“Nope.” Cole exhales a soft laugh, shaking his head. “You just learn to become better at faking it.”
The thought of pretending I don’t want her feels impossible when every breath makes her feel closer, not further away.
“Sounds miserable.”
“Sometimes it is.” He taps his stick lightly against mine, a small, grounding touch. “Sometimes it’s worth it.”
I search his face. The lines around his eyes saymore than his words. He has already lived through the mess and the regret and the fight to get his footing back. Cole is not the steady one. He’s the one who fell apart and didn’t bother hiding it. The one who clawed his way out and never pretended the scars weren’t there.
“Do not let Cooper spook you,” he adds quietly. “He means well, but he forgets what it’s like to want something that’s not safe.”
Something low in my gut twists. We’ve never really talked about any of this. Not for real.
“I didn’t think you noticed.”
He huffs out a small laugh. “Kid, I notice everything. I just don’t always know how to say it.”
It shouldn’t hit me as hard as it does, but it does. Maybe because Beau and Cooper have always had their thing, and I have been orbiting, trying to find where I fit. Maybe because, for the first time, it feels like Cole and I could get there, too. Not all at once, but someday.
Cole bumps his shoulder lightly into mine. “And for the record? There’s no actual rule about dating staff. PR pretends there is, but it’s more… heavily frowned upon.”
He snorts. “The only person that rule was ever meant for was you. Cooper practically drew it in Sharpie across your forehead when you signed.”
I choke on a breath. “What?”
“He told you not to date anyone on staff,” Cole says with a shrug. “He didn’t bother telling therest of us. Which, if you think about it, means it’s not really a rule.”
My heartbeat stumbles. “Yeah, well… what Cooper doesn’t know?—”
“—won’t hurt him,” Cole finishes, grinning like he’s enjoying every second of this. “Cooper worries about everything, but you’re not him—or any of us, either. You’ve got your own game, kid. Don’t let anyone scare you out of taking the shot.”
As if it’s that simple, like I didn’t already try last night and lose her the second our lips touched.
“I think I already took my chance with her, and blew it,” I say, quiet enough that it almost gets swallowed by the scrape of our skates.
Cole studies me for a second, and, for once, he doesn’t look like my older brother. He looks like someone who knows exactly what it costs to want something that could ruin you.
“Then make it count,” he says.
The whistle shrills loudly; Cooper’s voice follows a heartbeat later. “Good work, boys! Hit the showers. Kyle, press room in thirty minutes. Try not to give Janine and Alycia a reason to call me before lunch.”
The team laughs, sticks tapping the ice. I force a smile, even manage a nod, but my chest feels too tight to breathe. Cole bumps my shoulder once before skating toward the bench.
“Think about it, little brother.”
The rink clears, the echo of blades and voices fading until all that is left is the hum of the arena lightsand the rasp of my breathing. When I glance back at the boards, she’s gone. Only my reflection stares back at me in the glass.
The ache in my chest sits heavy, a bone-deep pull I know won’t fade just because she asked it to. I can still see her in my mind, biting the inside of her cheek when she is trying not to smile, straightening her shoulders right before she shuts me out. I miss her, and she isn’t even mine to miss. She told me to forget, and there is no version of this where I do.
I drag a glove over my face, breath fogging the boards. My outline blurs there—helmet off now, hair damp, eyes hollow. I look like a guy trying to convince himself he didn’t just lose something he was never supposed to want. Maybe that is exactly what I am.
I skate toward the bench, blades cutting into the ice, the sound grounding me in the here and now. By the time I reach the gate, the others are already filing into the locker room. Cole claps my shoulder as he passes, the weight of it solid.
“Try not to get yourself fired.”
“Define fired,” I mutter, already knowing where this is going.
“Anything that starts with the word sweetheart probably counts.”
