Rylan doesn’t throw punches. He leaks poison and waits.
I let it stand. Correction can wait. Chasing it can wait too.
Not yet, though.
Straight to the rink.
The locker room smells like sweat, metal, and ice burn. Normal. Familiar. It’s the first skate of two-a-days—morning practice before classes—and everyone’s half-dressed in gear withthat disciplined, contained restlessness that comes from chasing the Frozen Four.
Skates clatter. Tape rips. A stick thumps the floor once—sharp, impatient.
Adrian’s voice cuts across the room, dry and low, aimed like a blade at someone within arm’s reach. It earns a brief reaction—no laughter that loosens anything, just a tight exhale that says message received.
Dante and Cole aren’t arguing. They’re measuring sound—playlist choices like they’re discussing tempo and control, not fun.
Declan doesn’t laugh. He clocks everything. Always has.
Coach Addison steps in and shuts the door.
The sound lands wrong. Too final.
Conversation dies mid-syllable.
I don’t look at him yet. I don’t have to. The room recalibrates around his presence—attention angling without permission.
“Rossi.”
That gets me.
I stand.
Adrian’s expression blanks out. Dante stills. Cole’s jaw tightens, and he looks down like the floor owes him something. Declan’s eyes flick to the door, then back to me, sharp and unreadable.
No one speaks as I cross the room.
Addison doesn’t bother closing the distance.
“Optics are becoming a problem,” he says.
Straight to it.
Fuck. Figures.
“Rumors,” he continues, arms folded. Controlled. “About an accident in high school.”
My throat tightens in a way I refuse to acknowledge. The room feels smaller. Hotter. Like it remembers for me.
I don’t blink. “People talk.” Flat.
“That’s not the point,” he replies. “Timing is.”
Silence stretches. Heavy. Intentional.
And in it, something else needles—Zoë’s face flickering in memory like a blade. How she watches. How she keeps her edges. How she decides what silence costs.
“You don’t get to ignore this,” Coach adds. “This is on you right now.”
I nod once. Not agreement. Acknowledgment. “You want me to manage it.”
