1
FINN
Evan Tremblay sat behind his desk with the office door wide open. That gave Finn roughly thirty seconds before some assistant or equipment manager wandered past and killed the only window he had.
Finn had walked past this exact door since his freshman year. Three years of cataloging details he had zero business noticing: the way Evan’s shoulders finally dropped when the boosters cleared out and he stopped performing, the low laugh he saved for moments he thought nobody important could hear, and the small ritual where he rubbed the back of his neck whenever his phone showed something that annoyed him. Tiny tells. The kind that only showed up if you watched too closely. Finn had been watching too closely since the night of the athletic department gala.
Evan was out. Had been for years. He had shown up to that gala with a boyfriend on his arm, and nobody blinked. Michiganwas not some backwater program. Evan ran operations too well for anyone to care who he took to bed. Finn had watched them from across the ballroom, watched Evan laugh at something his date said, and watched the casual press of his palm against the small of the guy’s back as they moved toward the bar. Finn’s throat had tightened until it hurt. His fingers found the stem of his glass and squeezed until the thing wobbled. He set it down fast and walked away before he did something stupid like stare long enough for anyone to notice. In the bar mirror on his way out, he caught his own reflection: dimples deep, mouth curved in a smile he had not signed off on.
That was then. Senior year now. No more waiting.
His phone buzzed against his thigh. Hayes.You coming to the rink or you gonna stand in the hallway staring at your phone like it’s gonna text you first?
Finn thumbed back quickly.On my way. Mind your own.
That’s what I thought,Hayes sent, followed by the eye roll emoji that somehow still made Finn grin.
But the rink tugged at him first, the way it always did when his head got too loud. He pushed through the side entrance. Cold air slammed into his lungs like a reset button and settled deep in his chest. NHL scouts already dotted the stands, jackets and clipboards, men who never cheered and never flinched. They took notes like the players were livestock up for auction. Finn had stopped letting that bother him sometime around junior year. He was good. They knew it. The mutual understanding had turned into its own quiet comfort.
He stepped onto the ice and pushed off hard. Blades carved clean arcs across fresh surface, the bite of cold steel vibrating up through his shins. He ran edges and figure eights he would never use in a game, but loved for the sheer control. Private work. Just him and the ice and the sound of his own breathing bouncing off empty seats. Crossovers snapped tight. Transitions stayed clean.He pushed the sequences until his thighs burned and the noise in his head dropped from roar to something manageable. The rink did not care what had happened in Evan’s office. The ice asked one thing only: be here, be exact, be present. Finn could still do that.
Hayes waited by the boards when Finn skated off. Stick balanced across his shoulder. Grin already splitting his whole face. “You doing the figure skating thing again?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you don’t, Torvill.” Hayes clapped him on the shoulder hard enough to rock him. “Film session in twenty. Don’t be late, Cap.”
Finn shoved him off, but the smile stayed. Hayes had that effect. The guy could walk into a funeral and find something to grin about without making it weird. He just radiated unbothered warmth that made you forget whatever storm had been in your head three seconds earlier. They had been on the same line since freshman year. In that time Finn had watched Hayes charm his way out of bag skates, talk a bouncer into letting the entire team into a bar with two fake IDs between them, and once convince a professor to accept a paper three days late by telling her with complete sincerity that the material had inspired him so much he needed extra time to do it justice. The professor gave him an A minus.
“Go ahead. I’ll catch up.”
Hayes studied him half a second longer than usual, then tipped his chin and disappeared down the tunnel.
Finn let the cold evaporate off his skin with every step toward the operations wing. His pulse already climbed by the time he reached Evan’s door. He made himself knock on the frame instead of standing there like an idiot mapping escape routes.
Evan looked up from his laptop. Overhead lights caught the faint lines at the corners of his eyes. The brown went near blackwhen he narrowed them. His hair caught silver at the temples where the fluorescents hit. The effect looked unfairly good on a man who color-coded his office supplies. The desk stayed exactly as Finn expected: highlighters lined parallel to the edge, one framed photo angled away from visitors so nobody could see who sat in it. Everything in its place. Everything under control.
“Holloway.” Evan’s voice stayed professional. Guarded. “Something you need?”
Finn stepped inside and closed the door behind him. The latch clicked loudly in the quiet room. Evan’s eyebrows climbed.
“That’s not—”
“I have a question.”
“Office hours are—”
“It is not about hockey.”
Evan’s spine straightened. Both hands landed flat on the desk. His gaze flicked to the closed door, then back to Finn. “What is this about?”
Finn crossed the office in three strides and stopped in front of the desk. Close enough now to catch the scent for the first time: cedar and bergamot, clean and warm underneath the dry-erase markers and paper. His pulse kicked once hard. He locked his knees so they would not do anything embarrassing. “You watch me,” he said.
Evan’s knuckles went white around the pen. He set it down with deliberate care, then picked it right back up and clicked the top three times before forcing his hand flat again. “I watch all the players. It is my job.”
“Not like that.”
“I do not know what you are talking about.”
