"It was a miscalculation."
"It was your third 'miscalculation' this week." Makron leaned against the nearest locker, arms crossed. "First the missed pass during Monday's scrimmage. Then yesterday's checking drill where you basically assaulted a practice dummy like it owed you money. Now this." He gestured at Kowalski's still-bleeding forehead. "Something's wrong. Talk."
Tarmek's jaw clenched.
He didn't talk. That was the entire problem. He showed his feelings through action, through service, through the quiet reliability of simply being there. Words were slippery, dangerous things that could be misinterpreted or rejected.
Words meant vulnerability.
"It's personal."
"Yeah, we figured." Dmitri claimed the bench on Tarmek's other side, trapping him between bodies. "Would this 'personal' thing happen to be five-foot-four, covered in paint, and currently living in a camper behind our parking structure?"
Tarmek's silence was apparently answer enough.
"Knew it," muttered Singh from somewhere behind him. "You all owe me twenty bucks."
"Thought they were still together," someone else said.
"Have you seen him this week? That's not 'together' body language. That's 'I made a terrible mistake and I'm too stubborn to fix it' body language."
"Can we not do this?" Tarmek's voice came out rougher than intended. "I appreciate the concern, but my personal life isn't?—"
"Team business?" Makron cut him off. "It is when it affects your performance. When you're so distracted you can't complete a basic passing drill. When you nearly hospitalize our starting right winger." He pushed off the locker and moved closer, his expression shifting from exasperation to something gentler. "We're not trying to embarrass you, Tarmek. We're worried. You've never played like this."
"I'll handle it."
"How?" Kowalski asked. "By staring at the wall and hoping things fix themselves? Because that seems to be your current strategy, and I gotta say, it's not working great."
"You don't understand?—"
"What's there to understand?" The new voice came from the back of the group, and the other players parted to let Yuri Volkov through.
Volkov was the oldest player on the team—a grizzled bear shifter in his final season, with more experience than the rest of them combined. He'd been married for twenty-three years, had four kids, and possessed the kind of blunt wisdom that came from decades of navigating both professional hockey and family life.
He also had approximately zero tolerance for bullshit.
"I've been watching you moon over that girl for weeks," Volkov said, lowering himself onto the bench across from Tarmek withthe careful movements of a man whose knees had survived one too many body checks. "Watched you rearrange your whole life to make space for her. Watched you look at her like she hung the goddamn moon."
"It wasn't?—"
"Don't lie to me, boy. I've been mated longer than you've been playing hockey." Volkov's pale eyes, sharp despite his age, pinned Tarmek in place. "You found your person. Happens to the best of us, and there's no shame in it. What there is shame in is letting her walk away because you're too scared to ask her to stay."
The words hit Tarmek like a physical blow.
Scared.
Too scared to ask.
"I'm not—" His voice cracked. He tried again. "She wanted to leave. I was respecting her choice."
"Were you?" Volkov leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Or were you just telling yourself that because it was easier than risking rejection?"
Tarmek couldn't answer.
The truth sat heavy in his chest, undeniable now that someone had spoken it aloud. He'd had a hundred opportunities to tell Edie what she meant to him. A thousand moments when he could have found the words, pushed past his fear, laid himself bare.
Instead, he'd hidden behind practicality.
