Roan sat back hard against the seat, muttering a curse under his breath.
I stared out the window, the weight of it all settling across my chest.
She hadn’t just hidden this.
Sheran.
Far.
Now that we knew, the question wasn’t if we’d go after her. It was how fast we could get there. Roan didn’t say a word. He just reached over, hit the start button, and shifted the SUV into gear.
The moment the wheels hit the road, he thumbed the control on the steering wheel to dial out through the car’s Bluetooth.
Two rings.
Then:“Yeah, Whittaker?”Coach’s gravel-edged voice filled the cabin, tension already vibrating beneath the words.
Roan didn’t flinch. “We’re taking the next four days off.”
The silence that followed was so loud it made the air feel heavier.
“Excuse me?”
Roan didn’t blink. “The whole team needs to breathe. We’ll be back after that, ready to focus on the opposition. But the tension in the locker room? It’s past critical mass. You want them on the ice like this, Coach? You want that fire turning inward?”
I shot a look back Rhett, his mouth twitched like he was biting down on something he probably shouldn’t say. Damn. I was almost impressed by his restraint, but I was absolutely stunned at Roan’s absolute audacity.
It wasn’t just the boldness of Roan’s tone—it was the calm. He didn’t sound like a player making a request. He sounded like a man who’d already made a decision.
“This coming from you?”Coach finally said, voice tighter now.“You’re the one who always wants more ice time?—”
“I’m telling you,” Roan said flatly. “This isn’t negotiable.”
“Four days, Whittaker? We’ve got the damn playoffs?—”
“And we’ll be ready. We always are. But if you push them now, you’re going to break something. Or someone.”
Coach didn’t respond right away. We all waited—me, Rhett, and Roan—locked in that thin strip of highway sound and the background hum of Bluetooth static.
“You’re skating a fine line, Captain.”
Roan’s hands didn’t tighten on the wheel. His voice didn’t shift. He just said, “I know. Thanks, Coach.”
Then he ended the call.
No one said anything for a minute after that.
Then Rhett, voice low from the back, said, “Guess that’s why he gets the ‘C’.”
Roan didn’t answer.
But I saw the twitch of his jaw. The way his eyes didn’t leave the road. He wasn’t patting himself on the back.
He was bracing for the next step.
“Address,” he said and Rhett didn’t fuck around, he read it off and at the next traffic light, Roan entered it into the car’s navigation.
It gave us four hours and forty-one minutes to arrival. Goddamn that seemed like forever. As fresh agitation ripped through me this time, it was accompanied by an almost impossible sense of tranquility that paved over the restlessness vibrating in my blood.
