“And you love it,” I fire back. For a moment it’s just hockey, just boys giving each other shit in the showers. No captain. No wreckage in my veins.
Water hisses everywhere. The showers fill fast—steam rising, voices bouncing. Viktor’s low grumble mixes with Shane’s manic cackle, Mats deadpans about curses, and suddenly a bottle of shower gel flies like a puck.
I duck, laughing so hard my ribs ache. “The fuck was that, Hollywood? Your aim’s worse than your plus-minus.”
“Almost ate shit first drill,” he barks.
“Almost,” I grin. “You still couldn’t catch me.”
Chaos swells—bottles flying, chirps sharp, soap foaming underfoot. My chest’s sore, my legs dead, but for the first time all day, I feel like I belong.
Cole claps a hand against the tile, smirk wicked. “You did good today, curls.”
The words hit harder than a check. Heat rises up my neck.
And then it happens.
A low hum from the stall behind me.
Damian.
Goddamn.
He steps into the showers, towel slung low, hair damp, eyes scanning the steam like he owns it. Which, apparently, he does—because the noise softens, subtle but real.
My whole body seizes. Naked. Everyone’s naked. My captain is right there, bruises mapped across ribs. I can’t blink without imagining dropping to my knees.
I nearly choke on steam.
And then he steps fully under the spray, calm as if it isn’t the end of the world.
Every nerve in me tunes to one place—him.
I risk it, just one glance. Through haze and water, his eyes catch mine for a heartbeat. Not by accident. Just long enoughthat my lungs forget how to work, long enough that the chaos of fifteen men collapses into silence inside my skull.
Then he turns away.
As if I’m nothing.
As if I didn’t just come undone against the tile.
My heart goes feral, battering my ribs, trying to break free and sprint across the space between us.
No. I lunge out of the spray, snag my towel, bolt. Someone yells after me—Cole, probably—but I don’t stop. Dripping everywhere, dragging on sweats with shaking hands.
If I don’t move fast, I’ll forget there’s a team, a room, rules. Forget everything except him. And then what?
I slam my laces tight, shove gear into my bag, breathe like I’m still skating suicides. My skin burns, my chest hollows.
Christ. It’s day one, and I’m already done for.
Four days until the bloodbath. Four days until the Ravensburg Reapers face off against their oldest, ugliest rival—the Haverton Phantoms.
A team built from shadows and spite. Thirteen years in this league and I’ve bled more against those black-and-silver jerseys than anyone else. They don’t just play dirty; they play to ruin. Every time we line up against them, someone limps out broken. Halloween night, packed arena, Haverton ice—it won’t be hockey. It’ll be slaughter.
Which is why I’m in Coach Harrow’s office now, instead of on the sheet.
The place reeks of burnt coffee and old leather, cluttered with clipboards and schedules. A stack of scouting reports bleeds across his desk, half-buried under a whiteboard crowded with lines and scratches. Harrow’s got his glasses perched low, pen between his teeth, chewing like he could grind steel.
