I’m never cool.
We start warm-up drills.My skates cut through the ice in long, powerful strokes I don’t feel.My breath plumes out in clouds that don’t slow my heartbeat.Every time I hit the turn on the far end, I look back at the boards.
Wren’s there.
Watching.
But not watching, really.
She’s somewhere else entirely.
Halfway through drills, she checks her phone.
And freezes.
Like she’s been punched in the ribs.
My gut goes tight.I nearly trip over my own skates — something I never do — but recover before anyone notices.Mostly.
Finn notices.
He looks between me and her with this soft, sympathetic expression that makes me want to break something.I don’t need his sympathy.I need the truth.
What the hell happened to her?
We rotate into contact drills — body checks, corner battles, all the shit Coach loves.I slam the biggest rookie into the boards and he rebounds like rubber, groaning as he skates away.
Usually that clears my head.
But not today.
Every time I hit someone, all I can think about is the way Wren flinched earlier.The way she kept swallowing like she was fighting tears.The way she nearly dropped her phone when she saw whatever message she got.
Message.
Someone’s texting her.
Who?
Kael glances at her too often, sure, but he’d never text something that makes her look like that.Finn’s too soft.The rookies?No.None of them have the guts.
So who—
I slam into a second player, harder than necessary.He bounces off me with a grunt.
“Jesus, Ward,” he mutters.“You trying to break someone today?”
Maybe.
Coach blows his whistle, annoyed.“Atlas!Get your head in it!”
My head is in it.
Just not in hockey.
When the whistle blows for a break, I skate straight to the bench.Wren senses me coming before I get there.Something in the way her back straightens, in the way her shoulders pinch tight, tells me she’s bracing.
Not for pain.
