Chapter Two
KENDALL
Serendipity’s Coffee Shop smells like warm sugar and my resurrection after
last night’s game.
I need caffeine and girl talk, and I need it now. Especially with the banter
between me and Aleksi last night. I haven’t stopped thinking about it and I am
in dire need of a distraction.
The sparkle in his eyes with his bloodied eyebrow, as if it couldn’t bother
him any less, is burned into my memory.
His words play like a highlight reel, replaying over and over: “Fun fact—
your pupils dilate when you look at something you want. Want me to test it?”
The chalkboard menu is crowded with hearts around the seasonal drinks:
Honeysuckle latte, pistachio cold foam, Penelope’s famous dirty chai. One of
the barista’s looks up when I walk in, despite the long line of customers in
front of her, and waves at me.
My favorite thing about this place, second only to the food, is that it feels
like family here.
The baristas all know me by name, and ever since the Hawkeyes hired me
on, and Penelope pulled me into the inner circle of wives and girlfriends of
the players, I’ve come to know this place as our special meeting spot to
gossip about life.
I’ve never had a friend group like this. Shoot, I don’t even have a family as
accepting and loving as this group of women. The idea of losing them is a
scary thought. For as long as Penelope and the Hawkeyes are willing to keep
me on, I’ll be here.
A toddler in a Hawkeyes beanie presses both hands to the pastry case like
it’s a museum exhibit. The milk steamer screams in the background, and
someone at the corner table cheers when a cinnamon roll the size of a
catcher’s mitt lands on a plate.
“Kendall. Over here.” Penelope says, waving me over.
Our table is the usual chaos—Isla in a cozy sweater with a lipstick-stained
to-go cup. She’s married to a retired Hawkeyes player who still coaches the
Hawkeyes kids’ league. Cammy, Penelope’s assistant and JP Dumont’s
girlfriend, is dissecting a blueberry muffin with surgical precision. Peyton, a
well-known sports podcaster and the girlfriend of Hunter Reed, our left
winger, is scrolling with one thumb and stirring with the other.
There are more of us, but with the size of our group, there are bound to be
scheduling issues, and it’s hard to get us all in the same room at the same
time.
“You’re late,” Peyton says without looking up. “Cammy threatened to text
you a photo of the last almond croissant as leverage.”
“I would never,” Cammy says, already sliding a pastry across to me.
“Except I absolutely would. We are at war with the lunch rush.”
A barista sets down our drinks. Penelope pushes a dirty chai toward me,
wiggling her eyebrows. “Doctor’s orders.”
I roll my eyes and take a sip. It’s like a hug that knows secrets. “Okay, fine.
You win.”
“Obviously,” Penelope says, tapping the stack of itineraries with her nail.
“Are you packed for tomorrow’s away game? Wheels up at 9 a.m. for the
team jet. Most of the wives and girlfriends are coming for the playoff games.
We’re flying commercial, so we’ll see you all there.”
“You packing, Kendall?” Isla asks. “Or are you living the glamorous life of
rolling scrubs and orthotics?”
“Two pairs of scrubs, a set of my Hawkeyes athletic sweats for the game,
compression socks, and a bathing suit for the hotel hot tub that I never seem
to get to,” I say.
Juliet Haynes, Coach Haynes’ wife lifts her mug. “Keep the dream alive, I
say.”
She’s a well known celebrity party planner so she’s always jet setting and
we don’t always get her at our coffee shop chats, so today is a treat.
“Thanks Juliet,” I say back with a grin.
Peyton finally sets her phone down. “Speaking of emotional support—can
we discuss how the entire city exhaled last night? I swear my car drove
smoother this morning.”
“Winning does make the roads less bumpy,” Cammy agrees. “It’s physics.”
“Or the hockey gods,” Isla chimes in.
“We had a good game at home, but we’re away tomorrow and Colorado
doesn’t lose much in their own arena,” Penelope says. “Let’s not order the
champagne and confetti just yet. The Series is still 2–1.”
“Spoken like a woman whose love language is cautious optimism,” Isla
says.
“I’m the GM. I have to plan for both endings,” Penelope shoots back with a
grin. “Speaking of cautious optimism…” She glances over to me. “…how’s
Scottie this morning?”
“He looks good. He’s back on the ice this morning. The neurologist had a
look and Coach put him on light duty to keep him fresh for tomorrow’s
game.”
“As if Scottie understands the concept of ‘light duty,’” Cammy teases.
If any of the boys on this team knew the concept, it would make my job of
keeping them healthy, a lot easier.
The bell above the door jiggles again, and a group of teenagers in
Hawkeyes hoodies tumbles in, all elbows and victory glitter. One of them
points at the display of team stickers next to the register and groans that
they’re sold out of Aleksi ones.
Of course.
Isla catches the direction of my glance and works up an innocent face that
fools exactly no one. “Speaking of light duty… Aleksi looked like he was
doing some light duty on the bench with you during last night’s game while
you were working on his face,” Isla snickers.
“Oh my God, I’m glad someone else brought it up because I’ve been dying
to say something since Oakley’s last night. I swear I thought he was going to
pull you onto his lap and make out with you right then and there,” Cammy
jumps in, eyes wide, leaning in across the table as if worried she’ll miss a
word.
I choke on chai as the heat of the idea of him doing that blooms in places
between my thighs that it most definitely should not. “I—what? No, he
wasn’t. He was just being his usual chatty self. You know how he is. Fun facts
about random things.”
“Oh, he’s chatty, that’s for sure, but the way he couldn’t wipe that smile off
his face, even the nosebleeds could tell what that boy was in the mood for,”
Juliet says, smirking behind her own cup.
Panic rushes through me at Juliet’s words—“even the nosebleeds could tell
what that boy was in the mood for…”
If the girls were the only ones who could see it, fine. But did the press see
it? Would the medical board see it and jump to conclusions? Would the NHL
think something more was going on?
The medical board has already allowed public persuasion with zero
evidence to cause an audit—which puts my medical license at risk. But I’m
not the only one with something to lose here. If the NHL thought there was an
inappropriate relationship between the team doctor and a player, they could
force the Hawkeyes to trade the player or bench him, at least. The NHL could
bring down sanctions on the Hawkeyes for allowing an inappropriate
relationship to happen under their nose, potentially affecting the draft.
“Ground Zero,” Peyton says, pouncing. “Three weeks ago. Your birthday.
One drink. One dance. One relentlessly cheerful Finn who does not stop
smiling.”
I’m not proud of the way heat prickles my cheeks. “It was one song. He
caught me on the way to the bathroom.”
“He intercepted you like a gentleman,” Cammy corrects. “And spun you
like an old movie.”
“It was a dance club,” I say, too quickly. “Everyone was spinning.”
Isla smirks. “Everyone was spinning. You were glowing.”
“I was sweaty and had two blueberry mojitos,” I protest. .
“You were seeing a tipsy glow at best.”
“You’re deflecting,” Peyton says.
I tear off a corner of the croissant I swore I wasn’t eating. “There’s nothing
to deflect. You all know my rule.” Then I glance at Penelope, who knows just
as well as anyone what’s at stake and why Aleksi and I can’t date. “A little
help here?”
“‘No players,’” the table choruses like a church. Even the toddler at the
pastry case turns, as if he’s heard this sermon before.
I set the croissant down and lace my fingers together on the table. “It’s not
a cute boundary. It’s a survival strategy. And it’s not just for me.”
Penelope softens. “I know,” she says, nodding. She’s been
uncharacteristically quiet since Isla brought up Aleksi. And since she’s known
as the unofficial matchmaker of this WAGs group, she’s the one who would
have jumped my ass about Aleksi the moment I walked through that door. But
she hasn’t, because she knows what that could mean for everyone involved.
“Your medical license could be called into question, and the team could face
sanctions,” she says calmly, like the true GM she is.
“Seriously?” Peyton asks, her eyebrows stitching together, almost shocked
by this.
“Oh… right,” Cammy says, leaning back into her chair as if an old
realization just hit her. “I forgot that you technically have a doctor/patient
relationship.”
“And the sanctions, especially right now in the playoffs…” I trail off.
“Even if I wanted something to happen with Aleksi—and I’m not saying that
I do”—I look around the café, remembering that we’re in a public place. I
lean closer and drop my voice lower. The last thing I need is some random
person hearing this and it gets out. “It’s too messy and the potential cost is too
great.”
“Have you two talked about this?” Penelope asks, both as a friend and as
the GM.
I lean back. “No, of course not. I don’t want to start a conversation about
any of this with him. For all I know, he’s just flirting with me because he
knows it can’t happen.”
“Sure that’s why he’s flirting with you,” Cammy says with an eye roll and a
smirk. “Come on, Kendall. If he was an emoji, he’d be the one with drool
dripping down the side of its mouth whenever you walk into a room.”
“But does he know you can’t date?” Peyton asks, looking between the rest
of us.
“He should know. He’s been in the league long enough to know that
medical staff are off limits,” Penelope assures with a vigorous nod. “But that
doesn’t mean rules aren’t often broken in this league. People just try to keep it
quiet. These boys like playing on the edge. That’s why they play hockey.”
We all snicker because it’s true. If hockey players weren’t breaking rules,
they would have lost interest in the game years ago.
The trouble is, Aleksi might lose time in the game, maybe get traded, but
he’ll still have a career. The Hawkeyes might get sanctions, but those don’t
last long. I’m the only one who stands to lose my entire livelihood because I
answer to a different power than the NHL. I answer to the medical board.
“So no Aleksi?” Peyton asks one last time.
“No players at all. Ever. I’ve been down this road. I know some of you at
this table have great guys, but they’re not all made the same.” They all nod as
if they understand.
“My ex-husband cheated on me with a cheerleader he met at a bar,” I say,
voice flat so it doesn’t shake. They know that Tarron left me for someone
else, but they don’t know all of it. “I was naive and stupid to think he had
been faithful all these years while I was finishing my fellowship, but that was
the tip of the iceberg, and once the divorce proceedings started, I found out
about the dozen or more affairs he had over the years. The only reason I
found out about the cheerleader at the bar was because he got lazy and
someone snapped them making out together.”
Peyton’s hand finds mine under the table. “I’m so sorry that happened to
you.”
“His agent didn’t want to lose the fat management fee he was making off
Tarron, so he tried to spin it. Put in the press that a ‘source close to us’ said
we were on the brink of divorce anyway. That I was only after expanding my
career as a team doctor by marrying him. He recovered Tarron’s image by
spreading fake headlines that Tarron and the cheerleader were secretly
engaged and that I was fighting the divorce to make it seem like they weren’t
just caught cheating but loved each other.”
“What an asshole,” Isla says.
I nod. “I tried to move on, but I was a workaholic and most of my waking
hours were spent around athletes, so that’s what I dated.” I huff out a laugh
that doesn’t feel like one. “Turns out, I can navigate a torn meniscus
blindfolded. I can’t navigate egos and alcohol and lies.”
“Not all players,” Cammy says quietly.
“No,” I agree. “Not all players. But I’m a magnet for the worst of their
kind, and for some unknown reason, I can’t seem to peg them as soon as I
meet them. I don’t trust my intuition. My picker is broken, and maybe there is
such a thing as a curse you inherit from your mother.”
Penelope squeezes my hand. “And that’s why you left the NFL.”
“Exactly,” I echo. “Tarron’s agent started it by taking a hit at me to save his
client’s image, and then the press saw a clear shot when I was photographed
leaving a restaurant in New York with another football player. That’s when
the labeling started and the medical board started looking into it. After I was
cleared, I considered not going back, but I ran into you and you offered me a
change. I built back my reputation in a new league by doing the work, quietly,
every day. I am not risking that because someone has a sexy accent and a nice
ass.”
Peyton’s mouth tilts. “He does, though.”
“Peyton.”
“Hunter’s ass is better, but I’m just saying. Aleksi is in great shape, and
he’s had a crush on you forever. And the way he looks at you is so swoony.”
“The swoony look is the problem. The other stuff is easier to ignore,” I say.
Isla’s eyes are kind and annoyingly perceptive. “You know, it’s allowed to
feel good when someone looks at you like that, even if nothing can come of
it.”
I spin my half-drunk chai cup in my hand. “It’s allowed. But it won’t do
either of us any good. Especially not me. I can’t afford to have my work
questioned because I smiled at the wrong person.”
A beat of silence. Then Isla squeezes my knee. “Okay. Rule stands. We get
it.”
“Thank you,” I say, and mean it. “Now can we talk about who’s bringing
the travel humidifier? Because I refuse to turn into a raisin before game
time.”
The conversation tilts back into logistics, blessedly ordinary. Peyton’s
debating heels vs. sneakers; if we should all bring cute outfits for the team
dinner. Cammy is trying to convince Isla that fanny packs are back. We mock
each other’s packing lists and compare notes on which arena has the worst
coffee.
By the time we push back our chairs, Serendipity’s has thinned to laptop
people and a man reading the paper like it’s still 2006. The air outside is
damp, per Seattle in April. We hug good-bye in a knot of cross-body bags and
promises to text when we land.
My apartment is neat in the way you only achieve when you’re never there.
I drop my keys in the bowl by the door, kick off my shoes, pull my teamissued suitcase from the closet. Packing is muscle memory at this point:
scrubs, flats, running shoes, a black dress that always rides along like it’s
waiting for a nightclub that never comes, and of course, my faithful bikini
that has yet to feel the warmth of a bubbling hot tub. Toiletry bag, med kit,
and some romance book that Cammy was raving about that I got at our girls’
elephant gift party over Christmas.
I stare at the packet of salmiakki from last night that still sits unopened on
my dresser like a dare. I shove it into the side pocket and tell myself it’s as
good a place as any.
My phone buzzes on my comforter. The name flashes across my screen.
One I haven’t seen light up on my phone in over two years since our divorce
finalized, and I’ve liked it that way.
My stomach goes cold and hot at the same time.
That gut-churning feeling you only get when true dread hits you.
Tarron: Saw you on TV last night when Easton went down. You
look good.
I set my phone down slowly, because if I don’t, I might launch the phone
into orbit. The name is the same but the contact photo is gone—the one with
us on vacation in the Cayman Islands during one of his season breaks.
Deleted in a fit of dignity that felt like victory and loss all at once. He doesn’t
deserve a face on my screen again.
I could just… not reply. That would be normal. Healthy, even. I could type
Lose my number or just block him altogether.
Instead, I do nothing, as if that’ll somehow make this all go away. I take a
deep breath in, shut my eyes, and let it out slowly, focusing on the sound—
the feel—the way I tell rookies to breathe in the quiet room when the world is
tilting and they need a focal point.
The thing about trauma is that you think you’ve resolved it, buried it, or
better yet, locked it in a box and tossed it into the deep abyss of the ocean.
You think you’ve grown out of it. That it no longer has a hold on your life or
the decisions you make now.
And then a text pops up, and suddenly that deep, dark abyss isn’t so deep
after all, and that locked box just washed up on the shore.
It buzzes again—face down like I’m trying to suffocate it out of existence. I
don’t flip it over. I don’t need to. I know his cadences. I know the apology
that never comes. Just excuses, smoothed over with no shred of
accountability.
I cross the studio apartment. There’s not enough room here to actually get
away from my phone. There’s barely enough room to breathe sometimes.
This space, and the debt hanging over me, is the fallout he left behind when
he partied too hard with his new cheerleader girlfriend, got into drugs and
drinking, and got kicked off the team.
With his income gone, the liabilities and credit card debt in both our names
became mine. The creditors, too.
This tiny apartment is an ever-present reminder that I’m still not out of it.
The debts have been finalized, paid off… but I’m just now shifting that
money to the medical school debt I haven’t been able to make a dent in. It
will be years before I ever see the end, but I’ll get there… someday. And the
salary that Penelope agreed to goes a long way to help that.
I grab a glass, fill it from the sink, and take a long drink. The distant thrum
of traffic from the Seattle night presses in through the window.
For a moment, I’m somewhere else—a different kitchen, a different city—
watching a different man shove clothes into a duffel while divorce papers lie
on the counter, his signature already dry on every line required to end our
marriage.
I slide the phone into a drawer and shut it. The sound of the draw closing is
satisfying in a way that almost makes me laugh.
A long shower helps. So does laundry and making a list titled Road Trip
Things I Can Control. It’s short: pack snacks, update med inventory, bring the
good bandage tape because the other stuff frays. I make a list of things I need
to go over with Theo on the plane tomorrow, which will help keep my mind
off of my teeny tiny case of claustrophobia.
Theo’s always good at keeping me calm since he knows I struggle with it.
It’s not the flying or being thirty thousand feet above ground like most
people think. It’s the fact that I’m locked in a small space with other people
and no way out, other than a parachute, that has me clawing at the armrest.
Scottie’s Dramamine trick has helped, though. I just knock myself out and
hope to sleep the entire flight. I double-check to make sure a bottle of it is in
my carry-on, and sure enough, it is… in the front pocket.
When I finally crawl into bed, the city outside is doing its low, sleepless
rustle. I kill the lamp and roll onto my side, and there in the dark my brain
does the thing I was trying to avoid: it flicks to a grin I do not want to admit I
can see with my eyes closed. The grin is attached to a man who brings undereye masks on planes and hands out trivia like mints and winks as if he
invented the concept. A man who, if you let him, might make even a cramped
metal tube at thirty thousand feet feel less like a trap.
I bury my face in the pillow until the temptation to smile passes.
Tomorrow is travel day.
Aleksi is off-limits.
And Tarron is just a ghost.
