An ear-piercing whistle cuts off my silly thoughts, and I’m grateful for the interruption. The sound of what seems like a hundred sticks pounding against the ice fills the arena. I notice a line of pint-sized hockey players on the other end of the rink.

Dean gestures for them to skate forward and they all race to do his bidding, sending up a wall of shaved ice when they stop at the center line.

“While Dakota practices her skating, I want you to break into two groups. The first group will carry the puck, head up from the blue line and back again. The second group stands in the middle of the ice. No reaching or trying to steal or checking. Just stand there. Once the first group returns to the blue line, switch. Most important part of this drill is keeping your head up.”

Dean arranges the boys who serve as the obstacles at varying points along the ice and then remains in the middle of the action as the team splits into two and starts racing up and down the ice, swerving neatly to avoid their teammates.

“He’s doing a great good job with them,” a deep male voice tells me. I turn to find an older man joining me on the bleachers.

“Dean?” I ask. The man nods. “Yeah, he looks like he’s enjoying himself.”

“He is. I’m Doug Ellis.”

We shake hands. “Allie Hayes. Friend of Dean’s. He was bragging about how well the Hurricanes are doing this year. Better than his team.”

Ellis chuckles wryly. “Briar’s not going to get another Frozen Four appearance this year, which is too bad. How’s Dean taking it?”

“All right, I guess. He wants to win, but…I don’t think hockey is his life. He plans to go to law school next year.” Dean hasn’t spoken of the pros at all, not the way Garrett does. From what I can tell, he loves the game but the game doesn’t define him, which I appreciate. Sometimes Garrett’s hockey talk gets really tiresome. I’m not sure how Hannah handles it, but I guess when you’re in love you overlook things like that.

Beside me, Ellis sighs. “Seems like a damned shame, this law school thing. He’s got teacher written all over him.”

We watch the players run their drill, while Dean takes the time to speak to a few of the skaters who aren’t as fast or as smooth as their teammates. He doesn’t raise his voice, but the kids listen intently. He pats them on the head or back before he lets them go.

“Do you have a kid out there?” I dip my head toward the ice.

“Not anymore. I have a son who played on the Hurricanes but he’s in high school now. One of the other PE teachers offered to take over for me after Wyatt moved on, but I wouldn’t give up this coaching post for anything. Kids at this age are special. They’re hungry to learn, still think an authority figure is there to help them, not hold them back, and just the threat of discipline works as effectively as the actual act of punishment.”

“It’s all downhill from there, I take it?”

“You have no idea.” He shakes his head in mock dismay. “The older they get, the more they think they know. Dean, though, he’s got the touch. I’ve had older kids hang around just to listen to him talk to the Hurricanes. And it isn’t just the boys that are drawn to him.” Ellis points to Dakota. “That little girl looks at him like he hung the moon, and she looked that way even before he gave her the pink skates. He’s patient and speaks to the kids like they’re important. You don’t see that in a lot of college students. Hell, you don’t see that kind of behavior in most adults.” Ellis shrugs. “If Dean took an interest in coaching, he’d be great at it, but I guess spending your days with middle-schoolers isn’t a glamorous job like being a lawyer.”

“Dean didn’t pick law because it’s glamorous,” I object, feeling the need to defend him again.

“Then you should talk to him about teaching, or coaching, anything that lets him work with kids. He’s made for it.” Ellis starts to get up but I stop him.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you also look at him like he hung the moon. And I get the sense he feels the same about you.” Ellis tips his head and then he’s gone, skating over to join Dean and the boys on the ice.

*

Dean

“What were you and Doug looking all serious about?” I tease, linking my fingers through Allie’s as we cross the parking lot toward my car. I click the key fob. “Please don’t tell me he was hitting on you.”

She blanches. “Oh, God no. In front of children? That would be so inappropriate.”

I can’t help but laugh. For someone who’s such a dirty girl in bed, her obsession with propriety and labels is kinda ridiculous. “So what did he want?”

We slide into the car. Allie still hasn’t answered the question, which brings a frown to my lips. Okay, now I’m starting to think she lied to me, and Coach Ellis was hitting on her. But she opens her mouth and startles me by saying, “He thinks you should be a teacher.”

My eyebrows fly up. “He said that?”

She nods. “A teacher, or a coach, or anything that lets you work with kids. Those were his words. Personally, I think you should consider being a Phys Ed teacher. Then you get to blow a whistle and wear those tiny gym shorts. Your ass would look great in them.” A slight smile tugs at the corners of her mouth. “Anyway, I guess Ellis saw your something.”

“My something?”

“That’s what happened to me when I was twelve,” she explains. “I went on my first casting call and the casting director told me she saw ‘something’ in me. It’s what convinced me to keep auditioning and pursue acting as a career.”

I scoff. “Yeah, but you were talented to begin with, babe. All I did today was give a kid a skating lesson and run some hockey drills with the boys.”

Which was a lot of fun, I can’t deny that. But the idea of making a career out of running around a gymnasium and blowing a whistle at little kids is…crazy. It’s crazy, right?

“I don’t know…” Allie says teasingly. “Maybe dodge ball games are your destiny. Or coaching, at least. You’d be amazing at that. You love working with those boys.”

True. But…oh, for chrissake, why is this even a topic of discussion? I’m headed to law school next fall.

I start the car and reverse out of the parking space, changing the subject before Allie can tease me again. “How’d rehearsal go?”