The drill started. I received the pass late, because I was listening for his voice instead of reading the ice. Milo had to adjust, Lowell nearly clipped my skate, and the whole route collapsed like wet cardboard.
“Again,” Declan said.
Just one word.
My body reacted like he had said it against my skin.
I hated myself so intensely for a second that the feeling came through as anger. Good. Anger I knew how to use. Anger had edges. Anger could push.
I snapped the puck back to Brooks. “Run it.”
“Maybe wait for the whistle, superstar,” Milo said, careful enough that it wasn’t a joke.
I hadn’t even realized Declan hadn’t blown it.
“Right,” I muttered.
The whistle came.
We went again.
This time I got the puck clean, turned hard, fed Lowell through the slot, and cut across on instinct. It was good. Sharp. The kind of rep that normally made me feel like my brain and body had finally found the same station.
Then I looked at Declan.
He was already watching me.
Not praising. Not smiling. Not giving anything away. But his thumb shifted along the edge of the tablet, one small movement, and my stupid brain grabbed it like evidence.
He remembered.
Of course he remembered. His tongue had been in my mouth twenty minutes ago. His hand had been around my neck. His hips had pressed into mine.
I nearly missed the next pass.
“Jesus,” Roman said from the crease. “Jace.”
“I know.”
“You sure?”
“Drop it.”
His mask hid most of his face, but not the pause.
We finished the drill badly. Not all of us. Me. I finished it badly. I overcorrected, undercut Lowell twice, snapped at Milo when he didn’t deserve it, apologized too fast, then forgot what line we were on because the order had shifted and my head refused to let go of the closed door, the shelf rattling, the rough drag of Declan’s beard against mine.
This actually happened.
That thought kept coming back, not like a sentence, more like an alarm.
It happened.
He kissed me.
I kissed him back.
No, that wasn’t even right. I pulled him closer. I put my hand in his hair. I made a sound I couldn’t pretend was anything else.
