Nothing.
Just players.
Coaches.
Ops.
Parents in the stands with hot coffees.
But still, my stomach tightens.
That’s the problem with trauma—it makes shadows look like men and men look like warnings.
I exhale slowly.
“You’re thinking too loud,” Atlas mutters without looking at me.
“I always think too loud.”
“Not this loud.”
I glance at him.“Are you trying to help?”
“No,” he says immediately.“I’m stating facts.”
It’s the closest thing he’ll ever come to admitting he cares.
Kael blows the whistle again, calling everyone to center ice.The boys gather like metal to a magnet.He gives instructions, demonstrates a drill, sends them off.
When he skates back to the boards, he pauses beside me.Just long enough that we’re in each other’s orbit but not touching.
“This afternoon,” he murmurs without turning his head, “ops will be ready for the phone swap.I’ll take you.”
“You don’t have to,” I say.
He side-eyes me with the quietest, deadliest disbelief.“Yes I do.”
I don’t argue.
The warmth of that—not romantic, not sexual, just...protective—settles somewhere deep under my ribs.
This is why I need to go home tonight.
Because if I don’t reclaim that space, I’ll lose pieces of myself I didn’t even know were slipping.
Practice wraps.Kael loudly praises the rookies.Finn chirps at a defenseman until the guy chases him onto the bench.Atlas shoves Rowan (gently, for Atlas) for mouthing off.
It feels almost normal.
And then it’s not.
Because the second my phone (the burner they gave me temporarily) vibrates in my pocket, all three men look at me at once.
I pull it out.
A message.
From Ops.
