The corridor opens onto the ice. The crowd noise hits me through the helmet.
It’s a Thursday-night midweek crowd, which means it’s two-thirds full, which is loud enough. The pep band is in the corner. Somebody is yelling something I can’t make out. The Zamboni has just finished, and the ice is gleaming under the lights, and the air at the gate is the cold that lives in this building and nowhere else in my life.
I step onto the ice. The blade of my skate hits clean. My legs know what they are doing before my brain remembers to tell them.
Home.
This is home.
I loop with Walker. He’s quiet. He’s always quiet. He does his stretching loops on autopilot, and I do mine. We cross paths twice and nod twice. The third lap, I’m halfway around, and I see Benson skate up to me with a puck on his stick.
“Come with me.” He throws a puck at me.
I catch it. “What?”
“I’m giving Lucy a puck.”
I scoff.
“Come with me.”
“Take Stan.”
“I’m not taking Stan. Come on.”
Stanley, from somewhere at the other end of the ice, shouts, “I heard my name.”
Benson shouts back, “Go back to your warmup, Stan.”
“Why is my name in your mouth?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Stanley says something else, and Benson sighs.
Rowan comes up on my other side, also looping, also passive on his stick.
Benson grabs his shoulder.
“Laurens. You’re coming.”
“Reeve, I’m not in this relationship.”
“You’re on this team, Laurens.”
“This is not what teams are for.”
“It’s exactly what teams are for.”
Rowan looks at me.
I shrug.
The three of us — me, Benson, Rowan — peel off our warmup loops and skate in formation toward the home side of the ice. The family section is upstairs and to the right, halfway up the lower bowl. I don’t look at the family section during warmups or at all. There’s no point.
Coach yells from the bench, “Reeve! That’s not a warmup!”
“Proper warmups in a minute!”
