“Head up, Skye.” Riley glides backward in front of me. “You’ve got this.”
“Tomorrow, no mercy goals from your assistant captain,” Coach Madsen yells out from the players’ bench.
“I had it,” I mutter to myself, tapping my stick on my skate before I let my head hang.
“Sure you did,” Paige skates up beside me. “In a parallel universe where gravity takes the day off.”
I can’t help but laugh at her. “You’re an ass.”
“I love it when you sweet-talk me, Cappy.” She winks and skates back toward the net.
We reset. My legs move, my body reacts, but my mind continues to wander to Violet. She was vague this morning. “Busy, stuff to do.” She said it as if she didn’t want to commit to a real answer. I try not to read into it, but I do anyway.
What is she doing right now?
Who is she with?
I hate how the questions multiply when I’m already tired.
The whistle blows through my thoughts. We switch ends. Paige skates past me, tapping my pad with her blocker.
“So.” Her tone is casual. “Where is your woman? Why isn’t she here watching you brick the open nets?”
I snort despite myself. “She’s busy.”
Paige stops in her crease and looks at me. The kind of look that lingers with thoughts she doesn’t want to say out loud. “Busy,” she repeats.
“Yeah.” I let my gaze drift away from hers. “Busy.”
She hums, her lips a thin line, and I skate away. For anyone else, it wouldn’t be a big deal. But because we’re in the skates we’re in, Paige gets territorial when someone tries to get close.
I make one last look toward Paige and watch her drop her stance in the net as the drills begin again. I can feel her burning a question mark into the gear on my back.
The next rep is quick. I shoot sooner this time, harder, and it dings off the post and out. The sound echoes. Coach whoops from the bench.
“Love the enthusiasm,” she calls. “Hate the execution.”
I skate to the corner, breathing hard. The ice has a sharp, cold smell. Tomorrow is important. Tonight is important. And somewhere outside these four walls, Violet is having an entire day that I don’t get to see.
I push back out onto the ice at the whistle, gritting my teeth, determined to skate past the feeling that I’m chasing more than a damn puck.
The Olympic hockey locker room always feels bigger after practice. Long rows of pale wood stalls stretch around the room, each one stamped with names and numbers that still don’t yet feel real to me, even now. Above the benches, hooks sag under the weight of the damp jerseys and shoulder pads.
It’s a different kind of loud as it echoes all around me. Gear thumps on the rubberized floor, tape tears from worn-out sticks, someone’s speaker blares to life, and they get yelled at to turn it down.
I drop onto the bench and begin unlacing my skates. My hands are stiff, and my legs throb with that post-practice ache that means tomorrow is going to hurt no matter what. Hopefully, the adrenaline will be strong enough to carry me past that.
Paige flops down across from me, her pads half-off, her hair sticking out from her bun like Medusa’s snakes. “Okay.” She gestures with her trapper. “We are allstill on for tomorrow night, right?”
She’s referring to the exclusive concert Coach Madsen got us tickets to.
“Obviously,” Riley says from a few seats away. “Win or lose.”
“Especially lose,” Rissa adds, leaning against the doorway with a water bottle. “If you’re gonna cry, at least do it with good music.”
There’s a ripple of agreement that runs through the room.
“Celebration orcoping mechanism,” I add my two cents to be active in their conversation.
