“Melly’s off-limits. Don’t mess with her head. She already told you that you won’t be seeing much of her, and I plan to keep that promise for her.”
They glare at me.
“This conversation stays at this table. On this day. That’s it.”
A pause.
“I’m not ever talking about this again.”
I walk out of the kitchen and grab my clothes.
She’s single.
She broke up with him on Tuesday.
Why the fuck would she do that?
I take the stairs two at a time.
When I get to my room, I shut the door, sit on the edge of the bed, and drop my elbows on my knees. I stare at the rug.
She’s single.
I can’t believe she talked to the guys about me. Really can’t fucking believe it. That girl knows how to drive the knife deeper and deeper. I thought high school was bad. Now she’s infecting my team with nonsense. Stanley calling it an intervention is bullshit.
“Fuck.”
It’s Monday, and I’ve been up since four. I have been on the ice since five.
I’m always the first one here. Today I’m earlier for more time. Half of the overhead lights are on. The rink staff doesn’t flip the rest until six. The blue lines are bright. The far end is in shadow. My breath is steady.
I’m doing edge work. Stick on the ice. Inside edges, outside edges, slow figure eights along the boards. The kind of drill you can do for forty minutes without your brain involved.
My shoulder is fucked.
I’ve been ignoring it for ten days. The Friday game made it worse. The rink yesterday — wristing pucks with no goalie and no game and no good reason — made it worse. I have not told the trainer. I will not tell the trainer until somebody makes me, which I hope is never. I just need it to go away. I do a slow figure eight along the bench boards. Then another. Then another.
The rink door opens at the far end. Stanley’s voice is the loudest one. Stanley’s voice is always the loudest one. I don’t look up.
Stanley pushes through the bench door first with coffee in his hand. He sees me and watches me for one beat too long.
“Baby Blue.”
His new nickname for me is driving me up the wall. “Sterm.”
His face does something, and then he puts it together. Stan Ermington.Sterm.
He says, “Been here a while.”
“Yeah.”
He sips his coffee. He stands at the open bench door and watches me do my edge work. I can feel him watching.
The rest of the team filters in over the next ten minutes. Benson nods at me from the bench. Doesn’t say anything. Rowan gives me a small two-finger wave when he steps onto the ice. Percy is at the goal already, fully padded, doing the Percy thing where he is alone in a small kingdom of his own routine.Theo Marsh, the other left wing, taps my pads with his stick on the way past — Golding — and I tap his back without looking up.
Coach Fuller blows the whistle at six. “Center ice, boys.”
The team gathers. Coach is in his Monday mood — clipped, focused, no good morning. He outlines the practice. Power play work. Cycle game and net-front presence. Line rushes. A scrimmage at the end.
