"I am focused," I lie.
"Good," he says, not buying it. "Because you have media this week and you are not going to go in there acting like a man who isn’t grateful to the PR team who got him out of a possible lawsuit. You’re going to be calm. You’re going to be professional. You’re going to hold the line."
Hold the line.
As if my entire life isn’t one long attempt to hold a line against people who try to take something from me.
I end the call before I say something ugly.
When I walk back into the locker room, the noise rushes around me again. The guys are halfway dressed, half chirping, half focused on practice.
I force myself back into my stall and finish gearing up.
The phone sits heavier in my pocket now.
Not because of Randolph.
Because of her.
Because the second I let myself think about her, the entire chalet comes back in a rush—firelight, the warmth of her body against mine, the way she smiled at me like she saw something worth staying for.
I don’t let myself sit with it.
I stand, grab my helmet, and head to the rink.
The ice is brighter than the rest of the rink, a clean white expanse that reflects the overhead lights. The chill is calming and the first glide is familiar enough that my body relaxes into it.
This is what I know. This is where I’m dangerous in a way that doesn’t make me like my father. I can do damage out here without remorse.
We run drills. We run systems. We run laps until sweat builds under my pads and my lungs burn in a way I can control. The coach blows his whistle and calls out directions, and I follow them because following directions is easier than thinking for myself right now.
Somewhere in the middle of a scrimmage, I over-commit to a hit and send a rookie off balance hard enough that he slams into the boards and curses loud enough for half the rink to hear.
The whistle shrieks.
The coach’s voice cuts across the ice. "Popovich! Are you trying to murder your own team, or are you just bored?"
I skate back, chest heaving, pulse too high for a standard practice.
"I’m fine," I call, because that’s the answer men like me give even when we’re bleeding out internally.
The coach watches me, and his gaze knows more than I’d like it to.
"Control," he says, quieter now. "You’re an asset when you’re controlled."
I nod as if I didn’t just feel that sentence hook into my ribs.
Because control is the entire problem.
Control is what I had until I let Natalia touch the parts of me I usually keep locked behind steel doors.
It’s what I lose every time I convince myself I can trust someone and then learn I was wrong.
We finish practice and head off the ice. The guys return to their stalls, and the room fills with the usual post-practice energy—complaints, laughter, music, talk about dinner plans.
I shower fast, the water hot enough to sting, as if I can burn the last forty-eight hours off my skin.
When I come back to my stall, my phone is buzzing again.
