Coop
“Thanks,” Calle said when he handed over her backpack.
They’d had a slight scuffle over the bag after she’d emerged from the bathroom, but thankfully, the receptionist had used her magical powers to detect their brewing argument and had popped her head out to schedule Calle’s follow-up appointment.
He’d taken the opportunity to escape into the hall, still carrying her backpack.
Though, not before he’d made a mental note of the date.
Just in case.
Now, she was back in his SUV and they needed to sort out her car.
He rounded the hood and opened his driver’s side door, but before he got in, he noticed there was some dirt on the floor mat. So, in a move he’d done hundreds of times since he’d finally made enough money to buy a nice enough car, Coop whipped the mat out.
One quick shake got the dust off and twenty seconds later, he had the mat secured.
Keys in the ignition, ass in seat, belt across his lap and chest, and secured.
Only then did he realize Calle was staring at him, mouth agape. “Oh my God,” she said, shoving her backpack into the space at her feet. “It’s true, isn’t it?” Her lips tipped up. “I thought it was just the guys trying to find something they could tease you about, but it’s actually true.”
Aw shit.
He’d given Max, one of their defensemen, a ride home last season and had stopped the other man mid-potato chip consumption—a.k.a. Max doing his damnedest to grind every tiny crumb into the seams of Coop’s leather seats.
Totally reasonable, he’d thought.
But it had given Max—and the team—the fodder with which to tease him about being obsessed over his car.
And look, he was a tad bit obsessed.
He liked his car clean. He liked things in their place. He hated feeling tiny, pokey crumbs under his ass when he wore shorts in his car almost as much as he hated having any visible trash in the SUV he’d worked really fucking hard to pay for.
Yes, with his new contract he could buy a new vehicle, one undoubtedly nicer and more expensive than this one.
But it wouldn’t be this one.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, pushing the button to start the ignition and backing out of the stall.
“Coop.”
He flicked his eyes in her direction.
“You just shook imaginary dust out of your floor mat.”
“It wasn’t imaginary—” Clicking his teeth closed to cut off his protest came too late. Calle’s expression had already gone all cat-ate-the-canary.
“So, what do you do when it rains? Dry your baby gently with a three-hundred-thread-count silk towel?”
Actually, he used a ridiculously expensive chamois he’d picked up at a car show.
“I think there’s a fingerprint on your nav screen.”
His stare darted there.
Calle burst out laughing.
He sighed.
“I can’t wait to tell the guys this.”
Another sigh as he drove out of the parking lot.
“If you shaved your head, we could call you Mr. Coop.”
“Yeah, no.”
“But you’d look so cute bald and with one earring.”
No. No, he would not.
She giggled, and even though it was the result of her giving him shit, it still made Coop feel like a million bucks. Seeing her smile like that, as though just teasing him had made some of the boulders she’d been carrying on her shoulders fall away, and he could have sworn he’d grown five inches and put on twenty pounds of muscle.
It made him feel invincible.
Fuck, she was special.
“I’m not getting an earring,” he said, playing along.
“So, you’re saying that shaving your head is not out of the question.”
He pulled the car to a stop at a signal. “Have you seen my head? It looks like an egg.” A shudder. “I shaved my head once, and the results weren’t pretty.”
“Pictures or it didn’t happen.”
“You’re persistent.”
“There is a reason I’ve made it as far in this industry as I have.” She giggled again. “Though I’m guessing there’s a reason you’ve made it this far, too.”
“Persistent meet stubborn?”
“If the shoe fits.”
Coop hadn’t realized he’d been staring at her, entranced by the playfulness, loving how relaxed she seemed now that the appointment was over, and everything was okay and . . . she was fully clothed.
Well, there was that.
But anyway, he’d been watching her face change, studying the lines of her brows as they lifted and fell while she talked, the corners of her lips dancing as she fought a smile, the barest hint of a dimple appearing and disappearing on her cheek, and he’d been absolutely mesmerized.
At least until the horn blared behind them.
Coop’s gaze shot forward and he hit the gas, sliding through the intersection as the light changed from yellow to red.
“Whoops,” Calle said.
He chuckled.
“So, Mr. Coop is out,” she murmured.
“That’s a certainty.”
“Bummer,” she said and fell quiet as he continued down the road and pulled onto the freeway. “I should call Triple A,” she murmured, a few moments later. “Get a jump on the wait time.”
“Good idea.”
But as she reached into her backpack for her cell, her stomach rumbled, the noise all but blaring like a siren through the quiet car.
“Maybe we should eat first?” he suggested.
“Oh, no,” she said. “I can wait. You’ve already taken enough time out of your day.”
“I’m hungry, too.”
“Coop. No.”
He bit back a sigh. Although . . . one benefit of being in the driver’s seat when a stubborn female sat in the passenger’s seat meant he had control of at least one thing.
He took the exit for the practice rink . . . then turned in the opposite direction of it.
“What—?”
There was a cool outdoor space just around the corner, specialty markets mixed in with a variety of food stalls to fill the pavilion. One, in particular, he knew Calle was a fan of—Sam and Cheese—made gourmet dishes with, no surprise, plenty of cheese.
“Brie, cranberries, and apricot jelly, right?” he asked, navigating his SUV into a parking spot on the street across from the market.
“Coop—”
“On toasted sourdough bread?”
Her stomach growled again, but despite that, she shook her head again.
“Come on,” he said. “It’s my cheat day. I’m starving, and I need a brownie from Molly’s stand.”
Recently expanded into a restaurant spot in the Gold Mine, Molly’s was a local restaurant that sported an awesome bakery, homemade soups, sandwiches, and salads, and was singlehandedly the reason he’d gained five pounds soon after moving to San Francisco.
It had been a lot easier to put them on than taking them off, that was for damn sure.
Calle sighed.
“Melted cheese, tart cranberry compote, homemade sourdough—”
She popped the passenger’s side door, shoved out onto the sidewalk. “Fine,” she bit out, grabbing her backpack. “What are you auditioning for the Food Network now?”
He smothered a smile as he got out on the driver’s side, meeting her at the back of his car. They let a car pass then jay-walked across the road and moved into the open-air market.
“Sam and Cheese first?”
She grunted.
Sam and Cheese first.
They made their way over to the counter, ordered at the window—brie and cranberry grilled cheeses for both of them, since he’d heard Calle and Brit rave about the sandwich for long enough that he needed to try it for himself, and some of their homemade lavender and honey lemonade. He paid—ignoring her protest and taking advantage of the fact that he was taller, had longer arms, and had prepped by getting his wallet out, already anticipating the battle. “You can buy me a brownie.”
Her expression went thunderous, and she sucked in a huge breath.
Coop braced himself.
Then she released it with a long, slow hiss of air. “Not exactly a fair trade,” she said. “Be prepared for twenty dollars’ worth of brownies.”
“I’ll take that trade.” He grinned. “Especially when it’s Coach giving the means to really take advantage of my cheat day.”
“Fuck,” she muttered.
He grinned, knowing the battle was mostly won. “I won’t set Rebecca loose on you, I promise.”
A roll of those pretty chocolate eyes. “Fine. I’ll buy you one brownie, with the promise of another on the next scheduled cheat day.”
“Deal.”
Their nutritionist, Rebecca, had put together a great meal plan for the team. They had transitioned the players to a wholly vegetarian diet, with the bulk of their protein choices coming from plant-based sources. Some came from fish, eggs, milk, and cheese, but most often he stayed away from anything that came from animals . . . and he found that he didn’t miss meat all that much.
Cheese, on the other hand?
That was hard to give up.
His mom’s mac and cheese, cheddar biscuits, grilled cheese sandwiches, cheesecake—
Yeah, the dairy component was hard to keep in moderation.
So, he tended to stay away from it all and then go crazy on cheese—cough—cheat days.
And thank fuck he’d never let his nickname for the team’s days off their diet plan slip in the locker room. The shit-givers would love to have something new to tease him about.
Although now Calle had car fodder.
“There it is,” she said, and Coop blinked, realized he’d been wool-gathering while staring at the pickup window. He turned to face her.
“Sorry, what?”
Her cheeks went pink. “It’s ridiculous.”
“Well, I think we’ve had plenty of ridiculous today. Hit me with it.”
Her face screwed up and she lifted a hand, tugged at the end of her ponytail. “It’s just easy to tell, even from the side, when you smile.”
He paused. Coop wasn’t much for primping in front of the mirror, but he liked to think that he had slightly better than average looks. But maybe he was delusional and his smile really did make him look possessed like his older brother had always said.
Hockey players don’t smile, Coop, Brendan had told him when he’d seen his first promotional pictures when Coop had finally made an NHL team. You look like a pussy flashing all those pearly whites. You’re supposed to be missing teeth by the time you make it to the big leagues.
I paid a lot of money for that smile, his mom had chimed in. So, no, he’s not. Then she’d smacked Brendan on the back of the head and had told him to never use that word—meaning pussy—in front of her.
Brendan hadn’t.
Instead, he’d switched pussy to possessed when their mom was around, taking it so far as to say that he could see the devil in Coop’s eyes when he smiled.
Asshole.
But also . . . heh.
He’d gotten Brendan back, though—sending him a sexy devil singing-gram to the fire station where his brother worked.
Those guys could razz as good as the players on the Gold.
Fuck, he needed to go home.
He missed his pain-in-the-ass sister, though she was closer now, having recently moved to San Diego, and his parents. He even missed his brother. But also, Coop missed just being in the neighborhood where he’d grown up in Atlanta. Not that his current situation was bad. San Francisco was pretty great, too, and living out his dream of playing professional hockey was doubly so.
But it wasn’t home.
“Why do you look like you swallowed a rotten egg?” Calle asked.
He shrugged, brushing off the homesickness, the little twinge of doubt it came from thinking about his smile and his brother’s teasing. “No reason.”
“Coop—”
Thankfully, at that point, the guy from Sam and Cheese called their number and Coop was able to escape before he said something along the lines of, “My big brother says my smile looks possessed, is it true?” or “I miss my mommy and want to go home.”
“Should we grab a table?” he asked when he came back, paper trays of food and drink carrier balanced in his hands.
Calle nodded and led the way to a picnic table.
The sun was going down, the strings of lights crisscrossed overhead had turned on, and because it was a weeknight, the space wasn’t too crowded.
In fact, it felt cozy and a little intimate.
Well, not more intimate than being in the same room as she’d undergone the exam, as stripping down with his back turned, and all sorts of scary-looking medical instruments put in—
“I’ve always liked how you smile with your whole face,” she said.
Coop jerked his head up. “What?”
Her eyes were soft. “It’s what I meant before. It’s just . . . you have a great smile.”
“I—uh—” He fumbled with his sandwich, gaze darting to hers and away.
“Have I struck the unflappable Cooper Armstrong mute?” she asked, head tilting to the side, ponytail swinging out behind her, skin glazed golden by the lights above them.
And fuck, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
“I never thought I’d see the King of the Soundbite at a loss for words.”
His cheeks felt hot, and there was something about this woman, some special Calle Stevens magical fairy dust that made him feel about twelve years old again. And like a twelve-year-old, he also had all the smoothness of sandpaper. Which was why he blurted, “My brother says I look possessed when I smile.”
Her brows drew down.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
He shoved his sandwich into his mouth, took a huge bite. Partly because it was delicious, but mostly because he needed something to shut him the fuck up.
She reached across the table and snagged a cranberry that had fallen into the paper tray, plucking it up between thumb and forefinger and sliding it between a set of lush lips that made his cock twitch. He was reeling from revealing too much, his cheeks burning, and Calle Stevens still gave him a hard-on.
Yeah, she had fucking magical fairy dust all right.
“I think you have a very nice smile,” she said in between bites. “So many of the guys try to do this tough guy bullshit in the team photos, and I’m like I’ve seen you scream like a hyena when Max hides somewhere and jumps out at you.” A grin. “So no, you’re not that tough, you’re a giant teddy bear, and I like that you don’t try to pull something over in the publicity photos.”
“PR-Rebecca would not agree.”
She shrugged. “Probably not, but that’s why she gets paid to do the PR and I get paid to help you guys play . . . and sometimes that’s by keeping the egos in check.”
PR-Rebecca was a media-spinning genius and the two Rebeccas together—PR and Nutritionist—along with Mandy, Calle, and Dani, meant the team’s support staff was both diabolical in their planning ahead (and ego-checking) skills as well as totally kickass.
“I imagine the ego portion of the job gets to be a lot,” he said.
“You’d imagine right,” she said, tone teasing. “You know those professional athletes are so fragile.”
“Definitely.”
She did that head-tilt thing again, but her eyes had gone soft. “Why do I think that you looking possessed isn’t the full story?”
“Why do I think that you’re the one who told Max about his new hiding spot?”
“Why did I enjoy you jumping about six feet off the ground when he scared you?”
“Why did you bust out laughing when everyone jumped six feet off said ground?” he asked. “Well, everyone except Brit, because she’s apparently got nerves of steel and is never scared or bothered by Max’s pranks.”
Aside from not jumping out of her skin when he popped out of random places, she’d not even batted an eye when Max had pasted her prom pictures—with Blane as her date (long story, but they’d grown up together, with Blane being madly in love with Brit until he’d gotten together with Mandy and realized that he and Brit would have never actually worked).
The fact that her fluorescent pink dress and their tough-as-shit goalie wearing about a pound of makeup and heels that matched had been plastered over every available inch of the locker room hadn’t fazed her in the least.
She’d shrugged, said, “Cool.”
Just Cool.
Then had gotten dressed.
See? A total BAMF.
As in, Brit was a badass motherfucker.
“Or . . . she has advanced intel.”
A BAMF who apparently had inside information. He narrowed his eyes at Calle, demanded, “Who?”
She snagged another cranberry. “I never divulge my sources.”
He scowled. “Angie,” he accused.
Angie was Max’s other half and Mandy’s sister. Mandy was tight with Brit.
Calle just looked at him with an innocent expression he wasn’t buying for a single minute.
“Traitors,” he muttered. “The lot of you.”
She snorted. “The lot of us?” she asked. “I think you mean the small but merry band of women who keep the ship on track and have had to band together against the cloud of egos and masculinity?”
His gut sank.
He reached for her hand. “Shit,” he said. “Is it really that bad? I thought that since the organization was moving toward fifty-fifty men to women for the support staff that things had gotten better. Who’s—”
“I don’t need you to fight my battles, Coop,” she said. “There is still some work to be done, people who aren’t thrilled to be coached by a ‘girl’ or play with one, but I’m a grown woman and can handle my own shit.” A pause. “As can Brit. And the rest of our posse.”
Putting aside the term posse for the moment, he tried to pinpoint exactly who was giving her a hard time. Most of the guys had reserved judgment on Calle when she’d initially been hired, a few had been very hesitant in accepting coaching from someone who played a different version of the game. Women’s hockey had contact, but no checking was allowed. That wasn’t to say it didn’t happen and the games between the US and Canada were particularly physical, but just as the men’s game was starting to move toward speed and away from a plethora of bone-jarring, and potentially CTE causing hits, the women’s game was much more about transitions, team play, and puck movement. Which were right in the Gold’s wheelhouse—they generally had smaller, quicker players, and less of the enforcer-led play that had dominated the game he’d watched growing up.
So, Calle had the gameplay experience, but she was also able to transform that into information and suggestions the guys could easily pick up.
Which meant that any reticence had quickly transmuted into respect the previous season.
Still, Coop knew there had been a bit of a learning curve after training camp this year, a few of the younger guys who’d been picked up weren’t used to either a female in the locker room or one giving them orders. Luckily, Bernard—their head coach—had absolutely zero patience for bullshit on a good day. And having one or more of his players questioning his assistant coach had not, in fact, made for a good day.
Asses had been chewed.
Calle had kept doing her thing.
The players had removed their heads from said chewed asses and things had gelled.
Or maybe they hadn’t?
“Who—?”
She stood, grabbed their empty paper trays. “Brownie time.”
“Call—”
But she was already walking toward Molly’s food stand. He hurried to catch up with her, taking the trays from her hands and tossing them into the trash.
“Who’s—”
“Stop,” she snapped, whipping around to face him.
He froze, the tone far colder than anything he’d heard from her before.
“Look,” she said, still frosty, “I appreciate you stepping in today, but I don’t need a hero or someone to save me.”
“I—”
“I’ve been on my own for long enough that I know how to take care of my shit, and I certainly know how to deal with men who don’t think I know as much about hockey as them. There aren’t many on this team, but occasionally one will let loose, and I can handle it. Okay?” She sucked in a breath. “What I don’t need is you fucking up my job because you saw me in a situation that is decidedly un-coach-like and think that it means I’m going to fall over myself just because I said you have a nice smile and we hung out for a few hours.”
The words clocked him across the face, stinging like he’d been sucker-punched. But, look, he got it. Circumstances meant that Calle had needed to prove herself, that sometimes she still needed to.
Fucking sucked that was her reality.
But the world was the world, and while most of those in their circle were cool, she couldn’t control every asshole in the league.
Which meant she needed him to be cool now.
To let her handle her own shit.
To not get protective and overstep just because when he’d heard that heartbeat on the ultrasound machine, stared at the tiny human on the photographs the doctor had printed, Coop had felt . . . moved.
As though a piece inside him had shifted.
Because it was fucking magic and beautiful and amazing and fragile . . . and it was inside Calle.
But she didn’t need him to think about magic.
She needed him to think about hockey.
About the team.
About her job.
“Calle—”
She didn’t let him get out that he understood where she was coming from, that he would shut up and allow her to buy him a brownie, then he’d take her back to the rink. Nope. She didn’t let him get any of that out.
Instead, she let loose on him.
“Fucking stop, Coop,” she snapped. “I know all about men like you. They come on tough and sweet and strong, pretend to care, pretend to be protective.” Her inhale and exhale were as sharp as her next words. “But the trouble with men, especially with supposedly protective and sweet and strong men, is that it’s all fucking bullshit. You don’t really mean it. You pretend to protect, just long enough to worm your way into our lives and fuck things up and—”
He’d heard enough.
He was not that guy, and he certainly wasn’t anything like Jason fucking Marchand, as she was implying.
Coop leaned close, near enough to smell the lightly floral scent of her shampoo, near enough to see her eyes darken, near enough to smell the cranberry on her breath. “Forgetting for a second that you’re lumping me in with that piece of shit you let shoot his load between your legs, you should know me well enough by now to understand that I don’t pretend at anything.” He leaned closer, heard her inhale sharply. “It’s why I fucking smile in the promo pictures, why I tolerate Max’s bullshit jokes, why I’ve given everything I have to this team.” Closer still. “And that’s just the team. The job. Because in my outside life, in the real fucking world, if it were my woman who was carrying my tiny, perfect baby in her belly, I sure as shit wouldn’t be halfway across the US, doing fuck knows what in a career I didn’t have a chance at advancing. I would have sorted my shit and been in that chair, in that room, watching with fucking tears in my eyes as I saw my baby for the first time.”
Her lips parted, and he saw her eyes go damp. “Coop—”
He nodded at the stand. “Get your brownie if you want,” he said, not looking at her. “I’ll be in the car.”