I nod.
We leave the locker room, the noise fading behind us as we step into the hallway. It’s cooler here. Quieter. The kind of quiet where you can hear your own thoughts.
Kai doesn’t talk right away. He walks like he’s deciding how much truth he’s willing to put in the open.
Then he says flatly, “We play Rushton’s team next week.”
I keep my voice steady. “Yeah.”
Kai’s eyes flick to me. “You’ve noticed?”
I don’t pretend I haven’t. “You get…intense.”
A humorless huff leaves him. “Yeah.”
We stop by a vending machine that’s been broken since the dawn of time. Kai leans back against the wall, arms crossed, and stares at the floor like it’s easier than looking at me.
“You want to know why,” he says.
It isn’t a question.
My chest tightens anyway.
“Yeah,” I admit. “I do.”
Kai’s jaw flexes once. “Tyler Rushton is the reason Harlow stopped eating.”
Anger immediately consumes my mind, and I can’t wrap my head around hearing this from his point of view, so I tell him the truth.
“I know.”
His gaze whips to mine, shock written all over his face. “What? Harlow told you?”
“Yeah, she did. She told me all of it.”
His eyes are intense, like he can’t decide if it’s a good or bad thing that his sister trusted me enough to confide in me.
“He made her feel like she was the problem,” Kai says, eyes moving back to the floor. “And I didn’t find out until it was already…bad.”
My hands curl into fists without permission, and I have to force them back open.
Giving in to rage is easy, but control is hard.
Kai finally looks up at me again. His eyes are slightly hazy and tired. “I’m telling you because you’re on my line, and I need you locked in, but if he says anything to me on the ice, I don’t want to cost us the game.”
And then, quieter, like it costs him, “And I was going to tell you because I know you care about her.”
Not a threat, not a warning. Just the truth sitting between us.
I hold Kai’s gaze. “I do care about her.”
Kai nods once, like he expected that answer and hates it but accepts it anyway.
“I’m trying,” he says, and his voice goes rough around the edges. “To follow her lead. But sometimes it makes me nervous.”
I keep my voice calm. “If she tells you to give her space, you give her space.”
Kai’s mouth tightens. “Yeah.”
