The cold logic of what I'd just done was settling in now, working its way through me the way cold always did, from the outside in, finding every gap in the insulation.
I'd stood six feet from my player and watched him come apart and hadn't looked away. Had gotten myself off watching him. Had let this happen when I had every reason, every hard-won reason, not to let it happen, and not one of those reasons had become less true in the last forty minutes.
I reached for my shoes. Laced them with the same mechanical focus I'd given the towel, the shorts, the shirt. Each one a small act of reassembly, each one the action of a man trying to locate the version of himself that had professional discipline and understood the consequences of his actions.
That version of me felt very far away right now.
Behind me, his shower was still running, and I heard him exhale, long and slow, the sound of a man pulling himself back together in the privacy of running water, and I was glad for it, glad he had that, glad I wasn't required to look at his face right now because I genuinely didn't know what I would do with whatever I found there.
I picked up my gear bag and walked out.
This can't happen again.
CHAPTER 12
AWAY GAME
JACE
It had been five days since the showers, and it still sat in my head like a bruise I couldn’t stop pressing.
We’d spent the week pretending it hadn’t happened. Avoiding eye contact in practice. Him calling plays from behind the bench like I meant nothing, and me skating like I wasn’t starving to hear my name on his mouth again.
I adjusted my grip on my carry-on and tried to focus on literally anything else as I walked through the terminal. The flight to Seattle was already boarding, and the team was scattered across the gate area like someone had thrown a hand grenade into a pack of wolves.
Which, honestly, wasn't far off.
“Yo, Hart!” Finn's voice cut through the noise, too loud and too cheerful for six in the goddamn morning. He was bouncing on his toes near the Starbucks, waving a fistful of protein bars like they were concert tickets. “Got your breakfast, bro. You want the chocolate chip or the?—”
“I don't want your gas station contraband, Callahan.”
“It'sairportcontraband, and you're gonna want in on this when we're three hours in and you're starving.” He grinned, all dimples and chaos. He had the energy of someone who'd been mainlining espresso since birth. “I'm running a full economy here. Snacks, gum, phone chargers?—”
Rook appeared behind him like a tired ghost, coffee in one hand and his captain's duffel slung over his shoulder. He looked like he'd aged five years overnight. “Callahan, if you're scalping shit to your own teammates?—”
“It's calledentrepreneurship, Cap.”
“It's called a pain in my ass.” Rook's voice was flat, but I caught the twitch at the corner of his mouth. He turned to me, eyebrows raised. “Hartley. You good?”
“Yeah.” I shifted my bag higher on my shoulder. “Why wouldn't I be?”
His eyes narrowed slightly, the way they always did when he was reading someone. Rook didn't miss shit. It was part of what made him a good captain and part of what made him fucking terrifying. “You've been quiet.”
“I'm always quiet.”
“No, you're always an asshole. Quiet's different.” He took a sip of his coffee, still watching me. “You sleeping?”
Not since the showers.“Enough.”
“Uh-huh.” He didn't believe me. But he let it go, because that's what Rook did. He didn't push unless he had to. “Stay close on the flight. We're doing film review once we're airborne.”
“Yeah, cool.”
Rook nodded once and moved off toward the gate, already pulling out his phone to deal with whatever logistical nightmare was probably unfolding. Being captain looked exhausting. I didn't envy him.
Across the terminal, Mace was arguing with a TSA agent about something—probably his bag, which was almost certainlyoverweight because the guy packed like he was moving cross-country every time we traveled. Tate was taking a selfie near the window. Benny sat quietly in the corner with a book and noise-canceling headphones, the only person in the entire fucking gate who looked calm.
And then there was Coach.
