She leans in to hug Atlee first, then turns to me with a warm smile. “Hey. I’m Wren.”
The name clicks immediately. She’s the one Cooper said saw me leaving my father’s office.
“Brinley,” I reply, shifting so I don’t jostle my drink as we shake hands.
“I’m Talon’s girlfriend,” she adds casually.
It takes me a second to place her, but then it hits. “I think I’ve seen you before. At that party… and maybe at Broken Saddle one night?”
Her mouth curves. “That sounds about right.” She lets out a quiet laugh. “Those nights all kind of blur together.”
I smile a little at that.
She asks about me, where I’m from and what I’m majoring in. All normal questions that don’t give me the impression she’s digging for information. She mentions she transferred to Rixton last year, around the time she met Talon, and is still getting used to everything here.
Something about her makes it easier to relax. Enough that my earlier nerves about her knowing their coach is my father start to ease up a bit.
Down on the ice, the team gathers near the center.
One by one, the players move toward Cooper, tapping their helmets against his and bumping their gloves along the side of his mask. A few of them pull him in quick, like it’s something they’ve done a hundred times before.
“They do it every game,” Atlee says, catching the look on my face. “Goalie thing.”
I watch them for a second longer before they break apart.
Cooper drifts back to his spot, tapping each post again before settling in. He crouches low, his focus locked in now.
It doesn’t take long to get pulled into the game.
The crowd is on their feet with every push up the ice, then settles just enough to catch their breath before it builds again. Cooper looks solid in front of the net, like he’s done this so many times he doesn’t have to think about it.
There’s something about the way he holds himself back there. Even when everything turns to chaos in front of him, he doesn’t get distracted. He sticks with the puck, drops when he needs to, then comes right back up, ready again.
Every save pulls another wave from the crowd, and I feel it as much as I hear it, the energy building with each second.
At some point, the tone shifts.
The other team starts holding onto the puck longer, keeping it in our end. The noise from the crowd changes with it.
Cooper moves more now, pushing side to side, dropping and popping back up. He stays locked in, like nothing else exists outside of what’s in front of him.
A shot comes in high. He gets a piece of it, but it slips loose and drops right back out. Everyone around us is already on their feet, holding their breath. The crowd is shouting, but I can’t make out any of it.
The next shot comes fast.
Cooper lunges across, his glove stretching out, and it catches him high before bouncing away. The crowd erupts around us. I’m cheering with everyone, jumping up and down. But when I look back at Cooper, he’s still down.
He pushes himself up more slowly this time. He rolls his shoulder, the same one that’s been bothering him, then settles back in like nothing’s wrong. It’s small enough that I can almost convince myself I imagined it.
“Did you see that?” I ask, barely louder than the noise around us.
“He’s fine,” Atlee says, already clapping and yelling down toward the ice.
I try to focus on the game, but I can’t stop watching him.
The next rush builds quickly. When the puck swings out and someone fires it high from near the boards, I’m once again holding my breath.
Cooper tracks it, lifting his glove, and it hits him instead of settling into it.
