Page 19 of Take Two

“What exactly does a hockey liaison do?”

“They answer questions. They help with terminology. They explain systems and routines and locker room culture and training methods and practice structure and skating mechanics. Essentially, anything you need in order to genuinely understand the world you’re stepping into rather than simply performing your idea of it.”

I exhale, slow and deliberate. “Thank God.”

“That worried?”

“Jasper, the last time I wore skates I was a teenager and I spent more time horizontal than vertical.”

His laughter fills the line. “You’ll be fine.”

“That’s very easy for you to say. Nobody’s expecting you to look convincing on ice.”

“I’d look fantastic on ice, for the record. I can skate.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it.”

His laughter continues for a moment and then settles.

For the first time since I answered the phone, the nervous energy that has been sitting somewhere behind my sternum loosens slightly, as though something has been given permission to relax. Maybe because the project finally feels real rather than hypothetical. Maybe because for the first time since I landed, I understand exactly why I’m here and what I’m doing and what comes next. Maybe because I finally have something concrete and purposeful to orient myself around, something that isn’t a hockey banner or a question I can’t answer.

Whatever the reason, the uncertainty starts quietly giving way to something that feels considerably more like excitement.

The conversation continues for several more minutes before Jasper finally exhausts his notes. Which may, in fact, be a historical first.

“Alright,” he says. “I’ll send the full schedule over tonight.”

“I’ll actually read it.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” he says, the echo deliberate.

I laugh. “Talk to you later, Jasper.”

“See you tomorrow, movie star.”

The call ends.

I lower the phone into my lap and sit with the quiet for a moment, looking out the window as the city goes about its business with complete indifference to any of mine.

Three years ago, I met a stranger in a hotel bar.

Two months ago, I discovered he plays hockey for a team that is apparently about to become my professional world.

Now I’m sitting in the back of an SUV, moving through an overcast afternoon in a city I didn’t expect to return to, preparing to spend the next several months learning everything I can about a sport I never expected to care about, working alongside an organization connected to a man I have been trying and failing to stop thinking about since the night I walked into that arena.

I shake my head slowly and let myself smile at the window, at the city, at absolutely nothing.

Life has a strange sense of humor sometimes.

Fate, it seems, does too.

Chapter 6

Jamie

“Damn, Tazja. Are you braiding my hair or my skin? Geez, sis,” I complain, the words escaping through a sharp hiss of pain. My reward for opening my mouth is an impatient yank of my head to the side and the disapproving click of her tongue that I have heard my entire life.

“Jamie, you spend your life on the ice getting pushed, shoved, and crashed into with extreme force, and you’re sitting here crying over a cornrow.” She says it with a slow, deliberate shake of her head, like she genuinely cannot believe she shares blood with someone this dramatic.