“Depends whether that is a complaint.”
Evan grins. “Not from me.”
I point my stick toward the door. “You are early.”
“Could not sleep. Thought I would improve the room while everyone else remained mediocre.”
“Improve it elsewhere.”
Evan skates onto the ice anyway.
For fifteen minutes, the rink becomes a problem I did not plan to solve with Peyton watching.
Evan runs the same breakout three different ways. The first follows the structure. The second stretches it. The third breaks it open, pulling me high before banking a pass off the wall to himself and cutting inside like a forward.
It is reckless.
It is gorgeous.
Peyton’s pen moves again.
My attention goes flat.
Evan sees that too.
“You hate it when I am right,” Evan calls.
“I hate when you are early.”
“That is because you think timing belongs to you.”
Peyton makes a small sound.
Not a laugh.
Close.
I look at her.
She is watching me, not Evan.
Denial would cost me less.
Whatever it is, it has teeth.
Team practice starts twenty minutes later. The rink fills with noise: tape ripping, pucks cracking off boards, Colt complaining about coffee, Finn trying to sneak onto the ice without Maren noticing the bruise on his hip from last night.
Maren notices immediately.
“O’Sullivan,” she calls from the bench. “Training room after.”
“I am fully healthy.”
“Wonderful. Then you can walk there.”
The room laughs. Finn bows like an idiot.
Samantha Cole appears at the tunnel with her camera and a knit hat pulled low. She takes three shots of Volkov taping his stick, one of Colt stealing someone’s glove, and another of Evan leaning on the boards with his expression carefully innocent while I explain something to the defensive pair.
