’re a smart girl, Scarlett Marie. I’m confident that you’ll figure it out. See you tonight.”
I take my time finishing my cereal, then shower and get ready. The extra effort I put into my hair, makeup, and outfit is entirely unrelated to the possibility of running into the hockey player I’m hell-bent on avoiding.Completelyunrelated.
At the arena, I walk through the front doors, and a security guard ushers me to a sign-in desk.
“Name and purpose of your visit?” A woman asks without looking up from her computer.
“Scarlett Miller. I’m here to make sure Coach Miller doesn’t commit a crime of fashion.” I lift my arm to show off the garment bag as her eyes slowly glance up from her screen to me.
I can’t tell if she believes me or not—she has the piercing, take no shit gaze of a woman who takes her job seriously—but I’m eventually guided to an elevator and down to a lower level by a security guard who whistles lightly the whole way.
“Let’s check his office first,” the guard says. “If he’s not there, then he’ll be on the ice.”
I nod like I know. But I don’t. Not anymore. It’s one of those things that I knew had changed since I’d left for London two years ago, but until now, I didn’t realize that meant I didn’t know how he spent his day in the same way I used to.
Dad was still coaching at the junior hockey level then. I’d occasionally pop in to have lunch or just to see him. It was nothing like this. Everything about this place is bigger and nicer.
The guard in front of me stops in a doorway while I’m still admiring the massive hallway with its green paint that smells like it was recently done, the framed photos of players and coaches, and the light music playing over speakers in the hall—Taylor Swift, which for some reason makes me smile.
“Your daughter is here to see you, Coach.”
“My daughter?” Dad’s voice snaps me back to my purpose for being here, and I walk through his office door.
“What are you doing here?” He smiles behind a messy desk stacked with papers, so many papers, along with stick tape, hockey pucks, a brown banana, and those are just the things visible. Who knows what’s buried underneath?
“Mom sent me.” I hang the bag on an open filing cabinet and unzip it.
“Thanks, Mick.” He waves to the guard and then loosens the brown and white tie he’s wearing, walking toward the mom-approved outfit without a word of complaint. That is true love. Or twenty-seven years of experience telling him that changing his shirt and jacket are easier than listening to Mom gripe.
I take a seat behind his desk in a big, worn leather chair that I know for sure he had at the last place. It creaks as I lean back.
