“Sure,” he says, and pushes off.
I can’t tell him for half a second, I was still at the party, feeling her step out of my hands.
It goes like that for the rest of the first period, and during intermission, Gavin sits in his stall with his elbows on his knees,head down, and contributes the one syllable he’s contributed all season:Yeah.
Whatever cracked in him in the spring, he’s never said, and nobody’s made him say it, because there’s a code about that. But there’s also an expectation that you’ll get your shit together for the team, sooner or later. In Gavin’s case, it just keeps getting worse.
The second period starts. Our structure comes apart. Gavin sits at the end of the bench, water bottle untouched, refusing to offer any insight or encouragement that might turn the game around.
Coach leans down to Gavin and me. “Should we swap Bauer for Rodriguez?” he says.
Gavin doesn’t look up. “Whatever Rowan thinks,” he says.
Franklin looks at me.
“Bauer stays,” I say.
Franklin nods, and nobody comments, because nobody needs to. Everyone reads the leadership vacuum — including the North Vale State players, who start going at our freshmen with late hits and high sticks, the kind of stuff a captain calls out to a ref between whistles.
And all the doubts I had about him come home to roost when Theo takes a bad hit along the boards and no whistle comes. He pops up, but his hands are unsteady on his stick and his eyes too wide for a kid who spent all week telling everybody he was ready for his first start.
He’s only playing because we’ve got guys hurt, way sooner than we expected.
And now he’s hurt and intimidated, but he won’t admit it.
“Hey.” I lean over when we’re next on the bench together, my hand on the back of his neck. “Look at me.”
He looks.
“Breathe,” I say. “You’re fine. Next shift, take the inside lane on the wall, and body him into the boards. Make it legal, clean, and fucking huge, and he’ll stop touching you.”
“Okay,” he mutters.
I hold his eyes. “And if not, then I’ll find him.”
Theo nods, jaw tight, his glove gripping the boards hard. I let go of his neck and feel the weight of it settle back on mine. He’s eighteen, and the person who should be talking him through this is ten feet to our left, checked out.
During the TV timeout, the lights dip, and the ice crew comes out with their shovels. I tune out, taking the breather, but Seb skates over from the blue line and drops onto the bench beside me. He doesn’t look at me, which means the lecture is coming.
“You’re playing like you’re trying to win this by yourself.”
I don’t answer.
“It’s going to get you hurt.”
“I’m fine.”
“Yeah.” He turns the bottle in his hand, watches the ice. “Sure.”
He gets up before the whistle and skates off.
The horn goes, and we’re down one, and in the locker room between periods, Gavin doesn’t say a word again. He sits and stares at his skate guards, and I watch the coaches read him, then read me reading him.
Then Coach Franklin crouches next to me and says, “We need you on every other shift.”
In the third period, I play the best hockey I’ve ever played. I forecheck like I’m angry, because I am. I feed Theo at the back post, and he barely misses. Next shift, I snap a wrister that pings off the crossbar.
The Den gasps and groans with every rush, and it powers me for a while, but I can only keep it up for so long. I take the benchhalfway through the period, lungs on fire and nothing to show for it.
