A week passes, and Ashton Jennings has made himself impossible to ignore.
He runs practices like a military operation—barking orders, demanding perfection, pushing players until they collapse on the ice gasping for air. The team fears him. Respects him. Whispers about him in the locker rooms when they think no one's listening. He's harder than Coach Miller ever was, colder, more relentless.
But I notice something the others don't.
His eyes follow me.
Not in the hungry, possessive way Nate's do. Not like I'm something to consume. This is different. Watchful. Calculated. Almost... protective.
I first notice it when I drop my clipboard during Wednesday's practice. Before I can even bend down to grab it, Ashton appears out of nowhere, scooping it off the ground and pressing it back into my hands without a word. His fingers brush mine for half a second. Then he's gone, already shouting at a defenseman about sloppy footwork.
I notice it again when a puck flies wild toward my section of the boards. I don't even see it coming, but Ashton does. He intercepts it with his bare hand, the crack of rubber against palm echoing through the rink. He doesn't flinch. Doesn't even look at his hand. Just tosses the puck back onto the ice and keeps coaching.
I notice it most when Nate tries to approach me after Thursday's practice. He's barely taken three steps in my direction when Ashton's whistle cuts through the air.
"Hemingway. You call that a slap shot? Get back on the ice. Fifty more. Now."
Nate's jaw tightens, but he doesn't argue. He skates back out while I slip away toward the exit, and when I glance over my shoulder, Ashton's eyes meet mine for just a moment before he looks away.
I spend my evenings trying to reach Coach Miller. I call his phone—straight to voicemail, every single time. I send emails that bounce back undelivered. I even try reaching out through his wife's Facebook page, but it's been deactivated. Gone. Like they packed up their entire lives and disappeared overnight.
My mind won't stop spinning through worst-case scenarios. With Coach Miller gone, I've lost my only real ally on this team. He was the one who hired me, who vouched for me, who made it clear to everyone that I wasn't just "Nate's girlfriend"—I was a legitimate part of the program.
But Ashton Jennings doesn't know any of that. He doesn't know what I'm capable of.
What if he decides he wants his own people? What if he looks at me and sees deadweight—or worse, sees Nate's ex and assumes I'm nothing but drama waiting to happen?
And Nate... God, Nate.
Coach Miller kept him in check, even if he didn't know the full extent of what happened between us. There was a line Nate wouldn't cross when Miller was watching. But now? With a new coach who doesn't know our history, who hasn't seen the way Nate looks at me when he thinks no one's paying attention?
I'm exposed. Vulnerable in ways I haven't been since I first started here.
The locker room goes quiet. Footsteps fade. The building settles into that hollow silence that only comes when you're the last one left.
Then I hear a voice.
Low. Serious. Coming from the men's locker room.
Ashton's voice.
I creep closer, my heart pounding against my ribs, and press myself against the wall just outside the entrance. The door is propped open a few inches—enough for his words to carry.
"She's safe for now." A pause. "The kid keeps circling, but I'm handling it."
The kid? Is he talking about Nate?
I hold my breath, straining to hear more. Through the gap in the door, I can see him standing by the lockers, phone pressed to his ear, still in his coaching gear.
"I know what I agreed to, Kian." Another pause, longer this time. "I'm not going anywhere until you tell me otherwise."
The name hits me like a fist to the chest.
Kian. My father.
The pieces slam together with brutal clarity. The familiar face I couldn't place. The way he looked at me in that hallway like he already knew who I was. The sudden appearance, the coaching job, the constant watching—
I remember now. A face at the edge of birthday parties I barely attended. A figure in photographs I tried to forget. He came to sit with me once or twice when I was young, those nights when my father couldn't fit his own child into his precious schedule.
My father's best friend.
I push through the door before I can stop myself.
My footsteps echo off the concrete floor. Ashton turns, phone still pressed to his ear, and our eyes meet across the row of metal lockers
He doesn't look surprised.
He looks resigned.
"I'll call you back." He ends the call and slides the phone into his pocket, watching me with that same unreadable expression. Water drips somewhere in the silence. The fluorescent lights hum overhead.
"You're working for my father." My voice shakes with a fury I didn't know I possessed. "This whole time. The coaching job, always being there, watching me like I'm some kind of target." I step closer, my hands curling into fists. "He sent you."
Ashton doesn't deny it. Doesn't flinch. Doesn't look away.
"I was hired to protect you." His voice is calm, steady. "That's my only task here."
Something inside me cracks wide open.
Of course. Of course my father would do this. Twenty years of absence, twenty years of missed birthdays and broken promises and silence so loud it drowned out everything else—and this is how he shows he cares? By sending a stranger? By hiring a bodyguard instead of picking up the goddamn phone?
"I don't need your protection." The words come out sharp enough to cut. "I don't need anything from him, and I definitely don't need you following me around pretending to be something you're not."
"Lyra—"
"Go back to my father. Tell him I'm not his responsibility anymore. Tell him I stopped being his daughter the day he stopped being my dad."
I turn to leave, my vision blurring with tears I refuse to let fall.
Ashton's voice stops me cold.
"I can't do that."
I freeze, my hand on the doorframe, my back still turned to him.
"And whether you like it or not..." His footsteps echo against the tile as he moves closer. "I'm not going anywhere."