Or maybe I’d do the same in his skates. Maybe I’d find that reserve of strength or stubbornness or whatever the hell it took to push through.
All I could do now was hope I never had to find out.
Coach finished his pep talk and shifted gears to discuss the drills he wanted us to run through. Last season’s offensive lines had some obvious holes in them thanks to a trade, a couple of free agents, and… well. One very conspicuously missing center. Coach had deliberately put his top six candidates in the black group, and the bottom six candidates would be duking it out on the grey and gold teams. We’d no doubt get shuffled around and even moved to different teams until he had the four lines he wanted for the opening roster.
Gary, the general manager, had specifically come looking for me to take the center position on the second line. Given that, I suspected Coach would be trying me out with different wingers until we solidified that second line.
So I wouldn’t lie—I was a little surprised when the right winger assigned to me from the start was none other than Avery Caldwell.
Oh, shit. He’d been on the top line since halfway through his first season; now he was getting bumped down to the second? I mean, I supposed that made sense. If I werehim, I didn’t think I’d be able to handle that kind of pressure right now.
But then Coach sent a left winger our way.
Cody Davis.
Who’d been on the top line with Erlandsson and Caldwell.
Wait… instead of bumping Caldwell down to the second…
Was Coach puttingmeon thetopline?
Putting me into the position that had suddenly and tragically been left unfilled?
Oh.Fuck.
But Coach had spoken, so off we went.
Our first few drills were reasonably easy. Though Davis would be our left winger, Coach rotated a few other players through—mostly prospects. That was normal at training camp. Even an offensive line or defensive pair that would be together on the final roster were often assigned other players as part of their development and to see how they gelled with the team’s systems.
When we were in the midst of a drill, the only thing I could focus on was hockey. Following the instructions of the drill, passing to my linemates, getting around the defense—there was no time to pay attention to anything else.
In between, though, while other lines took their turns and we caught our breath, I surreptitiously watched Caldwell. There was more life in his eyes now than there’d been in the locker room. Maybe it helped to be away from his friend’s empty locker stall. Maybe he just needed something to concentrate on, and God knew hockey was good for that. He was playing well, too—the drills were fairly simple at this stage of camp, but they weren’t exactly pee-wee level drills.He had to protect the puck, navigate around the defense, know where his linemates were, and get the puck to the right person, all while skating at nearly full speed. He scored twice during one of the drills, and Ziggy—Dimitriy Sigayev—wasnotan easy goalie to score against. Not even during practice.
Every time there was a lull—usually while we were waiting our turn for a drill—I tried to talk myself into approaching Caldwell. Just making some small talk. Break the ice, so to speak. I wanted to connect with him as a teammate, especially since it looked like we might also belinematesfor the foreseeable future.
But I also couldn’t deny that there was a very not-hockey-related reason why I’d been so excited to come to Pittsburgh. I could name at least a dozen players in the League who’d I’d have dropped trou with in a heartbeat, but I’d have forgotten them all entirely if Avery Caldwell ever gave me so much as a suggestive grin.
I hadn’t really known what I would do with that information once I got here. Yes, he was openly queer, but that didn’t mean he got involved with teammates or that he was interested in me. So I’d hoped to just play on the same team, maybe make friends with him like I usually did with teammates, and if chemistry happened—great!
Now that I was here, I was afraid to approach any of them, especially Caldwell, because they were all in an understandably awful headspace. We had to connect—that was the only way teams functioned together—but making those connections right now felt risky. Like I was skating on eggshells because I didn’t know these men well enough to gauge them.
So naturally the one I mostneededto connect with was the one whose grief was the most palpable. How did I dothis? What if I approached him when he was in the middle of giving himself a moment to compose himself?
Right now, as we caught our breath after another run through the drill, he still seemed more or less focused on hockey. He was watching a line of prospects going through the drill, his brow furrowed and his focus sharp.
I hesitated because I was afraid I’d say something stupid, but nothing ventured…
Pretending I wasn’t as nervous as a high school sophomore trying to ask a senior to prom, I skated up beside him.
Caldwell tensed a little, and when he glanced at me, something flickered across his face. Something like fear? What the hell?
I pretended not to notice. “So, um… do you think Coach is going to keep us on the same line?”Smooth, Hall. Real smooth.
Caldwell recovered from that weird, momentary shock, and he shifted his attention to the players currently running the drill. “He told me we’re going to be the top line.”
Oh. Shit. So this wasn’t just a trial run.
I swallowed. “So… you, me, and Davis?”
