26
GRAYSON
Iget no sleep, but what’s new?
My body does that thing where it lies down and pretends. Like if I keep my eyes closed long enough, my brain will get bored and wander off. It doesn’t. It just circles the same drain. The same handful of words that won’t stop repeating until the window starts to gray and I’m staring at the ceiling with that hollow, post-sleepless night ache behind my eyes.
By the time my alarm goes off, I’m already awake. Already tired. Already braced for impact.
I shower because it’s the closest thing I have to a reset button. Hot. Cold. Hot again. Like if I shock my nervous system hard enough, it’ll stop trying to build patterns out of everything.
It doesn’t.
The second I close my eyes, I see her.
Not the big moments. Not the hallway. Not the way my hand felt when her fingers slid into mine. Not the kiss or the moment she fully let go in my arms.
The small ones.
The way the little details finally lined up and clicked into place, so clean that it made me sick.
I know.
I know she’sLittleTooMuch.
I know I’m the one who keeps writing back in the dark like I don’t have a face, like I don’t have a name, like I don’t have a real life that’s inches away from colliding with hers.
After I get dressed and walk into the kitchen, I realize Kai has already left. If I’m late, he’ll kill me, and Coach will bag skate me until I want to die. At this point that would be less painful than telling her the truth.
Focus, Bennett.Hockey first. Everything else later.
That’s the rule. It’s always been the rule. The problem is it’s cracking right down the middle, and I’m standing on it like I don’t feel the split.
The rink smells like cold air and damp concrete and the kind of routine that lives in your bones.
Guys drift in with that usual energy that’s basically just Sunday’s hangover dressed up as effort. Weston chirps at somebody about their hoodie being “emotionally depressing.” Coleson walks in like he owns the oxygen. Asher looks annoyingly awake, stretching like his joints aren’t full of sand.
Kai is already here.
Of course he is.
Captain Mercer doesn’t show up late to anything. He shows up early so he can get mad at the universe in peace before anyone else arrives.
He’s at the boards with coffee, hood up, eyes sharp like he’s already watching film in his head. He doesn’t talk much before practice, but he sees everything anyway.
Including me.
His gaze flicks over my face like he’s taking inventory—eyes, posture, the tiny lag in my focus.
I pretend I don’t notice.
In the locker room I throw my gear on, focusing on the sting in my fingers as I tie my skates tighter than necessary. Most of the guys are on the ice already, so I grab my stick and try to lock in for the next two hours.
Coach Graves blows his whistle like he’s trying to punish air for existing. “Let’s go. No excuses. No slow starts. If you’re tired, skate faster.”
Weston mutters, “That’s not science.”
Coach somehow hears him. “Cooper, you want to talk, you can skate laps until your lungs divorce your body.”
