He’s not loud.
He doesn’t showboat.
He directs.
“That’s Colby,” Annabelle says easily. “Captain.”
Of course he is.
He circles during warmups, focused, deliberate, and then his gaze lifts.
Finds mine.
It’s brief. Unremarkable to anyone else.
Not to me.
***
The puck drops.
The sound alone is enough to jolt my attention fully into the game. The crack of sticks. The thud of bodies against the boards. The speed is startling in person, faster, sharper, more violent than it looks on TV.
“This is weird,” I murmur, leaning back in my seat.
Paige tilts her head. “Weird how?”
“I haven’t been to a live game since Mack,” I say quietly. “I forgot how… much it is.”
Nancy snorts. “Ah yes. Mack. Patron saint of cocky hockey players who think fidelity is optional.”
Paige nods solemnly. “May he never darken an arena again.”
I huff a laugh despite myself. “He ruined this for me a little.”
Nancy bumps my knee with hers. “Good news. This one looks like he may be the opposite.”
“Maybe,” I say. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
Colby takes a hit early in the first period. Hard enough that Paige gasps.
He pops back up like it’s nothing.
“Okay,” Nancy says. “I see the appeal.”
“I’m not here to evaluate appeal,” I say automatically.
Paige snorts. “You absolutely are.”
Midway through the first, Colby makes a play that almost looks boring if you don’t know what you’re watching.
He blocks a lane. Redirects traffic. Calls for a line change with a subtle lift of his hand.
The crowd reacts anyway.
“Oh,” I murmur, before I can stop myself.
Annabelle smiles. “You saw that.”
