I wasn’t supposed to hear it - I was at the boards and he’d pitched it low enough that it was meant for the group and not for me. But the rink has its own acoustics, and I heard every word. Before I’d processed it Russo had already…
“Alright,” Calloway says to the group. His voice gives nothing away. “We’re going to finish the session. Let’s do the tango stop sequence one more time before we finish. Full commitment, remember.”
He nods at me.
I finish the session on autopilot. I try not to think about Mercer’s words. But I can’t get the expression on Russo’s face out of my head - how furious he was and how he reacted in a split second.
MATEO
Calloway finds us later in the corridor outside the locker room. We’ve both been handed ice packs - mine is pressed against my cheekbone. Mercer is ten feet away, avoiding my eyes, doing the same with his lip.
Calloway stands between us.
I wait for the volume. It doesn’t come.
“If I hear you disrespecting staff ever again, we won’t be having this conversation in a corridor,” he says ominously.
Mercer nods. He has the grace to seem ashamed.
“You’re suspended for the next game. Now go,” Calloway says.
Calloway turns to me after he’s left.
I meet his eyes and wait.
“You’re the captain,” he says.
“Yes,” I say.
“Which means?”
“Which means I should have handled it differently. I know.”
“How should you have handled it?”
“Without my fist.”
“You’re suspended from the next game as well. It’s non-negotiable.”
I nod. I was expecting worse.
“Mercer was out of line saying what he did. But you’re the captain. You don’t get to lose it like that. Ever. You want to fight someone? You do it on the ice, in the play, where it belongs. Not in practice because some idiot ran his mouth.”
I stare at the floor. “I know.”
“And Russo?”
I look up.
“Grow up.You have scouts asking about you. Do better.”
He turns and walks back toward the rink.
I go home. I sit on my bed with a pack of frozen peas against my cheekbone and think about what Mercer said.
Special treatment from the skating princess.
I’ve been thinking about it as an insult to what Elida and I are, or were. I’ve been thinking about it as something to be angry about, something to defend.
