The locker room was empty when he reached it.
Good.
He dropped onto the bench in front of his locker and buried his head in his hands, breathing through the tight knot in his chest. His body ached in ways that had nothing to do with physical exertion—a hollow, persistent pain that had taken up residence somewhere behind his sternum and refused to leave.
Four days.
Four days since she'd moved back to the camper, and he hadn't slept more than three hours any of them. His apartment—condo, he corrected himself, because "apartment" was what she'd called it, her voice warm with teasing—felt like a mausoleum. Too quiet. Too clean. Too empty.
He kept finding traces of her everywhere.
A purple hair tie tangled in his bathroom drain. A smear of paint on his counter that he couldn't bring himself to scrub away. A coffee mug shaped like a sloth, sitting in his cabinet like it had always belonged there.
Glitter.
Fucking glitter.
He'd found it in his sheets, on his towels, somehow embedded in the grout of his shower tiles. It sparkled at him mockingly every time he entered a room, reminding him of her laugh, her chaos, the way she'd looked at him like he was something worth keeping.
You let her leave.
The thought had been circling his mind for days, a vulture waiting to pick clean the bones of his denial. He'd told himself he was respecting her wishes. Being supportive. Giving her space.
Lies.
He'd been terrified.
Terrified that if he asked her to stay, she'd say no. That he'd finally put words to the thing growing in his chest, and she'd look at him with pity, or worse—relief at having an excuse to run.
So he'd said nothing.
"The camper's ready whenever you want it."
He'd meant to say something else. Something real. But the words had stuck in his throat like broken glass, and what came out instead was permission to leave—the exact opposite of what he'd wanted.
Coward.
The locker room door banged open.
Tarmek didn't lift his head. He could tell from the footsteps who it was—multiple players, moving with purpose, the particular rhythm of skate guards on concrete that he'd memorized over years of playing with these men.
"Team meeting." Dmitri's voice, calm but firm. "You too, Captain."
Not now.
"Practice isn't over."
"Coach called it." That was Kowalski, sounding far too cheerful for someone who'd just been nearly concussed. "Something about 'regrouping our mental focus.' Pretty sure that's code for 'Stonefist has lost his goddamn mind.'"
Tarmek lifted his head.
The entire team stood in a loose semicircle around him—twelve players in various states of undress, their expressions ranging from concerned to exasperated to something uncomfortably close to knowing.
"We need to talk," said Makron, the team's assistant captain and one of the few players who'd been with the Enforcers longer than Tarmek. "And before you give us that 'I'm fine' bullshit, don't. We've been watching you self-destruct for four days, and we're done pretending we don't notice."
"I'm—"
"If you say 'fine,' I'm throwing my gear bag at your head." Kowalski dropped onto the bench beside him, close enough thattheir shoulders nearly touched. "You nearly decapitated me out there, Cap. I love my face. I'd like to keep it attached to my body."
