Maybe sometimes it just means someone else is sitting in it with you.
Chapter 12
Declan
Thearenaisdead.
The Sunday recovery skate ended an hour ago. The rest of the guys are in the gym or the showers, flushing the lactic acid from last night’s game out of their legs. The main lights are off, just the dim utility strips humming above the sheet, throwing long gray shadows over the ice.
The crease looks wrong.
Ruts cut too wide, butterfly slides that drifted past the angle, lazy snow piles where there should be clean lines. Even after a win, the ice feels messy. Chaotic.
I step down onto the sheet. Cold cuts straight through my feet, up my legs, into my ribs. Good.
This isn’t practice. This is correction.
I skate into the crease—mycrease—and drop into stance. Left post. Right post. Center. Breathe.
Addison’s voice is still lodged behind my eyes from the meeting on Monday. Not some new revelation. The same words from his office, door shut, jaw tight.
“You’re on thin fucking ice with me.”
“She doesn’t need to be collateral damage in someone else’s war.”
Short leash. Not noose.
Back in net. Not benched.
My muscles remember every second of the week I wasn’t here anyway. But last night, Saturday, the crease was mine again. I felt the puck, felt the posts, felt the rhythm return. But it wasn’t perfect. I let in a soft one in the second period.
A fracture.
I plant my skate against the left post. Push. Slide. Hit the right.
My edges carve over the ruts, erasing the mistakes one pass at a time.
Butterfly. Recover. Shuffle.
Again. Again.
The burn in my legs climbs fast. Heat claws at the back of my throat, riding the cold air in and out. The anger is still there—Rylan’s smirk, the sound of metal hitting frame, the way my hands closed on his throat—but it’s channeled now. It’s angles. It’s crease work.
I slam my stick into the post once. Wood on iron. The crack ricochets around the empty bowl, sharp and clean. My knuckles sting through the tape.
Pain is honest.
I reset. Tap left post. Tap right. Sweep the crease with the brush until the snow piles are gone and the blue paint shows through. Order restored.
Only when the ice looks like it’s supposed to—clean lines, my grooves—do I step off.
The tunnel is colder, somehow. The rubber under my blades hisses as I walk it, that familiar low scrape that usually settles me. Today it just dulls the static a notch.
I wait in the hallway until the last echo of the Zamboni fades, until the janitor’s cart squeaks past and the outer door clicks shut. Let the building empty. Let the noise burn itself out.
Then I head for the locker room.
It’s dim, just the utility lights humming. Nameplates, empty hooks, the ghost of sweat and tape and detergent in the air. My stall waits like it always does.
