“Aiden’s in. Sebastian’s a maybe.”
“Brody.”
“Fine. Fine. Just let me know.”
He walks with me the rest of the way to the ice anyway. Doesn’t say anything else. Just walks beside me the way he walks into a puck battle — committed, no hesitation, fully present.
Liam passes us on the ice two minutes later. Looks at me. Two words.
“She good?”
From Liam that’s a full emotional check-in.
“She’s good,” I say.
He nods. Skates away.
Sebastian and Caleb are on opposite sides of something by lunch. I don’t ask. Don’t want to know.
After practice, I’m taping my stick in the equipment room when Katarina appears in the doorway with two coffees.
She offers me one.
“How is she?”
“Holding.”
“Yeah,” she says. “She does that.” She sips her coffee. “She’s scared, Jax. Some people just have better posture about it.”
She leaves me with the coffee and the question still sitting in the room after her.
I finish the tape job. Look at the wall. Think about posture.
Run the accounting.
Same way I run a bad game — start at the beginning, follow every read, find where the wrong call happened and correct it.
No drama.
No excuses.
Just the tape.
She sat there and told me the ugliest thing she had.
Not because she had a plan.
Because she finally ran out of places to carry it alone.
That matters.
I don’t know if I want it to yet, but it does.
She came to me before someone else did.
Late.
But she came.
