Title: In Flight

Series: Sophie Fournier, Book Eight

Author: K.R. Collins

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: 02/18/2025

Heat Level: 1 – No Sex

Pairing: Female/Female

Length: 74100

Genre: Contemporary, Romance, contemporary, sports, family-drama, lesbian, ice hockey

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Description

As she enters her ninth season in the North American Hockey League, Sophie’s pressure on herself to perform well has never been higher. Next season will mark a decade as the first woman in the League, a milestone no one will let her forget, especially as her expected replacement will be old enough to be drafted herself.

Sophie has the support of Coach Elison and her team behind her. She has come into her own on the ice as the captain and face of the Concord Condors. Off the ice, her life is looking good as well. She and Elsa are living together with plans to build a home, provided Concord signs them to contract extensions.

As always, though, it isn’t enough. Sophie has her eyes set on the Maple Cup, the trophy given to the best hockey team each year. She has all the motivation she needs—a contract to live up to, a personal hockey hero on the team who has never lifted the Cup before, and a need to prove herself, again, before Emily Skelton is drafted and takes the League by storm.

Excerpt

In Flight
K.R. Collins © 2025
All Rights Reserved

Sophie greets Armand Mason with a smile and a brief handshake. Mason is a middle-aged man with dark skin and even darker hair. He wears a green button-down, but the sleeves are rolled to his elbows in deference to the summer heat.

His grip is firm but not overpowering. He has callouses on his hands, in different places than Sophie does. She suspects his are from holding pencils or, maybe in this modern age, a tablet stylus. Sophie’s callouses are from gripping her hockey stick and from all the weightlifting she does.

Elsa shakes Armand’s hand next. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with us,” she says.

Elsa, who normally only has a scant few inches on Sophie, has closer to four today, because she’s wearing wedge sandals. They’re open-toed to show off her lime-green toenail polish. The color clashes with Elsa’s dress, a light-pink halter-top. The green-pink combination reminds Sophie of watermelon, but she’s smart enough not to mention it to Elsa.

While her girlfriend—and that’s still a thrill, thinking of Elsa as her girlfriend—is understanding of Sophie and her quirks, Sophie doubts that will extend to being compared to a watermelon.

Sophie doesn’t wear a sundress like Elsa or business casual like Armand. She wears black capri leggings and a black T-shirt boasting her team’s name and logo.

The Concord Condors are New Hampshire’s North American Hockey League team. Their logo is a condor with its wings stretched wide and a hockey stick clutched in its talons. Concord was one of the newest teams to be added to the league. The NAHL decided New England could support two teams, one in Boston and one in Concord, and that the proximity would create a rivalry which would sell tickets.

In the early years, there wasn’t much of a rivalry. Concord was where Boston fans went because the tickets were cheaper. Now, though, Concord is a proper NAHL team. They have a Maple Cup to their name, having won hockey’s most coveted prize in Sophie’s third season. She hasn’t managed to do it again, but she has a good feeling about this year.

Sophie gestures for Armand to sit at the booth she and Elsa picked out at the coffee shop. She and Elsa sit side by side opposite him. This year is going to be a good one, for many reasons. Yes, Sophie is chasing the Cup again, something she will do every year she’s still playing in the NAHL, but there are other things she’s focused on.

She has a girlfriend to take out on dates. She has a contract negotiation she wants done with before the summer is over. She has plans to go to Sweden with Elsa, then for Elsa to visit Sophie in Thunder Bay.

And, of course, she has this meeting with Armand Mason, a local architect.

Sophie and Elsa plan to sign contract extensions this summer, the two of them committing to Concord for as many years as they can. They’ve already committed to each other, for more than the eight or ten years their hockey contracts will last. Another declaration of their intent is this: planning a house together.

They’re going to build their dream house. They’ll have enough bedrooms for when their respective families come to visit or for when their teammates need a place to crash. They’ll have a sleek, modern kitchen where Sophie can cook when she has the energy and heat up team-prepared meals when she doesn’t. They’ll have an open living room with enough seating to host their teammates.

It will be perfect, and Armand is going to help them make it happen.

“Are congratulations in order?” Armand asks with a glance between them.

It isn’t an unfair guess, and Sophie feels a twinge of guilt for lying to him, for using him, as she smiles and says, “Not yet. We’re hoping by the end of the summer to have ironed out our new contracts. Once the ink is dried, we can begin building, but we wanted to start planning ahead of time. We think it will go well.”

Armand’s surprise morphs into a polite smile.

Sophie knows the assumptions people will make about her and Elsa. They see them together and think they’re a couple. They are a couple, but Sophie doesn’t want the wider world to know. So few things in her life are allowed to be hers, are private, that she clings to this one.

She was the first woman drafted into the NAHL. It means she’s been the first for a lot of milestones in the league. She is the face of her franchise, and in some ways she’s the face of the league. It’s a lot of responsibility, and she accepts that it’s part of the price of entrance.

She doesn’t want to be the first hockey player to openly date their teammate. She doesn’t want the pressure or the attention or the people who will dig into every detail of her life. She values her privacy. Even more, she values her relationship with Elsa, and she doesn’t want to constantly defend it against people trying to twist it into something bad.

Armand won’t be the only person to make assumptions based on Sophie and Elsa planning a house together, but there won’t be a lot of people like him, either. For most of the hockey world, Sophie and Elsa are simply Sophie and Elsa. They shared an apartment in Elsa’s first season in Concord, and they’ve shared a house every season since. There was a brief time when Elsa moved in with a boyfriend, but she was back with Sophie the next season.

Their relationship is teammates being teammates. Sophie is happy to feed into the misdirection, because it allows her to protect what’s most important to her. She and Elsa will plan their house, and pictures will leak from today’s meeting. The two of them will train with each other, first in Sweden then in Thunder Bay. At some point, they’ll sit down with Concord’s front office and sign matching contracts.

It isn’t the first time Sophie has spun a narrative. It is, by far, the largest scale deception she’s ever undertaken. Part of her feels guilty for it. There aren’t many out athletes, and this is an opportunity for her to be a role model and a spokesperson. The thought of it exhausts her. Maybe, it’s selfish. Or maybe, it’s self-preservation. She isn’t sure. She’ll bring it up with Dr. Malone in her next therapy appointment. For now, though, her relationship with Elsa is a well-guarded secret.

Elsa’s immediate family knows, and Sophie’s brother knows. Soon, Sophie will have to tell her parents, but she doesn’t intend to tell anyone else. Concord’s front office won’t be told, her teammates won’t be told. One day, she’ll tell a wider audience, either because it leaks or because she’s ready to, but she isn’t ready now. And Elsa isn’t pressuring her.

“We’d like to stay within a thirty-minute drive of Concord,” Sophie tells Armand once they each have their beverage of choice. Sophie has a smoothie which has too much sugar to be healthy, but there’s fruit in it so she can pretend.

Elsa doesn’t even make that small effort. Her iced coffee has several syrup shots and a tall spiral of whipped cream. It’s a toothache in a cup, but Elsa’s happy with it so Sophie doesn’t say anything.

“I don’t know if that limits what we can do,” Sophie adds because Armand is their architect, not their realtor.

“Are you looking to build a large house?” Armand asks.

“No,” Elsa answers, and she grins at Sophie’s look. “He’s thinking McMansion. We want space, but not that much.”

Armand smiles and ducks his head, almost bashful. “Large isn’t exactly a precise word.”

“A little bigger than what we have now,” Sophie says. She slides the pictures and specs of their current house across the table.

The house is a good size for them, but its true benefit is the attached in-law apartment. It’s the perfect place for their respective families to stay when they visit. They’re close enough to see, but there’s enough separation that Sophie and Elsa don’t feel crowded. Would it be weird to have two in-law apartments in their future house?

“The biggest upgrade will be in the size of the yard,” Elsa says. “We’re looking to put in a saltwater pool.”

“We aren’t,” Sophie says. She tries to frown at Elsa’s impish look, but Elsa’s too pleased with herself for Sophie to hold out for very long. They have playfully argued about their pool since they first considered the idea of building a house.

Elsa wants something whimsical and impractical, a saltwater pool with a grotto and a waterfall. Sophie thinks if she’s going to have a pool, it should be a lap pool, something with purpose. Unlike their disagreement over toasters, which was solved by buying two, Sophie doesn’t think this one will be solved by having a pool for each of their preferences.

Armand laughs at their antics and sips his tea before he pulls out a blank piece of paper. “Let’s make a list. No judgements yet, anything and everything you might want. Next session, we can whittle it down based on practicality and preference.”

“All right,” Sophie says.

Her life is measured in milestones; from leagues she’s broken into to hockey achievements, even to things like her first car, her first apartment lease, her first house. This is another milestone, planning a house with the woman she wants to live with for the rest of her life.

Under the table, where no one will see, Sophie reaches for Elsa’s hand. Elsa meets her halfway, and they lace their fingers together.

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Meet the Author

K.R. Collins went to college in Pennsylvania where she learned to write and fell in love with hockey. When she isn’t working or writing, she watches hockey games and claims it’s for research. Find K.R. on Twitter.

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