Page 67 of A Shot at Love
“Nice, right?” She joined Sydney by the window and looked down at a large cargo ship cruising along the water. “Prime real estate.”
“I live in a flat above a corner store with one of my teammates,” Sydney said, bumping her shoulder against Frankie’s. “Anything is fancier than that.”
“Yeah, well, there are pros and cons to living in a place like this.”
The pros? The view, the accessibility to everywhere in town, including the rinks, and then of course there was Jules. Had it not been for them living in the same building, their relationship likely wouldn’t be what it was and that made the place perfect.
The con? Her next door neighbour was Cameron Clarke and it meant they never did more than sleep when Jules stayed at her place. They didn’t dare risk him overhearing anything intimate between them because that would definitely complicate things even more.
“Jules…her uh…her brother lives next door.”
Sydney scoffed and turned around to stare at Frankie, mouth agape and eyes wide. “So you’re telling me that the captain of your team and the brother of the girl you’re…dating…shares a wall with you? Yikes.”
The emphasis on the word dating didn’t sit well with Frankie. Not because she didn’t want to be dating Jules, but because they hadn't given a name to what they were. They were undefined despite the way her heart felt.
Frankie considered Jules to be more than just someone she was dating. Jules was her…Jules. Jules was the first person she thought of when she woke up and the last person she saw before falling asleep at night.
She wanted Jules to be her girlfriend, and while the thought had already crossed her mind once or twice, she knew it now for certain. Ever since they’d met in the gym that day, it had only been Jules.
But then there was the whole Cameron situation and Frankie was so unsure of how it was going to play out, so worried that she’d be the one to cause a rift in the biggest and most important relationship in Jules’ life. Knowing the past, the way her previous partner resented the relationship Jules had with her brother, Frankie wouldn’t forgive herself if she came between them in a negative way.
It all felt so much harder to navigate now that things were so real.
“Ha, yeah…not exactly an ideal set up but it is what it is.”
The following day Frankie brought Sydney to the practice rink and gave her the tour. Despite Sydney’s best efforts, some of which included bribing Frankie with Swedish candy, Sydney was not allowed to borrow a pair of skates and join the guys for a scrimmage.
“Syd, there’s a game in two days,” Frankie said when they were in her office so she could gather notes and load up plays on her iPad. “You really shouldn’t even be here watching practice today but Neil told me it was okay since you’re a professional hockey player too and you came all this way for a visit.”
So Sydney stood off to the side of the rink, watching with intense curiosity and Frankie knew she was studying her, knew she was keeping track of the way players reacted to her coaching calls, paying close attention to the guys who listened and who questioned her decisions and talked back.
Frankie wasn’t naive to the fact that some of the other coaches gave a few players a pass but the conversation she’d overheard a few weeks earlier had seemingly made its way to on ice performances. Frankie knew Sydney saw it when Cameron shoved one of his teammates.
It would’ve been okay, something easy enough to shrug off as a slight disagreement about a play or a missed pass, but the little shove from Cam grew into a full on brawl between him and one of the three players who seemed to have an issue with Frankie as their coach. They wrestled against the glass, shouting at one another, and it took four other players and the goalie coach to pull them apart.
They were supposed to be a team and right now, they were so far from it.
From across the rink, Frankie met Sydney’s eyes and she no longer saw the point in keeping the issue to herself, because it had grown into more than she could manage on her own.
“Why are men such fucking dicks?” Sydney stretched her legs out and propped her feet up on Frankie’s coffee table. She brought a slice of pizza to her mouth and took a big bite, speaking as she chewed. “You’re a woman, who cares? They wouldn’t have hired you if you weren’t good so like…what’s the big deal?”
Frankie heaved a sigh as she tossed pizza crust into the box on and fell back against the couch cushions. She rubbed her temples to ease the tension of a brewing headache.
She didn’t have any answers and all she could do was show up and do her job to the best of her abilities. She didn’t even know what was said that made Cam react the way he did but it definitely wasn’t a compliment to her.
“And Jules knows about this?” Sydney raised an eyebrow and took a swig from a bottle of beer. “What does she think?”
“Jules wants me to go to our head coach and tell him what’s going on. I’m sure he’s got some ideas after the show those guys put on today but I refuse to go crying to the person that's basically my boss because I’m a girl and a boy hurt my feelings.”
That wasn’t the case, Frankie knew that, but simplifying it made it easy to rationalize. She was a coach and the athletes she worked with were supposed to respect her. How was she meant to coach them if they didn’t?
At the same time, the team’s power play had improved and unless the problems behind the scenes impacted that, it wasn’t worth the effort or the headache she got from thinking about it.
“Well, shit. I guess everything isn’t all sunshine and roses in the big leagues, eh?”
“You’re telling me,”
“But you love it? Despite all the bullshit?”
