Ash

It’s past curfew, all the girls are in their beds . . . Well, they’re at least where they’re supposed to be. Nguyen’s with her husband and kids at their hotel, and Wright is with Green at their hotel. Everyone else is in the village, tucked up in their beds or getting ready to go to sleep.

That makes it mentally, if not physically, easy to pull on some pajama bottoms and an old T-shirt and fall into bed. Today was a frigging ridiculous day, and I hope the water of the team around the USS Bronwyn won’t be too choppy tomorrow. We’ll likely all feel waves from the bomb Brody dropped for days. Hell, this is the SIGs, so the impact could last for years, which makes me want to strangle the guy all over again. If my grandfather were still alive, he’d call Brody a ham-boned idiot, which is a lot nicer than any of the names I have for him.

The look on Bronwyn’s face . . . My chest hurts thinking about it. I knew Brody was a selfish fuck, but I had no idea—

My phone starts playing “Gloria,” and I sit up immediately. That’s the ring tone I have for my players. The girls don’t call me often—especially not at night. They tend to call my assistant, Gail, who passes relevant things on to me, and I encourage the distance that creates even though I like to think they trust me, but this time . . . Bronwyn?

It’s like I’m a guitar and someone just tightened my strings in a single wrench. Why is Bronwyn calling me? Only one way to find out, though. I swing my feet over the edge of the bed and grimace as I push off the mattress, because moving quickly is a beast on good days, and a fricking horror show on long days like this. But it seems inappropriate somehow to talk to her while I’m in bed, even if she wouldn’t know.

“Hello?” There’s no answer for a few seconds, just loud, pulsing music. Maybe she butt-dialed me? But if she butt-dialed me, she’s still in a place she shouldn’t be—it’s past curfew, and she shouldn’t be clubbing. Where is she? Will she hear me if I yell? Probably not. And now I’m thinking about Bronwyn’s butt, which is not okay.

I’m about to hang up and call Gail, maybe Stewart or Nguyen, see if they know anything about this, but all of a sudden, there’s Bronwyn’s voice. At least I think it’s Bronwyn.

“Coach?” It sounds like her, but her voice is a slurry croak, making my title come out more like “Coash.” Aw, shit.

“Bronwyn. Where are you? Are you okay?”

“Icing? Outside the village?”

Right, the club at the end of the block I’ve walked past a million times. I know where that is, and I know where I’m headed. I debate for a second whether to throw on different pants, but honestly, pajamas aren’t going to stick out much amongst the thousands of people milling around in track suits. Athletes and their hangers-on aren’t known for their fashion sense. So I shove my feet into my sneakers and lace them tight, my hip killing me a little for the reckless movements.

“Okay, I know where that is. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Can you tell me if you’re okay?”

There’s a gut-wrenching sob in response. “I messed up so, so bad.”

I’ve heard of second-hand embarrassment, but this is like second hand regret. It twists up my insides. I’ve seen Bronwyn upset before, but never like this. Maybe because she feels like she screwed up? People, myself included, can be awfully hard on her, but it’s only because she’s so damn good. Good player, good teammate, good leader, good girl. But no one is as hard on Bronwyn as she is on herself. While that can sometimes be useful for self-directed motivation, it can also be downright paralyzing because no one is perfect. Not even Bronwyn, and I’m not going to let her beat herself up over something that’s probably not even a big deal.

“Oh, baby. You couldn’t have done anything so bad it can’t be fixed. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Just hang tight, okay? Do you want to stay on the phone with me until I get there?”

“No. I need a—I have to—”

Then the line goes silent. Shit. And did I just call her baby? Double shit.

Bronwyn

Why did I call Coach Levenson? I should’ve called anyone other than him. Lisa, Jennie, Tara, Gail, literally anyone would have been a better choice. Coach could kick me off the team or bench me for this, and I wouldn’t even be able to argue—especially after my stunt during the Norway game. How stupid can a girl be?

It turns out very, very stupid.

And drunk. Yep, definitely drunk.

I cling to the toilet, waiting for my stomach to heave again, because there’s no way it’s not going to. All that booze I just downed is not about to sit in my stomach and make its way through my liver properly. No, it wants out, now, and I’d like it out, too. Unfortunately, it also apparently wants me to suffer. Punish me for being such a trite and predictable idiot.

Because what else is a girl supposed to do after she turns down her boyfriend’s proposal in front of the whole goddamn world? The obvious answer is to get plastered, even if she has the biggest game of her life in a few days.

Coach hadn’t sounded mad when I called him, though. If anything, he sounded worried, and he called me . . . Did he really call me baby? I think he did, but that might just be the shots talking. It would be weird if he had, but not gross. It didn’t feel gross anyway.

His reassurance means something. If he called me baby, it means he doesn’t hate me, doesn’t think I’ve screwed up irrvo—irrevocall—really bad. Just the way he said it made me feel safe. Like if everything else has gone to shit, Coach still believes in me and there’s nothing I could ever do to change that.

Which is not a way that Brody has ever made me feel. I’ve had to earn his love, and even when I’ve been the best, he’s made me feel like it wasn’t quite good enough, or if I screwed up even a little, that would be the end of it. If I’d wanted to quit hockey, we’d be over. If I hadn’t made the SIG team, we’d be over. Which, given how things worked out, is ironic. Or is it? English class has never been my specialty. Give me ice, some skates, a stick and a puck, or give me a keyboard and some code to clean up. Words, though? Makes my stomach hurt worse, but not in a way that’s going to actually get me to hurl.

People are knocking on the stall door, and I tell them to go away. When they don’t, I yell that unless they want me to puke on them instead of in the toilet they’d best just wait for the next stall to be available. That shuts them up.

After a few more miserable minutes of not, in fact, vomiting, a ripple of affront goes through the ladies’ room.

“Dude, this is not the men’s room. How drunk are you?”

“You can’t be in here! Get out, perv.”

Ew, gross. Some creeper snuck into the women’s room. But then I hear the guy’s voice.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, ladies. I’m looking for someone. Have any of you seen a girl about this tall, dark brown hair, light brown eyes, like they’re almost gold?”

It’s Coach Levenson and I want to cry with relief. He came. He came for me, even when I’m being a massive fuckup. While there are some murmurs among the crowd, I drag myself off the floor and use the wall to hold myself up long enough to unlock the stall door.

Someone must have pointed him in my direction, because when I stumble out and into someone, it’s him. Coach isn’t that tall or that big, not like Brody, but at this moment when I’m putting most of my weight on him and he’s not going anywhere but glued to the spot and holding me? He’s an anchor, steady and solid, and it makes me want to give in, bury my face in his shoulder and cry.

I also want to snuggle into him forever because he smells good, and his arms feel just right holding me tight against his chest. He rubs my back and rests his cheek against the top of my head and it feels really good.

“Okay, B. I’ve got you. It’s going to be okay.”

The tears I’m not letting fall are practically choking me, but I don’t want to cry here, not in front of all these strangers, some of whom might know who I am, especially after this evening’s spectacle. All I want to do is leave. I shift the tiniest bit and then he’s holding me at a distance of a few inches, but still very much holding me. I’m not going to stumble with his hands gripping me like that, no way.

I look up at him, probably looking about as pathetic as a drowned rat or a cat just out of the bath. “Can we get out of here?”

“I think that’s a good idea. Want me to get a cab or do you want to walk?”

“Walk. Air. Can’t—” The idea of being in a car, being jerked around in stop and go traffic because the streets around here are crammed with people—athletes who’ve finished their events, spectators—it makes me almost lose my cookies right here. Not to mention there’s always the risk of a smelly car. Nope, nope, nope.

“Okay, then let’s go.” Coach wraps an arm around my waist and leads me out of the bathroom, making sure even when I’m tripping over my own feet that I don’t fall. When we’re out of the bathroom, he asks me where my coat is and I point to the space at the bar where I’d been drinking. He props me against a high table near the door, and tells me to stay put.

Next thing I know he’s zipping me into my jacket and pulling my hat onto my head, guiding my hands into my mittens. Luckily I had enough foresight to not wear my Team USA gear out, and Coach had the same. At least we’ve got a decent shot of getting back to the village unrecognized.

We step out into the cold, and immediately I see a clump of photographers hanging out on the corner. Paranoia says they’re looking for me, and alcohol is clouding the more logical parts of my brain. So I point them out, and nudge Coach Levenson.

“Co—”

He shakes his head and puts a soft finger against my lips. “Call me Ash, okay? If they don’t know who we are, don’t want to give them any hints.”

Ash.

I knew his name, of course—it’s on all the websites and the team documents, and on the emails he sends out to the team. Asher Levenson. But now I get to call him Ash, and even though it’s because I’ve been such an incredible fuckup, it still makes me feel warm and full inside. Like I just had a perfect snack of hot cocoa and cookies straight out of the oven.

Before I collapse into a Bronwyn puddle on the less-than-clean sidewalk, Ash has got his arm around me again, supporting me with a hand clasped at my waist. It doesn’t feel scandalous, what with my big puffy coat and his own jacket between us, but it does feel warm, like my own little traveling cocoon.

He hustles us back to the village—okay, “hustles” is maybe a strong word, given that I’m not exactly moving quickly, and might get sick if I did—and we make it through the guarded gates without so much as a stray shouted question or any flashes going off, as far as I could tell. Inside the village it’s quieter, since most people haven’t finished their events yet.

SIG athletes might be rowdy as hell once we’ve got our events out of the way, but almost to a person we’re respectful when other people still have to compete. No cranking music, no drunken revelries—which is one of the reasons why, without even thinking about it, I went outside the village to drown my sorrows. Also, I can’t stand the idea of my teammates seeing me be this pathetic. They’d lose all respect for me, and I need that respect to keep the fabric of the team intact.

Once we’ve headed toward the block of buildings where Team USA is staying, Ash squeezes my side to get my attention. “You’re in Andermatt, right? Which suite?”

All the buildings in the village are named after former SIG sites, and he’s got the right one for me. How does he know? Although I guess I shouldn’t be all that surprised. Ash seems to know a lot about all of us, and memorizing which building we’re staying in sounds like something he’d consider his duty in case of fire or something. Maybe I should be more surprised he doesn’t know exactly where my room is.

“312.”

There’s a small grunt but he doesn’t slow down and doesn’t say anything. When we’re almost at the front door of Andermatt, he points me in a different direction and I open my mouth to argue. “But it’s—”

“Going around back.” His words are clipped, and his tone makes worry flare in me. Has he given up on me? I don’t think I could bear it. Tonight’s humiliation was bad enough, but if Coach—Ash—thinks the trouble I’ve caused outweighs the good I do . . . it’s probably time for me to pack it in. But he doesn’t just open the door and nudge me inside, leaving me to crawl my way upstairs and into my bed. No, he stays with me up the stairs, checks the hall before we go into my suite. Lisa’s at the hotel with her family, but she might stay here before the Switzerland game in a few days. At least she’s not here to see this.

That’s when I feel it: that horrible lurching sensation that says my stomach has finally decided to eject its contents. Could I not have done this outside? At the bar? Anywhere but here? But I so don’t have a choice.

“Ash? I’m going to—” I clutch my stomach, and the way his eyes bug, he’s understood me. I don’t know how exactly, but he gets me to the bathroom, flips up the seat, and helps me lean over just in time to hurl. This is the worst day of my life.