He studied me for a beat longer, clearly deciding whether to push. Rook was good at knowing when to press and when to let things breathe. “Get some rest. New coach starts Monday.”
“Yeah.” He walked away, and I finally exhaled.
I finished undressing and grabbed my towel, heading toward the showers where half the team was already congregating. The locker room after a win had its own specific energy: loud, loose, the chaos that only happened when bodies were exhausted but spirits were high.
Finn was already under the spray, singing something off-key and terrible while Benny threw a bar of soap at his head.
“Callahan, if you don't shut the fuck up, I'm gonna drown you.” Benny said, but he was grinning.
“You love my voice. Admit it.”
“I love silence more.”
I stepped under the hot spray and let it beat down on my shoulders, feeling the tension start to drain from my muscles. The adrenaline was wearing off, leaving behind the bone-deep exhaustion that came after sixty minutes of hockey.
“Hart!” Mace's voice echoed off the tile walls. “That second goal. Fucking beautiful, man. Looked like the old you out there.”
“Thanks.” I scrubbed shampoo through my hair, trying not to think too hard about whatthe old memeant.
“Yeah, seriously,” Finn chimed in. “I thought you were gonna pass it like you've been doing all preseason. Nice to see you actually pull the trigger for once.”
“Rookie's got jokes,” Volkov rumbled from two shower heads down, his accent thick. “Maybe you pull trigger more often, yes? Instead of skating into corners like scared baby deer.”
The shower erupted in laughter. Even Finn couldn't help it.
“That was one time!” Finn protested. “And I recovered!”
“Was three times,” Volkov corrected. “I count.”
“Nobody likes a counter, Dima.”
“Is why I am plus-eighteen and you are plus-two.”
More laughter. Tate appeared in the doorway, towel around his waist, shaking his head. “You guys are fucking children.”
“Says the guy who spent ten minutes in front of the mirror earlier,” Benny shot back.
“That's called personal grooming. You should try it sometime.”
“I'm plenty groomed, thanks.”
“Your eyebrows say otherwise.”
I rinsed the soap from my hair and just listened, letting the familiar back-and-forth wash over me. This was the part of hockey no one saw: the stupid jokes, the chirping, the way grown men reverted to teenagers the second they were behind closed doors. It was oddly comforting. Normal. A reminder that despite everything else, I was still part of a team.
“So,” Finn said, turning to me with that mischievous grin he always got when he was about to say something stupid. “New coach. Think he's gonna be difficult?”
“Probably,” I said. “They usually are when they're trying to prove something.”
“What's he got to prove?” Benny asked.
“That he deserves a second chance.” I turned off the water and grabbed my towel. “He got fired from his last job. This is a make-or-break situation for him.”
“Great,” Mace muttered. “So we get to be his redemption arc. That'll be fun.”
“Better than Mitchell,” Volkov said flatly. “Mitchell was soft. Let everyone do what they want. No structure. No discipline.”
“You would miss the Russian authoritarian approach,” Tate said.
