My stomach had that familiar pre-game flutter. Coach Rusk stood at the bench, clipboard in hand. He caught my eye and jerked his chin toward the ice.
I was halfway through my second lap when the locker room door banged open hard enough to rattle the hinges. Pickle exploded onto the rink.
One shin guard was on backward. His jersey was inside-out. He'd forgotten his helmet entirely, and he was skating in slides instead of skates, arms windmilling as he hit the ice and immediately started sliding toward the boards in a slow-motion disaster.
"SORRY, COACH!" His voice cracked with panic and adrenaline in equal measure. "My alarm clock's a liar, and my phone died, and I couldn't find my other skate, and—"
A whistle blast cut him off.
"Piatkowski," Coach said, his voice flat. "You planning to skate in those, or should I grab you some stilts?"
Pickle looked down at his slides like he'd just noticed them. "Oh. Shit. I—hold on—"
He turned and shuffle-ran back toward the locker room, nearly wiping out on the rubber matting.
Jake appeared beside me, already laughing. "And so it begins."
Evan glided up on my other side, shaking his head. "Just a babe. Still can't dress himself."
"Kid's got heart," I said, grinning despite myself.
"Kid's got chaos," Evan corrected. "Heart implies organization."
Pickle returned five minutes later—this time in actual skates, jersey right-side-out, and shin guards facing the correct direction. His helmet sat crooked on his head, but at least it was there.
I skated over before he could get himself into more trouble. "You planning to survive the season like that?"
He looked up at me, eyes bright despite the obvious panic still clinging to him. "Survival's for boring people."
"Good thing I like chaos."
"See?" He gestured at me, then at Jake and Evan. "Hog gets it. Hog understands my creative process."
"Your creative process looks like a tornado had a baby with a yard sale," Jake called from center ice.
"THAT'S STILL A PROCESS!"
I grabbed Pickle's shoulder and steered him toward the bench. "Sit. Let me fix whatever's happening with your gear before Coach has an aneurysm."
He sat, and I crouched down to check his skate laces. Too loose. I tightened them, double-knotted, then moved to his shin guards. The left one was fine. The right one was—
"How did you get this on upside-down?"
"Talent."
I fixed it, secured the tape, and stood. "Better. Now try not to fall on your face in the first drill."
"No promises." He flashed that gap-toothed grin that made it impossible to stay annoyed at him. "Thanks, Hog. You're like—" He paused, searching for words. "You're like the team's dad, but cooler. Team's uncle? Team's—"
"Stop talking and start skating."
We ran through warm-ups—nothing fancy. My shoulder held up fine through stick-handling drills. The tape job was solid, and the range of motion was better than it had been in May.
Pickle, predictably, was a beautiful disaster.
He missed three passes in a row, got tangled in his own stick during a simple pivot, and at one point just... fell.
Jake skated over and poked him with his stick. "You alive down there?"
