“It was.”
“You called the rotation in the third period. It was a clean read, and it saved my ass. They would’ve been on my goal in a flash if you hadn’t.”
I nodded.
A female staff member passed the locker room doorway, someone from operations, carrying a tablet. Brashe’s attention shot to the door and remained there.
He shook his head, and I swore he whispered, “Can’t be her.”
Her?I didn’t comment.
We left the locker room together and parted ways in the corridor.
I found Haley standing near the curb, scrolling on her phone, probably calling for a ride.
I walked over and stood beside her. “We could share.”
She glanced up, her gaze sliding to her father chatting with one of the equipment staff. “We could.”
Was this a safe move? Maybe not. But someone would soon discover that we lived across the street from each other. Then this would appear practical, not planned.
The vehicle pulled up, and I tossed our bags in the back, climbing into the rear seat beside her. She waved to her father as we pulled away, but he didn’t look up.
We had maybe eight inches between us. She kept her bag on her lap. I watched the city through the window.
This silence felt different from the bus. The bus had noise—players, road, engine. This was the driver and us not speaking when we had so many things to say.
We both got out in front of her apartment building. I stood with her on the sidewalk with a foot of space between us and a hundred reasons to keep it there.
“I’ll see you tomorrow?” she said.
“Yes.”
Her lips quivered, but she tightened her grip on her shoulder strap and, still holding my hoodie, went inside her building. I waited, watching her window until the lights came on inside her apartment before I turned and crossed the road.
Beau met me at my apartment door with the kind of enthusiasm that said I’d been gone for years instead of two days. I set my bag down and picked him up. He licked my face and wiggled, all whimpers of joy.
“I know,” I said. “I missed you too.”
I fed him and took him for a walk around the block. He sniffed every corner with the thoroughness of someone conducting a formal investigation.
Renkar had picked him out of the litter because he was the one not jumping around for attention. Just sitting in the corner of the dog bed, watching. Renkar said that was the right kind of dog. I couldn’t disagree.
Back inside, I sat on the sofa. Beau jumped up and climbed into my lap.
I stared at the sketch on the wall.
Haley had drawn him in about twenty minutes. She’d handed it over like it was nothing, the way she did most things. I’d framed it because I didn’t know what else to do with the feeling it gave me.
Beau sighed and went boneless against my knee.
I didn’t move for a very long time.
Morning practice. My ice. My rink now. The surface felt great under my skates as I warmed up my muscles. The coaches led us in drill sequences. Basic positioning work, the kind we’d run until it became automatic.
I fell into the read I’d been developing, tracking where my teammates would be and adjusting the defensive structure around the play before it developed.
Two of the newer defensemen kept moving out of line, which meant the play was coming together wrong. An opposing team’s forward was going to exploit the gap. I saw it in real time.
