I still haven’t looked at my phone again when the first players start rolling through the doorway with sleepy greetings and jokes that skim the surface of real warmth—Whitaker’s sing-song “Harperrrr,” Norty’s mumbled “Morning, Doc,” a rookie’s shy nod.I smile and nod and keep my hands busy.Finn breezes by with a paper tray of coffees, catches my eye, and almost veers toward me before he stops, recalibrates, and simply lifts the tray half an inch in a little salute.I manage a small smile.It feels like he’s offering me a lifeline and promising not to tug.
Kael appears in the door next, already in practice gear, jaw set like usual, but softer at the edges.His gaze finds me, catalogues me, then slides on like he’s decided today I get distance unless I ask for more.It lands strangely in my chest—grateful, hollow, both.
Atlas is last, hoodie half-zipped, laces dragging, an ice pack bunched at the point of his shoulder under the fabric like it never left.He doesn’t come to me.He stops just inside the room and watches me like he’s daring me to tell him to leave.When I don’t, his chin dips once.Not approval.Not relief.Just a...truce.For now.
The room fills, empties, refills as guys drift through for tape and stretching bands and excuses to talk about nothing.It should be enough distraction to get me to practice without thinking.It almost is.
Then my phone buzzes.
The sound is small.The inside of my mouth goes dry anyway.I keep my face neutral as I wipe my hands on my hoodie and reach for the device where it sits on the counter beneath the box of nitrile gloves.
One new message.
The name makes my stomach drop through the floor.
Adrian Frost
I don’t open it right away.I let a player chatter in my ear about something to do with sticks and a superstition, nodding when it sounds like I should.I hand over tape, cut two extra pieces because everything in me wants to stall.He thanks me and heads out.The door swings shut, and the room goes quiet again except for the building hum.
I click the message.
Saw your first game is Friday.
You always liked Friday ice.
Congrats.
It’s innocuous.It’s friendly.It’s a stranger wishing an old acquaintance luck.
I grip the counter to keep my fingers from doing something stupid, like typing back that I didn’t like Friday ice, that he did, that he liked the pressure and I liked the air right after it broke and silence flooded in.
I type instead: Thanks.
I don’t send it.
The bubble sits there while my thumb hovers.I imagine the versions of this moment where I choose differently.I block him.I write, Please stop.I write, Lose my number.I write, If you come to Boston, I will call the police.I write, I will tell everyone what you did.I write, You broke me and I am still trying to figure out all the ways to piece myself back together.
I erase the unsent word and put the phone down like it’s burning.
I turn.I grab the kit with nothing missing.I check the ice.I make more lists in my head—caffeine, lunch, re-order more kinesiology tape in black because the guys think it looks cooler on camera, even though it’s the same product.
The phone buzzes again.
Before I can stop myself, I swipe.
I’m proud of you.
Really.
Boston’s a big step.
I didn’t think you had it in you to go so far.
Far.
The word scrapes.He means distance like miles, and he also means distance like a leaving he doesn’t authorize.You went too far.You are too far.Come back.
I swallow the sick taste in my mouth and type nothing.My thumb is shaking.I put the phone down facedown again, then flip it screen up a second later like I don’t want to be ambushed.
