Coop
He left the water running, steam filling the shower room, knowing that someone else would be right in behind him to use the hot water.
There was no shortage of stinky hockey players post-game who needed to shower.
Probably not the best move to leave it on when living in drought-ridden California, but sometimes old habits were hard to break, and not wanting to make his teammates wait forever for the water to heat—something that definitely took less time in an NHL team’s locker room than what used to pass as showers in the rinks he’d played at growing up—was one of those old habits he’d never grown out of.
And considering the rest of the team did the same, he supposed he wasn’t the only one.
Old dogs. New tricks.
Also, when had he become an old dog?
He wasn’t by any means, he supposed. At twenty-seven, he was smack dab in the middle of the guys’ ages. Some—Stefan, Mike, and Blane—were considering retirement . . . or at least what their lives would look like once their contracts were up.
In their early to mid-thirties, they were the old dogs, they were the ones who were at the ends of their careers. A brutal fact, yes, but professional sports tended toward a young man’s game and they’d won the Cup, had great seasons, been part of a great team. Hockey, especially when they were getting paid to play, and needed to treat it like the job it was, didn’t get much better than that.
Coop knew.
He’d been on a few rosters that had almost managed to suck the soul out of him.
Players who were prima donnas. Coaches who thought they could only get the best out of their teams by screaming and throwing shit and punishments.
Look, sometimes a team needed their asses chewed between periods or after a game, but they didn’t always need it, and it certainly took away any of the shock and fired-up response they might pull from the roster if the team knew they would be facing their coach’s temper tantrum any time they were in the locker room.
So, it was lucky that Coop had ended up here.
With the Gold.
With Bernard and Calle and the rest of the coaching staff. They might hold them to a high standard, but they held themselves to the same expectations and because of it, the players knew if they fucked up or had a bad game or hell, if the hockey gods didn’t happen to be speaking that night, that their backs were still covered.
They might get extra tape or pulled into an office for a chat, but that Coop got, that made for better players.
That made for a family.
He walked out of the locker room, snagged a towel from the rack just outside the doorway, and saw that Calle was sitting next to Kevin, now dressed in his suit, both their eyes on the tablet in front of them.
Coop shook out the towel, started to wrap it around his hips.
But then Kevin nodded and Calle stood, closing the cover on the tablet, her gaze leaving Kevin and heading in his direction. And so, maybe he took a little bit longer than normal wrapping the cotton around his hips, especially when her eyes hit his and froze before darting down, and those lush pink lips parted slightly.
He slowly tucked one end of the towel into the other and strode through the changing room to his stall.
Calle’s head jerked away, feet retreating toward the door.
“Calle?” Kevin called.
Hesitantly, she spun back around. “Yeah?”
“Can you show Coop that same play?” he asked. “I think it’ll help for the next game.”
Coop froze, searching his teammate’s expression for a moment before relaxing.
Kevin’s was both a completely innocent suggestion, as well as a totally professional one, seeing as they’d had a home and home series against the Ducks (the Ducks played at the Gold Mine for a game and then they went down to Anaheim for the next). Plus, Kevin wasn’t known for his poker face. His heart lived on his sleeve, and that was part of why he’d been able to snag the beautiful, capable Rebecca. If he was matchmaking, Coop would know it, and that was because his friend was known for out-stubborning Rebecca into giving him a chance.
And then out-stubborning her to stay around.
Calle crossed over to them, and her expression would have given PR-Rebecca a run for her money in the stubborn department.
Or maybe it was determined.
Determined to prove to him—or herself—that nothing had changed between them and that she was fully capable of that.
Well, he knew that. The that being her ability to be fully capable of doing her job. The other that—the nothing had changed one—wasn’t so easy to prove. Something had changed, had linked them together, and there was a reason chains weren’t easy to break. Links were strong, links tied, links—
Calle shoved the tablet under his nose, thankfully cutting off his internal waxing poetic about links and chains.
“Watch this,” she said and hit play.
Coop watching himself on the television feed was still a trip, even after almost seven full seasons in the league. But there he was. He’d obtained his dream, was wearing the jersey of a professional team, and on TV.
Craziness.
But then his mind shifted out of the clouds and down to the screen. He watched the figure move, began to process what the teams were doing, what he had done, and he glanced up at Calle, mouth curved. “So, that’s what we’ve been working on, huh?”
Her expression turned playful. “If by working on you mean by doing the exact opposite of what we’ve been practicing, then yes.”
“Damn.” He grinned.
Her eyes danced before growing earnest as she explained another place they could improve. “And see this here . . .”
His smile faded as she talked, not liking that he hadn’t been able to do what she asked, that the things they’d worked on in practice hadn’t translated into the game. All that work for absolutely nothing. All of Calle’s work for nothing. Fuck. What was the point of practicing if he couldn’t bring it out in the games?
“Fuck,” Blue muttered with a scowl. He’d walked over, was watching alongside Coop. Then he pointed to the screen. “There.” Calle paused the video. “It’s all going as planned, and then I turn the wrong way—”
“And I slide up too high,” Coop interrupted.
“And then an odd-man rush the other way,” Calle said.
“I don’t like odd-man rushes,” Kevin muttered. “Fucking hate back-checking.”
Damn. Coop remembered the play now. The puck had popped out of the zone and the Duck’s center had grabbed it, hauling ass along with two of his teammates as they headed toward Brit in goal. Only Stefan had been back playing defense since Mike had overcommitted and ventured too low, and then with him and Blue bungling the offense in one heartbeat and Kevin in too deep, the play’s tide had turned.
Three on one was never good odds.
But three on one in professional hockey was even worse.
Even with Brit in net and Stefan, one of the best defensemen, back, the Ducks had still scored. Brit having made the first save but not having been able to make the second.
She’d been pissed about that, about letting the Ducks get the go-ahead goal, but the team didn’t blame her, and Coop most certainly didn’t. At any given time, the puck had to get through the five of them on the ice before it got to Brit in net, and at that time, three out of the five of them had screwed the pooch, making her odds even worse.
She couldn’t make the crazy, game-saving, stand-on-her-head stop every single time.
Even though she expected herself to.
Coop had overheard her talking to Frankie after the game, already planning an extra practice session to improve “her pathetic glove hand” the next game.
Perfectionist.
One of the best goalies he’d ever had the privilege of playing with.
Calle tapped the tablet’s screen, and he watched the play unfold, watched the goal, and knew Brit wasn’t the only one who needed an extra practice session. He’d set something up, work on plugging that hole until he was perfect.
“I don’t expect you guys to be perfect,” Calle said, directly contradicting his thoughts. “This is a new system, and there will be hiccups and setbacks as we move forward with it. But the more time and practice and game play with it, the less often we’ll see these errors. It’s just a matter of muscle memory.”
He nodded, meeting Blue’s then Kevin’s eyes over her shoulder. He knew his line mates were on the same page. More practice. More reps. Fewer imperfections. Fewer outright fuck-ups.
“Thanks, Coach.”
Calle may not expect perfection from them, but he did. And so, fine, maybe that wasn’t reasonable, and maybe Brit wasn’t the only obsessive perfectionist in the locker room. So, what if she had plenty of company? They all had to have some perfectionist in them, otherwise they wouldn’t have gotten as far as they had.
She nodded and stood. “I’ll see you all on the bus.”
Coop nodded, wanting to ask if the crackers and ginger ale had helped settle her stomach but knowing that he should just leave it alone. For all he knew, she’d tossed them in the trash and had gone about her game prep. So, instead of asking her about her nausea and the snack, he started to get dressed. By the time he grabbed his own snack and retrieved his shit from his car, there wouldn’t be much time before he had to head to the airport with the guys.
The team tended to fly out right away after games, giving them as much time as possible to get to their destination and allowing for issues with delays or flight cancelations.
The second wasn’t so common, as the team had their own plane, but sometimes the weather—especially in fog-prone San Francisco—made it tricky to fly out.
So, a bus to the airport then a plane down to Anaheim . . . then a bus to the hotel.
Then tomorrow a bus to the rink.
Then a bus back to the airport.
Pro at hockey. Pro at bus travel.
Not that the buses the team had were anything like those he’d grown up using. These were luxurious with comfortable seats, plenty of legroom, and they even had seat belts.
Cue sarcasm.
But growing up in Atlanta didn’t exactly bring the word luxury to mind, or at least not his neighborhood. He’d grown up in a strictly middle-class area, and the hockey opportunities weren’t particularly plentiful, but he’d had natural talent and his parents had made it work.
That had meant a lot of driving for them when he’d made a decent travel team, and plenty of him navigating the local transit systems with his huge equipment bag and sticks. Eventually, it had meant allowing him to move in with a family in Michigan so he could take advantage of the better hockey there and could grow as a player. They’d made trips up to watch him play, had scrimped and saved to buy him new skates when his feet grew out of them twice in one season, and they’d never failed to find a way to help him realize his dreams.
Luckily, he’d been able to pay some of that back.
He’d bought them a house last year, had paid off both of their cars—and the only reason he hadn’t bought them new ones was because they’d thrown such a conniption about the house that he’d refrained.
He’d still paid for them to take a two-week vacation to an all-inclusive in Jamaica.
They’d come back from fourteen days of sand and surf and free alcohol much more sanguine about the house.
Still wouldn’t let him buy them new cars, though.
Grinning, Coop shoved his feet into his shoes and tossed his suit jacket over one arm then gathered up his wallet, cell, and bag. He’d run to his car and get everything sorted. But as he moved to the door, he noticed that Calle hadn’t made it very far. She was talking to Brit near the exit and . . . she was looking noticeably pale.
And sweaty.
She swallowed hard, glanced toward the door, and he watched her spine stiffen, her jaw clench, and her shoulders come up.
Did Brit not see that she was dying to get out of the room?
Max came in then, still wearing his post-game workout gear, and Coop watched him stop by Calle and start jabbering.
And all the while, Calle got paler.
He closed the distance between them, saw she’d taken on an almost gray cast and her forehead was beaded with sweat. Max and Brit seemed oblivious. Fuck. How was he the only one who noticed that Calle was breathing through her mouth and inching toward the door?
There were only two feet between them when Max lifted his arm, pointing over Brit’s shoulder.
Calle gagged.
Which both Brit and Max missed, because they were looking in the direction he’d pointed, but which Coop definitely didn’t miss because he was focused on Calle.
“See?” Max was saying, and when Coop got a whiff of the funk that was wafting from beneath Max’s armpit, he almost gagged himself.
Fuck, that was awful.
He nudged Max away—okay, he shoved Max—but the six-foot-two-hundred-pound-plus athlete could take it without a backward step. “Hit the showers, dude,” he snapped. “You’re stinking up the place.”
Max smirked. “Don’t tell me you like the locker room as clean as you like your car.”
Brit snorted.
“It was one time,” Coop said, interjecting himself into the conversation and giving Calle a light nudge toward the hall, trying to encourage her to take the chance at escape while she had it.
She understood the push and stepped out of the circle of conversation, slipping quietly into the hall as Max continued teasing him about his obsessively clean car.
Brit joined in then turned the razzing to Max and his collection of toys.
Which then turned to Brit and her taste in music, several of the guys joining in and lamenting about how awful it was when she got to choose the playlist in the locker room.
“You guys know you love Lizzo,” Brit said as Stefan came up behind her and slipped his arm around her waist. She turned into the embrace. “You know the guys love Lizzo. And Britney. And Gaga. And the Backstreet Boys.”
Coop shuddered—though he couldn’t say he hated when Juice came on. That shit was catchy.
Stefan, good husband that he was, nodded and pressed a kiss to her cheek.
Which then turned the teasing Stefan’s way, the guys dissecting the many ways he showed Brit way too much PDA in varying degrees of grossness.
And that was Coop’s cue to get the fuck out.
He melted into the hallway, intending to go out to the parking lot, but as he walked past the row of offices, he heard it.
It being . . . the sound of vomiting.
One guess whose office it was coming from.