She nods to herself, like she’s filing something away. While I wait for the next question, the obvious one, the question that could destroy everything, it doesn’t arrive. Her eyes stay past me, toward the trees.
“Does that change anything?” The question comes out as level as I can make it. What I’d do if she said yes, I don’t know.
She’s quiet for a long moment.
Then she shakes her head. “No, it doesn’t.”
That answer loosens something in me, and I don’t trust myself to respond.
So I open the door for her instead.
The rink is loud.
Skates carve on ice, sticks crack against pucks, and the steady rhythm of practice fills the building. Coach is running us through cycle drills, and the team is putting in real work for the first time all week.
For my part, I’m putting in real work for an entirely different reason.
Miranda is at the boards. She’s wearing a button-up shirt, the sleeves pushed up to her elbows, a clipboard tucked against her side. Pretending to focus on the medical observation list isn’t going well for her. Every time I score, her head lifts. When Icheck someone, she winces. The pretense that I haven’t noticed lets me score three goals in twenty minutes.
The team has noticed too.
“Fiancée’s watching, Wolfe.” Brody whips past in a tight arc. “You gonna keep showing off, or you gonna pass the puck?”
“Try keeping up,” I shoot back.
“I’m pacing myself.”
“That’s what slow people call it.”
Samuel cuts in from the left and bumps my shoulder. “He’s been doing this all morning. The team is embarrassed for him.”
“Your shot percentage is what’s embarrassing.”
A wounded sound escapes him as he skates off. Of everyone on this team, only Brody, Samuel, and Eric know the engagement is a fiction. The rest of them believe it’s real, and they’ve been brutal about it since Miranda walked in. Three different teammates have already offered me unsolicited advice on rings, honeymoon destinations, and what to do when a woman wants to redecorate. None of them have been punched yet. I’m calling that an achievement.
Another thing none of them have done is point out that she’s human. If Coach accepted her, then that means they do too.
Eric glides past on the way to his goal, helmet pushed up. “If you score on me one more time today, I’m filing a grievance.”
“Then file it.”
“I will.”
“With who, exactly?”
“Your fiancée over there.” He grins. “She seems reasonable.”
“You’d be wrong about that.”
Brody howls from the other side of the rink. Coach blows the whistle to bring the noise down, and we reset. Winning the next faceoff cleanly, I thread a pass through three players to Samuel, who buries it in the corner. Looking at the boards isn’t something I need to do. I can feel her watching me.
Practice runs ninety minutes. We cool down. The team peels off toward the locker room in the usual cluster of jokes and threats. As I skate to the gate and pull off my helmet, Coach is right there.
“A word with you, Wolfe.”
I follow him. He leads me past the bench and into the tunnel, just inside the shadow where the corridor opens off the rink. We come to a stop. He turns around, and he isn’t in a hurry to speak.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
