The refs finally drag us apart.
I’m shoved toward our bench.
Kai is forced toward ours too—officials between him and the other team like human walls.
Weston skates beside me, breathing hard, eyes wide. “You—holy?—”
“Shut up,” I bite out.
Weston nods violently. “Yep.”
Coach is in my face the second I reach the bench.
“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?” he snaps.
I don’t flinch. I don’t apologize. I just say, low, “He talked about Harlow.”
Coach’s mouth opens. Then closes. Because Coach knows. Not details, but enough. He exhales hard like he’s swallowing his own anger.
“Sit,” he barks.
I sit.
My hands are shaking. Not from adrenaline. From restraint. From the fact that I didn’t break Tyler’s face because the ice is not the place for full revenge, and Harlow doesn’t need that kind of spectacle.
But God, I wanted to.
The refs assess penalties, which seems to take forever, especially when I already know my fate.
Finally: matching majors, misconducts…
I’m done for the night.
Tyler is too.
Kai is spared—barely—because he didn’t throw punches, just threats.
I head to the locker room, and the game resumes for the final minute with everyone tense and pissed and the crowd still charged like an electric wire.
When the final horn blares, I know we’ve won based on the sound coming from the crowd.
But this victory doesn’t feel like a celebration.
It feels like admitting what I haven’t said out loud.
40
GRAYSON
Coach Graves doesn’t yell right away but instead sits across from us silently.
That’s how I know I’m fucked.
He waits until the locker room door shuts and the noise is trapped inside with us—steam, sweat, adrenaline still crawling under our pads like they have nowhere else to go. The music that was blaring ten minutes ago is off. The guys are quieter than they’ve been all season. Even Weston is sitting like he’s in church, which might be the most terrifying thing I’ve ever witnessed.
Kai stands in the center of the room, with his jaw locked like he’s holding his own teeth together.
I’m on the bench with my elbows on my knees, gloves off, knuckles scraped, cheekbone throbbing in a way that feels like punishment and relief at the same time. My heart is still sprinting like it thinks we’re still in the third period.
