Page 28 of A Shot at Love
“What a night, eh?”
Frankie grinned as she leaned against the wall and took in the scene. “Hard to believe, if I’m honest.”
Neil smiled and he gave her shoulder a squeeze, the kind of gentle recognition a proud father might give their child. “Believe it, kid. It’s going to be one hell of a ride and next time we get to do it on our own ice at home.”
Forty five minutes later, an Uber dropped Frankie off outside the restaurant the team’s management had selected for its inaugural game celebration. She double checked her reflection in the restaurant’s front window, her blue pantsuit and black heeled boots traded for more casual black slacks with a thin grey blazer and a cabernet coloured silk blouse tucked in at the waist, paired with a pair of black leather loafers.
She knew she looked good, not that she was trying to impress anyone.
Except she absolutely was trying to impress someone and she felt a nervous flutter in her stomach as she slipped her hand into the pocket of her blazer to wrap her fingers around a hockey puck.
“Hey, there she is!” Travis Baker, the Harbour’s starting goalie said as a hostess led Frankie to a large section of the space separated from the rest of the patrons by a frosted glass partition. “Coach Stevens!”
Players on the team were seated around a room full of tables alongside their loved ones and other staff members who all made the trip for the first game of the season.
Frankie smiled and scanned the room, her eyes landing on Jules at a table next to Cam, right winger Mason Cooper, and a brunette woman Mason had introduced to her at the practice rink one afternoon as his fiancé, Charlie.
With a soft little smile and a slight wave, Jules signalled her over to their table and given she had no family of her own to celebrate with that evening, Jules was exactly who she wanted to be with.
“Hi,” Jules said, her eyes dropping to Frankie’s shoes before they moved back up her body, settling on her face. “You look amazing. I thought the pantsuit was a great look but…I really like this.”
Her cheeks warmed with a blush. “Oh, thanks.”
”Coach,” Cam said, raising his glass in her honour. “That was one hell of a play tonight. From the practice rink to the big times.”
Frankie reluctantly tore her gaze from one Clarke twin to the other and laughed a little, nodded in thanks as she slipped into the vacant seat beside Jules.
“It feels like you’re our secret weapon or something,” Cam added. “And don’t worry about the chirping you might’ve heard from those Boston dicks as they skated past our bench. I told ‘em to shove the gender bias up their fucking ass and get with the times.”
“Oh my god,” Jules groaned, rubbing her temples. “Such a way with words…”
“He’s right to say it,” Mason agreed. “I don’t get why people have such a problem with it. It’s just a job, if you’re good at it then you’re good at it.”
“And you’re good at it,” chimed Charlie from across the table. “It was so inspiring to see you behind the bench.”
The blush on Frankie’s cheeks from the compliment Jules gave her only deepened as she sat with the praise from the people around her.
Their conversation naturally moved on to something else but Frankie could see Jules watching her from the corner of her eye. She leaned in close and bumped her shoulder against Frankie’s.
If Jules thought Frankie looked good, she was underestimating her own appearance. Her blonde hair was a little wavier than usual and she was dressed in a pair of dark blue jeans and a white striped blue button down shirt with a crème coloured cardigan.
Frankie tried her best to keep her eyes from lingering too long or risk being caught staring in a very unprofessional way but Jules had left the top two buttons of her shirt open and from where Frankie was seated as Jules leaned into her, the edge of a white lace bralette was visible against peach skin. She swallowed back a silent groan at the sight of it and took a deep breath to settle a sudden bout of anxious nerves.
“Charlie is right, you know. Seeing you do your thing tonight was incredible,” Jules whispered. “It was honestly pretty hard to look away.”
“Yeah?” Frankie asked, not knowing how else to respond as she looked at Jules, admiring her soft features and the light pink shade of gloss that coated her full lips.
“Absolutely. You should be really proud, and I hope you’d still feel that way even if the result was a loss.”
“I think I’d be pissed.”
“I would be pissed on your behalf,” Jules teased. “But I wondered – ” She narrowed her eyes and looked around at the people filling the large dining area. “None of your family were able to make the trip for your coaching debut?”
It was a question Frankie expected someone to ask eventually and she was surprised it had taken this long to come up in conversation, but she wasn’t surprised by the fact that it was Jules, concern and sympathy clear as day in her eyes, who was the one to broach the topic.
In a room full of family and loved ones, Frankie was, objectively, alone and she hadn’t been willing to admit to herself yet how the reality of it actually felt, how it cut deep.
If she did acknowledge it, she would be undoing years of work, years of accepting the finality of knowing nothing would ever change. Her family had made their mind up about her a long time ago and all she could do was move on and become everything she needed to be, all on her own.
