Page 80 of Locke

“You’d be good at it,” I say confidently.

“You don’t know that.”

“I know how you read a room,” I say.“I know how you watch people.You already coach, Locke.You just don’t call it that.”

He doesn’t answer, but he does squeeze my fingers, which means he likes what I said.

“I have been working on my general contractor license,” he says, and my head whips his way in surprise.

“Really?”

“Yeah… on and off for the past few years.Close to finishing it.”

I look at him.“You want to build.”

Locke shrugs.“I want to build my own place, eventually, but that could be a career I could move into.”

“Where would you build?”

“I’ve been looking at property.Couple acres outside the city, enough trees that you can’t see the neighbors, close enough to not feel remote.”He lets his gaze pan the horizon.“I like Portland.I could see staying, if the team keeps me long term.”

I think about it.Locke Donovan in Portland.Locke Donovan with a piece of land and a house he built himself and a youth hockey program somewhere outside the city with kids who have no idea they’re being taught by someone who has spent his whole career being told he’s unmanageable.

I think about myself in that picture and then I think about the fact that I’m thinking about myself in that picture and I redirect.

“We’ve only got one more session,” I say.

He exhales.“I know.”

“And you know I’m going to push.”

He stops walking, turns to face me.“I know you’re going to try, and you’re probably not going to be happy with what you get.”

“I don’t want to fail you,” I admit.“I want you to keep your place on this team, and my experience tells me that whatever is eating at you…” I reach out and tap his chest with my palm.“Right here… you have to deal with it.”

“Livia.”He says my name almost sorrowfully.“You’re right.There is something, but it’s contained.It does not need to be excavated in someone’s office.It’s mine and I carry it and that’s how I deal with it.”

“Contained isn’t the same as resolved.”

“No,” he says.“It’s not.But it works for me.”

I want to push.I have the words ready—the language about ceilings and pressure and management strategies that stop working, but I tamp them down.

I have our session on Monday to pull out all the cannons.

Tonight I’m with this man on a romantic walk by the river and talking about building a home here.

So I let it go.

We’re at a spot where the esplanade bends and there’s a railing at the water’s edge.It’s chilly but impossibly beautiful and I’m falling for the man holding my hand.

Maybe Locke feels it too because he cups his free hand against my cheek.

And then he kisses me.

It’s soft.The softest he’s ever been.It’s without hurry, no intended destination.

Just a kiss that we both get lost in until oxygen forces us apart.