And I need to rebuild. There are only a few days until the gala, and my head is full of noise I can’t skate fast enough to outrun. I still can’t stop thinking about last night. Alycia’s name lighting up my phone. The way she said she would wear emerald green, like it was just logistics and not a slow torture. Me telling her to make it blue because she looks beautiful in blue. Now I see those words every time I blink.
I drop my stick onto the bench and wedge tape between my teeth as I wrap the blade. One layer, smooth, another to seal. The ritual is automatic, but my pulse is not. I meant that text to make her smile, to give her something that wasn’t duty for once, and somehow, it did what everything between us does: turned a simple thing into something complicated.
When I finally step onto the ice, it groans under my blades. I push off the boards and start a slow lap. The air stings my cheeks, but the burn helps. I like the rink this way, empty and stripped down to the sound of steel carving into fresh ice. Out here, there is no press, no pretending, no story to sell. Just motion, rhythm, and the ache in my legs.
The door clanks open behind me, and a burst of laughter spills into the cold. Cole is the first one out, coffee in one hand, stick in the other, like he can’t decide which one he needs more. He raises his mug in a lazy salute.
“You trying to beat the sunrise now?”
“Someone’s gotta show the other rookies what commitment looks like.”
He snorts, setting the cup on the boards and gliding toward me. “Or maybe someone’s trying to skate a certain PR intern out of his system.”
“You talk too much before caffeine.”
“And you think too loud before breakfast.” He tosses me a protein bar from his jacket pocket. “Eat. You’re skating like a man trying to solve philosophy, not hockey.”
“Maybe I’m multitasking.”
“You sure? Because one of those things you’re bad at.”
I tear the wrapper, take a bite, and chew. The silence stretches just long enough for him to notice. He studies me the way only a brother can.
“You good?”
“Yeah.” The standard question and the automatic lie.
He doesn’t buy it, but he lets it go, bumping my shoulder with his stick before skating backward toward the other end. “Try not to think so hard out here. It ruins your stride.”
“Since when do you notice my stride?”
“Since you started looking like you’re trying to outrun something.”
He is right, but there’s nothing I can say that wouldn’t sound like a confession. He nods once, satisfied enough, and peels off as the rest of the team filters out. The quiet breaks apart, replaced by chirps, tape snapping, and sticks smacking the boards. Cooper’s whistle cuts through it all, sharp as always. “Let’s go! Warm-up laps. Keep the tempo high.”
I push into the drill, blades carving clean lines into the ice, lungs expanding against the cold. Each stride feels like a heartbeat, steady and precise. For a few minutes, I can almost forget the way her voice still lives in my head.
Almost.
Pucks clatter against the boards as we move likeclockwork, muscle memory taking over where thought usually tries to ruin it. We run suicides, pivots, and passing drills until my thighs burn and my shoulders ache under my gear. Sweat slides down my spine and cools too fast, but I keep going. Pain is the cleanest distraction I know.
“Pick up your edges, Hendrix!” Cooper’s voice cuts through the noise.
“Yes, sir,” I call back, sharper than I mean to.
He gives me that flat coach look that used to scare me when I was sixteen. Now, it just means he is paying attention.
“He yells because he loves you.” Cole snorts as he glides past.
“He yells because he’s allergic to praise.”
“Same thing.”
He is already gone, easy and unbothered. I wish I could shake things off instead of storing them. The puck slides across the ice, I chase it down, pivot, and fire from the blue line. The crack against the post is satisfying, but not enough. Lately, nothing is.
By the time we break for water, my legs are jelly. I rip my helmet off, drag my glove across my forehead, and take a long swallow from my bottle. The air bites at my damp hair. Someone cracks a joke about Cooper’s haircut, and laughter spreads down the bench.
Then the energy in the rink tightens, a current pulling everything inward as heads turn toward the tunnel. Alycia steps onto the concrete in black slacksand a pale blouse, coat open at the front, a flash of deep green at her collar that makes my stomach drop. Not emerald and not blue, something in between, like she picked a color that would ruin me and still call it neutral.
