Page 44 of Knottingley Ever After
Except.
The irritation is not pointed at me.
I have been on the receiving end of pointed irritation from Coach Declan for two seasons running, and I know the shape of it cold. This is a different geometry. His eyes are not on me. They are on her. Specifically, on her, then on the line of my hand in hers, then back to her face, and they linger about three beats longer than a senior coach has any professional reason to linger on a freshman goalie.
Huh.
That is not irritation. Or rather, it is irritation about the surface, layered over something quieter and uglier that the man is doing a frankly impressive job of keeping pinned down.
Two seasons of reading Coach Declan have given me a working dictionary for his face, and the word my dictionary is currently producing for the look he is aiming at our joined hands is one I do not love.
Jealous.
Which makes no sense.
Unless…
I cut my eyes back to Iris.
Stoic. Locked. Building. Walls all the way up and the lights off behind them, and that is the second piece of the puzzle that did not fit until just now, because no freshman goalie hauls upthat kind of fortification on the simple sight of a coach. You do that for a man you have history with. You do that for a man you have spent five years building those walls against.
They have history. The kind that left damage.
I file that, hard, and I make my face into the lazy, untouchable thing it does best.
“On my way, Coach,” I say, easy.
I do not let go of her hand. I dig my free hand into my joggers pocket, come up with my phone, thumb the screen on, and pass it to her instead.
She frowns at it.
“What—”
“Passcode is five two five two.” Low. For her. “Text Jude once you have figured out the dorm situation. He will come help carry your bag up. The Omega dorms are in the west tower, and rumor has it the lift is decorative more than functional, so unless you are dying to drag a suitcase up four flights of stairs, you take the assist.”
She turns the phone slowly in her hand.
“But— you need this.”
“For what?” I tip my chin toward Jude and Rémi. “The only people I text live right there. Plus one annual check-in to my mother, which I do strictly for the cardio of her replying with three voice notes. There are games on it. Admin is slow. You will be bored.”
Her mouth twitches.
The smallest flicker.
I lift my hand, slow, in front of all of them, and run my fingers gently through the damp pink at her temple. Her eyes flick up to mine and stay there. I let my palm trail down her jaw, her neck, the bare nape at her hairline, slow, deliberate, the unhurried language of a man planting a flag.
My hand drops to the small of her back and rests there for the length of a breath.
Public. Witnessed.
Mine.
I duck my head, mouth grazing the shell of her ear, and drop my voice to where only she can catch it.
“You text me. Or I will come find you, the second Coach is finished with whatever cruelty he has scheduled for me on the ice.”
She huffs out a breath that is almost a laugh.
