Roman shakes his head from his stall. “We’re one more crisis away from HR making us do a seminar.”
“HR is afraid of us,” Evan says from the end of the row.
“HR is afraid of you,” Roman corrects.
Evan points his stick at me. “Him today. He looks like he slept in a hallway and punched his dreams.”
I pull my pads into place. “Skate better than you talk.”
“Impossible. I’m elite at both.”
The room laughs, and for a second I can breathe inside it.
Then my phone buzzes.
A message from Mom.
Peyton called to check in. Such a sweet girl.
I stare at the screen.
Sweet is not the word.
Sharp. Stubborn. Principled when it costs her. Soft in places she does not advertise.
Peyton is not softening because she is getting close.
She is seeing more.
That makes whatever she writes more powerful, not less.
The article is Peyton’s to write. My job is the next shift.
Practice is brutal.
I need something that hits back without talking.
Coach Sully runs us through breakouts, defensive-zone coverage, then a full-ice scrimmage that leaves the room gasping. My edges are sharp. Passes crisp. Body obedient even when my head is somewhere else.
Evan takes a stretch pass I do not like, cuts through the neutral zone, and beats the goalie over the glove.
Coach’s whistle cracks. “Again. This time with support.”
Evan coasts past me. “You going to yell or just disapprove me into retirement?”
“You had no second layer.”
“I had speed.”
“Speed doesn’t cover your mistake if the puck turns over.”
“Neither does fear.”
My stick tightens in my glove.
Evan leans closer, voice dropping beneath the scrape of skates. “You’re skating like a guy trying to win an argument nobody else can hear.”
That one lands.
