"Hawkins!" Coach called from center ice. "You good for contact drills or you need to sit?"
"I'm good, Coach."
I took my position across from Desrosiers. He was bigger than me by twenty pounds and had knees that didn't sound like a drawer full of silverware when he bent them.
Coach dropped the puck.
We crashed together—shoulder to chest, sticks battling for position. The impact sang through my bad shoulder, but I drove through it anyway, using my hip to pin Desrosiers against the boards while I swept the puck free.
"Better!" Coach called. "Again!"
We ran it five more times. By the end, my lungs burned, my shoulder screamed, and I was grinning like an idiot.
I stayed on the ice longer than necessary when practice ended, carving lazy eights while the Zamboni idled. Thirty years old. Maybe a season left, maybe two if my body cooperated. Then what?
The Zamboni driver revved the engine, not subtly.
"Alright, alright," I called. "I'm gone."
I took one more lap, savoring the scratch of steel on ice and the cold air in my lungs.
The locker room smelled like it always did after a hard practice—sweat, rubber, and the particular funk that lived in hockey gear no amount of Febreze could kill. I'd barely gotten my skates off when Pickle exploded through the door like someone launched him from a cannon.
"Has anyone seen my tape?" He was suddenly elbow-deep in his bag, tossing equipment onto the bench. "I had a full roll this morning and now it's gone. Vanished. Into the void."
Evan looked up from his phone momentarily. "Check your other bag".
"I only have one bag."
Jake called from across the room. "You have three bags. We've counted."
Pickle straightened, indignant. "One's for my skates. One's for—"
"Three bags," Desrosiers confirmed. "It's excessive."
Pickle abandoned his search and dropped onto the bench beside me. "You're all ganging up on me." His hair stuck up in seventeen directions. "Hog, you'll have my back, right?"
"About what?"
"Playoffs." His voice cracked slightly. "First playoff shift. Like, actual playoff hockey where it matters and people are watching and—" He swallowed. "You'll be out there with me, right?"
I looked at him—twenty-one years old, scared shitless, and trying to hide it behind the manic energy he brought to everything. He'd shown up to training camp with a Ziploc of homemade pickles and somehow made the roster anyway.
I grabbed the roll of tape from where it had fallen behind his bag and tossed it to him. "I've been covering rookies since before you could grow that sad excuse for facial hair. You're safe."
His face lit up. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. Someone takes a run at you, I'll introduce them to the boards. That's the deal. Protection's not just fists; it's making sure you aren't alone out there."
"What if you're not on the ice?"
"Then Desrosiers will handle it. Or Jake. Or literally anyone else on this team because that's what we do." I leaned back against my stall. "You're a storm cloud, Pickle. That means you've got a whole team of guys who'll blast through a wall for you."
He sat for a moment, tape forgotten in his hands, looking like he might cry, hug me, or possibly both.
"Thanks, Hog," he said quietly.
"Don't get weird about it."
