Page 7 of Goalie interference

I felt so off-kilter–so disoriented. I hated when my routine got messed up, and though it wasn’t entirely Thayer’s fault, he definitely wasn’t helping.

My muscles got tense, and my jaw clenched, irritation boiling in my body at what was so important that he had to break my routine more. I could feel my skin heating up every step closer to the training rooms we got, fully overheated when he shut the door and turned to me, completely calm.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his face scrunched as he gestured at the bench for me to sit with him. “I just wanted to–”

“You’re breaking my routine,” I said coldly, taking a step back from him–too overheated to sit down calmly with him. “You should know better than anyone that routines are fucking sacred, and you're breaking mine–”

“I just want to help you, Ash,” he said calmly. He held out his hand carefully, like I was liable to bite it off. “In the future, you could say, Coach Thayer, I have a routine, and this would break it. Is it important, or can it wait?”

From anyone else, that would have been patronizing. That would have sent me on a blaze of fury through this place, but something about the way he said it was just…fine.

It was just a suggestion, so we could understand one another better.

My eye twitched anyway–I needed to be getting changed. I needed to get changed, and then I needed to start my playlist to keep time while I warmed up on the ice.

I wanted to calm down–I really did, but this wasn’t helping.

“Or you could just leave me the fuck alone,” I spat, turning to the door, only to find a large hand covering the crack, stopping me.

“Calm. Down,” Thayer said slowly–calmly–in my ear.

Thayer was already taller than me, but you'd have thought I was two feet tall in the moment. He had his hand pressed to the door, standing behind me–closer than most of my coaches dared to get when I’d lash out at them.

That was a relatively tame lash I let out, but Thayer didn’t buckle for even a second. I wasn’t suddenly calmed, or anything, but something in his tone made me freeze in place, hand on the doorknob, not moving.

“I’m sorry I broke your routine, but I was trying to help,” he said calmly, unmoving from behind me. “Can I please help you, Ash?”

“Help how?” I asked, clenching my jaw as I let go of the doorknob and turned around.

Thayer was closer than I thought he was–our chests were only a few inches apart when I turned around. I felt his body heat more, but in a strange turn of events, it didn't irritate my overheated skin. I still felt irritated and unsettled, but his proximity and company were not making it any worse, which was shocking.

Normally, anyone in my space when I was upset made it worse, even Callie.

“Lay down,” he sighed, dropping his hand from the door and gesturing at the mat on the floor. “On your back–”

“Why?”

“Just do it, Ash,” he said sternly, sure. I let out a quick breath, making a big show of kneeling and lying back on the open floor. “Your groin is bothering you, yes?”

In more ways than one today, but yes.

“No,” I lied. “It's fine–are we done?”

“Ash,” he said softly, kneeling on my right side anyway. “I want to make a deal with you. I know you’re lying, and I know it's because you don’t want to say it hurts and then have me pull you–I know that. So, let’s make a deal. Moving forward, no matter what it is, as long as you’re honest with me, I’ll listen to you.”

“You’ll listen to me?” I asked, scrunching my face up at him from the ground.

“It’ll be your call,” he said, nodding once. “If you think you’re good to stay, then I won't pull you.”

“I want to help you, Ash–I do. I trust that you know your own limits, but I can help with things–things you have no idea can even be helped. Let me help you, and I promise, I’ll listen.”

Yeah, he wasn't the first coach to promise that.

He wasn’t the first coach to come in here and spout nonsense about how he trusted his players to blah blah blah. It was the oldest coach trick in the book…

It just didn’t really feel like a trick right now.

I couldn’t explain it, but something in Thayer’s face just screamed at me. He really wanted this, or was at least convincing himself that he did, so as irritated as I was, I wanted to believe him.