Now I was calculating possibilities I had no business caring about.
Would she come with Aura and Charm? Never mind. I knew the answer because she went everywhere with Aura and Charm. Would she wear her hair down if it was raining? I hoped it was in that sloppy ponytail thing girls did to us on purpose. Would she stand near the kitchen where she could see most of the room, or would she let herself relax on the back deck if the crowd wasn’t too bad? But I knew the answer there too.
She would be on guard because she was always on guard.
Would she smile at me like we were just friends of friends, or would she look at me the way she sometimes did when I said something low enough for only her to hear, like she was trying hard not to enjoy me?
Easton shifted beside me, and I knew from the smallest change in his breathing that he was watching me.
I kept my voice quiet. “Stop looking at me.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m looking near you.”
“You’re bad at lying.”
“And you’re suddenly very invested in morale.”
I turned my head slowly.
Easton’s grin was almost respectful in its cruelty. “What?”
“Say it,” I murmured, “and I’ll make sure Briggs knows you spent twenty minutes picking a shirt last week before seeing Aura at The Sin Bin.”
His expression flattened. “That was private.”
“It was pathetic.”
“It was navy. She likes navy.”
“She ever tell you that?”
“She didn’t have to. She looked at me twice.”
“She was probably checking for exits.”
Easton’s mouth twitched, but something in his eyes sharpened because we both knew what I’d said. Not about Aura.
About Bliss.
He knew me too well to miss the direction my brain went when I wasn’t watching it closely enough.
Before he could say anything, Coach Little clapped his hands once, hard enough to snap the room back into silence.
“Last thing,” he said. “This season is going to be loud. Draft talk, rankings, media, scouts, NIL garbage, social media nonsense, all of it. Some of you want attention until you actually get it, and then you realize attention has razor-sharp teeth. Mercer knows that better than anyone in this room.”
Every head did not turn toward me, but I felt the awareness shift anyway.
I stayed still.
Coach wasn’t wrong. Attention did have teeth. It bit into schedules, privacy, family dinners, interviews, relationships, expectations, and whatever part of your life you thought still belonged to you. I’d learned that young, first as Harrison Mercer’s son, then as the kid with the private coaches and expensive skates, then as the player everyone decided was headed somewhere before I’d even had a chance to decide who I was without a stick in my hands.
The NHL had been less of a dream and more of a destination entered into my calendar before I was old enough to question the route.
I wanted it.
