I looked away and tried to remember what I'd walked in here planning to say.
“Rook?” Soren's voice cut through the noise, and his eyes went wide when he registered that I was standing in his dressing room doorway. “Holy shit, what are you doing here?”
“You did say that you had a gig,” I managed, and my voice came out steadier than I felt. “Thought I'd check it out.”
“You came to see us play?” He was grinning now, that expression lighting up his whole face in a way that did absolutely nothing to help my current situation. “That's—wow, okay. Did you catch the whole set?”
“Most of it. You guys sounded great.”
“We sounded drunk,” the bassist called from the couch without looking up from her phone. “But also great, so I'll take it.”
Soren laughed and tossed the towel onto a chair before grabbing a clean shirt from a duffel bag on the floor. I watched him pull it over his head and tried not to feel relieved when the distraction of his bare chest was finally covered up. This was insane. I was losing my mind.
“Rook, this is the band,” Soren said, gesturing around the room with an ease that suggested he was completely unaware of the crisis I was currently having. “June on bass, Luca on guitar. Guys, this is Rowan Kincaid.”
The room went dead silent.
June looked up from her phone with her eyes going comically wide. Luca stopped mid-sentence in whatever argument he'd been having and just stared at me like I'd materialized out of thinair. The silence stretched long enough to get uncomfortable, and then June said, “Holy shit, you're the captain.”
“Uh.” I glanced at Soren, who looked like he was trying not to laugh. “Yeah?”
“The captain of the Wolves,” Luca clarified, like I might have forgotten which team I played for. “The actual Rowan Kincaid. Who's been on the cover of, like, three sports magazines this year.”
“Two,” I corrected automatically, and immediately regretted it because now I sounded like an asshole.
“Two sports magazines,” June repeated slowly, like she was testing the words. Then she turned to Soren with an expression of absolute betrayal. “You didn't tell us you knew Rowan fucking Kincaid.”
“I told you I played hockey in high school,” Soren said defensively.
“You said you played hockey! You didn't say you played hockey with a literal professional athlete who's probably going to the playoffs!”
“If the league ever figures out the schedule,” I said, because apparently I'd decided to join this conversation instead of backing slowly out of the room.
“Right, the snow thing.” Luca was still staring at me like I was a zoo exhibit. “That sucks, man. But you guys are gonna crush it when it starts, right? You were on fire this season.”
“We're hopeful.”
“Hopeful,” June snorted. “Modest as fuck for a guy who's probably going to win a championship.”
“Subtlety is not their strong suit,” Soren said to me, and the apology in his voice was clear. “Sorry about this. They're usually better behaved.”
“We're literally never better behaved,” Luca countered cheerfully. “You know this about us.”
I found myself smiling despite the absolute weirdness of the situation. “It's fine. I've dealt with worse.”
“Worse than us?” June looked genuinely offended. “Impossible.”
The conversation spiraled from there into the kind of chaotic, overlapping mess that seemed to be the band's natural state. Luca wanted to know if I'd ever fought anyone on the ice, June wanted to know if the Wolves' goalie was single, and Soren was trying very hard to steer the conversation in literally any other direction while failing spectacularly. I answered what I could, deflected the rest, and tried not to think about the fact that I was standing in a dive bar dressing room making small talk with a bassist and a guitarist while Soren watched me with an expression I couldn't quite read.
Eventually, June and Luca got distracted by the need to pack up their gear, and the energy in the room shifted from manic to merely loud. Soren crossed the small space to stand next to me, close enough that I could smell whatever soap he'd used in the shower mixed with the faint scent of sweat and stage smoke.
“Sorry about them,” he said again, quieter this time. “They've been following the Wolves all season, so seeing you show up here probably just broke their brains.”
“They're fine. Enthusiastic, but fine.”
“That's a generous way to put it.” He was smiling, and the expression was soft enough to make me want to see it all the time. “You really came to see the show?”
“I really did.”
