I sit up too fast, swinging my legs over the side of the bed, like motion alone might knock the thought loose.
Focus.
Game day doesn’t care about feelings. It doesn’t care about soft moments or the way a smile can rearrange your internal wiring.
Game day wants clarity. Precision. Ruthlessness.
The rink always feels different once the fans show up.
It’s louder, for one, but it’s theenergythat changes. A low thrum under the concrete that seeps into your bones. A building that goes from “facility” to “arena,” like the crowd flips a switch and suddenly everything matters more and the pressure has increased.
The locker room smells like tape and sweat and that sharp, clean sting of cold air trapped in gear. Guys are moving with purpose—stretching, lacing skates, tossing chirps like they’re tossing a puck. Weston is already talking like he’s trying to fill the entire room with his personality.
Asher sits two stalls down from me, calm as ever, elbows on his knees, eyes half-lidded like he’s already visualizing the game in his head. Kai is across the room, retaping his stick with the kind of focus that makes you feel lazy just by existing near him.
And Coleson Richards is pacing like a caged animal.
He’s got that football energy even in a hockey locker room—too big, too loud, too sure of himself. He snaps at one of thefreshmen about “not screwing up in front of the crowd,” like intimidation is encouragement.
Kai’s gaze flicks up once.
That’s the warning.
Coleson doesn’t notice—or doesn’t care.
Coach Graves walks in, clipboard in hand, and the room snaps into something quieter. Not silent. Just contained. The kind of quiet that means everyone’s listening even if they pretend they aren’t. He runs lines, points out matchups, says a few things that sound like they belong on a motivational poster but somehow land like a threat anyway.
“Play our game,” he finishes, voice flat. “Don’t get cute. Don’t get dragged.”
His eyes sweep the room like he’s daring someone to test him.
Coleson smirks like he wants to.
We tap gloves and head out, the tunnel swallowing us up with noise and cold and that familiar pregame buzz that makes my hands feel too steady and my chest feel too tight at the same time.
And then the ice opens up.
Home.
Warm-ups hit like a reset button. I take a few hard strides, legs waking up, lungs clearing. The puck feels good on my stick—responsive, obedient. Weston slaps a pass across the blue line, and I one-touch it back without even looking because that’s what muscle memory is for.
I don’t look up right away.
I tell myself I won’t.
Then I do anyway, because I’m a liar, my eyes being traitors lately.
Harlow is in the stands, three rows up from the glass, tucked into herself like she always is. Except tonight she’s wearing Kai’sjersey. Dark fabric swallowing her small frame, sleeves too long, numbers too big. It should look ridiculous.
It doesn’t.
It looks like a clarification.
My chest tightens so hard it’s almost embarrassing. Not because she looks good—though she does, in that quiet, stubborn way she has.
Because it’shisjersey.
His name across her shoulders.
