"You good, Hawkins?"
"Yeah, Coach." I straightened. "Good."
We ran it four more times. Each rep, my body lied to me in different ways. The knee that clicked. The ribs that screamed. The shoulder that ground bone-on-bone when I reached too high. The hand that didn't quite close around my stick the way it used to.
Across the ice, Evan blew a rotation call—something that never happened. His eyes were distant, not tracking the play. Jake overplayed a puck at the blue line, chasing it like a rookie instead of holding position. Pickle took a hit in the corner. Not dirty—clean, textbook—but he went down hard. Shoulder against the boards. The sound made everyone wince.
"Fuck!" Pickle slammed his stick against the ice. "Fucking shit fuck!"
"Language," Coach called, but didn't blow his whistle.
He was watching us. All of us. Watching his team come apart in real time.
When I caught an edge during a simple crossover drill—something I'd been doing since I was eight—Jake was there.
"You good?"
"Yeah."
"Liar." He bumped my shoulder. "Your knee's fucked. I heard it click from the bench."
"It's fine."
"Hog." His voice dropped. "How much longer you got?"
"I don't know," I said quietly.
Coach's whistle shrieked. "That's enough. Hit the showers."
We'd been on the ice for twenty minutes. Coach never called it early unless someone was bleeding or the world was ending. Maybe both.
Most of the guys cleared out fast—showers quick and perfunctory, gear shoved into bags without the usual ritual. Nobody wanted to linger in the aftermath.
Jake and Evan stayed. They always stayed.
I sat in my stall, still in full gear except for my helmet and gloves, staring at the roll of tape in my hands. My knuckles were starting to swell again. I'd caught MacLaren's elbow during a drill. It was nothing dirty; it was just hockey being hockey.
Jake broke the silence. "So, anyone else thinking about Plan B?"
Evan glanced up from his phone. "I've been thinking about Plan B since my second concussion."
"That's because you're smart." Jake's voice lost its usual edge. "What about you, Hog? You got somewhere to land when this all goes to shit?"
I spoke without thinking. "Margaret offered me something. Teaching. Maybe co-owning the yarn shop eventually."
Jake looked at me. "You thinking about post-hockey already?"
"Like to keep options open. My body's wearing out."
"Smart," Evan said. He set down his phone and gave me his full attention. "Most guys wait until they're forced out. Usually broke and broken."
My phone buzzed again. Likely Rhett again. I should answer, but I didn't know what to say.Hey, might be leaving Thunder Bay. Might be ending my career. Might be too much of a disaster to date right now?
"You'd still knit if the team moved?" Jake asked.
"Can't pack Thunder Bay in a U-Haul." The joke landed flat, but it was true. Margaret's shop, the knitting circle, the community that had wrapped around me since Gram died—that was real in a way hockey contracts weren't. Rhett's workshop, where he'd kissed me against the workbench last week, hands steady on my hips while sawdust caught in my hair. You couldn'trestructure that. Couldn't relocate the way his voice dropped when he said my name.
Jake clapped me on the shoulder. "Good. Somebody's gotta keep us from unraveling."
