Page 62 of Lawson
“Talk to our coach like that again and I’ll knock your fucking teeth out!” Lawson yells as he struggles under Pax and now Nash’s hold.
“Fuck you, Wolfe,” Waller fires back. “Maybe you're the one fucking her and that's why you're always on her side.”
“Hey!” Kiplin's voice rings out over the yelling as he skates from all the way across the rink where he'd been with a separate group that Coach Hardin was overseeing. He stops in the middle of the two brawling men. “You watch your fucking mouth, Waller,” Clay says, his rough tone leaving no room for arguing. “You don't talk about Coach Wren like that. In fact, I'm going to incite a new rule—don't talk about her atallunless you're sayingyes, Coach Wren. Do you understand me?”
Waller straightens up, obviously respecting the captain's words, and not mine.
Coach Hardin skates up behind Kiplin, and shame ripples over me as he gives me that fatherly look of disappointment and confusion as he assesses the situation.
“Waller, Wolfe, my office. Now.” Dad doesn't need to raise his voice; he has that authoritative tone that’s filled with more disappointment than anger. Something I always found much more devastating than if he ever yelled at me. Which he never did. He just isn’t a yeller.
Pax releases Lawson, who doesn't bother looking my way as he skates off the rink, Waller following behind, whodoeslook at me with equal disdain as before.
“The rest of you hit the showers,” Dad dismisses the rest of my group, and I move to skate away, hoping to escape him?—
“Coach Wren,” he calls, and I immediately stop. “Twenty minutes, and then I'd like to see you in my office too.”
“Yes, Coach,” I say, skating off of the ice, my head hanging just a little bit lower.
I’m so screwed.
Twenty minutes feels like two hours by the time I make my way into my father's office. There are a few straggling players left in the locker room, but Lawson and Waller are nowhere to be seen.
I allow myself to enjoy that little amount of relief, knowing that sitting between the two arguing men would’ve been an absolute nightmare of an awkward situation.
My father sits behind his desk, looking as calm as he always does, one of his many Bangor Badgers tracksuit jackets zipped up almost to his neck, his mustache pristine, and his eyes open.
I take a seat across from him, my heart sinking into my stomach. I’m ten years old again and about to get a lecture on why we don't go skating after dark on the frozen lake near our home. The ice had cracked, scaring the living daylights out of my father when he caught me, but luckily, I hadn't been hurt.
Dad lets the silence fill the room until I can hardly breathe around it, and yet I still can’t find the words to speak.
“What the heck is going on here, Blakely?” he asks, his tone even and soft. “That seemed like a lot more than just the normal teammate squabble.”
“Waller has never respected me,” I answer, opting for a little bit of the truth. “Today that disrespect spilled over. I was handling it, and then he said something crass and Lawson—Wolfe—stepped in.”
My father doesn’t miss the way I say Lawson's first name with such familiarity, if the puzzle pieces clicking into place behind his eyes are any indication.
“Uh-huh,” he says, looking lost in his own thoughts as he nods a few times. “I heard what Waller said and you can trust and believe that I gave him a stern talking-to. He's a good player with lots of potential, but he's young. And I'm pretty sure he's got something else going on with him that I'm not one hundred percent sure isn't trickling over into his daily attitude. He hasn't opened up to me yet, but hopefully he will to somebody soon.”
I shake my head, leave it to my dad to be all compassionate and understanding when I think Waller is just being an inconsiderate prick.
“Hey, I heard that,” he says, flashing me a chiding look.
“I didn't even say anything!”
Dad shrugs. “I can tell when you're silently tearing someone to pieces, having been on the wrong end of that more than a few times when you were sixteen, thank you very much. Now, what do I always tell you about people who are showing you the worst of themselves?”
I sigh. “You never know what is going on behind closed doors,” I repeat the saying that he’s grilled into me since I was five years old. “We have to wait until they open their door to us until we can fully judge.”
“That's right,” he says, snapping his fingers and pointing at me. “Time will tell if he really is the a-hole he's behaving like, but first and foremost, are you okay?”
I hold up my hands, glancing down at my body before looking back across the desk at my dad. “I wasn't in the brawl, Dad. I didn't get hurt?—”
“You know darn well that's not what I'm asking,” he cuts me off.
I rub my hands over my face, trying to rid myself of some of the anxiety clawing at my chest. Me and my dad have an excellent relationship, one built from years of trust and understanding, and it’s given him this uncanny ability to see right through any shields I may be throwing up. But just like I'm not ready to tell Lawson who his coach is tome, I'm equally not ready to tell my dad that I might have feelings for his star player.
“Don't try to make something up either, Blakely Wren,” he says, using my first and middle name in the way only he can. “You know I'll be able to tell.”