By the last drill, the rookies are leaning on their sticks at the boards. I'm there too, gloves on the rail, breath coming in clouds that vanish into the arena air.
In the locker room, the talk has dropped off. Pads come off in silence. Sweat drips from my hair onto the tile and beads where the floor still holds the rink chill. A track of it runs over the skate cut under my jaw and stings, a bright, clean pain. I lean the stick against the stall and peel the tape from the blade in a long strip, ball it for the bin.
I shower fast, then pull a clean compression shirt from the bag, sweatpants, the team warmup over it, my coat off the hook last. My hair is still wet at the nape when I head down the corridor toward the press room, the damp settling against my skin.
The press room at Briarcliff tries too hard: polished oak table, leather chairs, the school crest glowing behind the interview seat. Maya's already set up, laptop open, recorder centered on the table, notebook beside it. Her hair is pulled back, the press badge centered on her chest like a uniform. She's taken the chair with its back to the wall and the door in front of her, because she doesn't miss a fucking thing.
I take the chair opposite her, my back to the door. She notes the adjustment, and her eyes don't leave mine for a full second.
Cole drops into the seat beside me, his knee against mine under the table, a solid line of heat through two layers of fabric.
Maya starts with him—season outlook, team chemistry, his role on the line—and Cole leans back in the chair like he owns the fucking room, his voice so relaxed it sets my teeth on edge.
"The line works because we don't think about it anymore," he says. "Dante reads the ice faster than anyone I've played with. My job is to already be where he's going to need me." He says it easily, the way you describe weather. He gestures toward me without looking over. "Three years of that. You stop planning. You just know."
I sit still, my hands flat on the table. She types all of it, every key strike sharp in the quiet room.
Then Maya looks at me.
"Voss. Scouts have been in the stands. Four teams, last I counted." She holds my gaze. The recorder's red light blinks between us. "How does draft pressure affect your on-ice play?"
"It doesn't."
"Three of your turnovers last week came in the third period of the Greystone game. You don't usually turn the puck over in high-pressure situations. Something was different." She says it without looking down at her notes.
"I had an off shift," I say. "It happens."
"You had three off shifts. In the period when the Carolina scout was sitting behind the bench." She tilts her head slightly. "You're not usually someone whose game suffers under observation. Seems worth noting."
The morning's four goals come back: too clean, defenders who moved before I made them. And there she is in the press box every game this season, sixty feet above the ice, taking notes.
"You cover hockey from sixty feet above the ice, Maddox. Observation and understanding are different fucking things."
"Observation is where understanding starts. That's called journalism."
"Is it? I'd call it tourism. You show up, you take notes, you write about things you've watched from a safe distance."
She stops typing. "Tourism," she repeats, her voice flat.
"You've been at Briarcliff for four years. You've covered this program for three. And you still sit in the press box like you're visiting someone else's house." I lean forward. "You want to understand draft pressure? Lace up. Step onto the ice. Scout behind the bench, clock running, thirty seconds to prove you belong somewhere. Until then, you're a tourist writing postcards."
I lean back. Cole's knee leaves mine—he drew it away, and the absence hits me like a cold spot in the room before I even look down. Something tightens in her jaw, one small crack in the line of her, but the rest doesn't break with it. My pulse moves up half a beat and stays there.
"The scout's name is Jim Weaver," she says, quiet and controlled. My molars press together hard enough to ache. "He covers the northeast corridor for Carolina's front office. He was in the building for the UConn game too, but you didn't turn the puck over once in that one." She closes the notebook. "Maybe the question is which observer."
I hold her gaze. My hands are flat on the table, my right index finger digging into the oak hard enough that the nail bed has gone white. I look down at it and ease off, but the ache stays in the joint.
"You showed up in this world with your stepbrother's name, Maddox." My voice is even. "You're good at watching from the outside. That's what tourists do."
The skin between my thumb and forefinger tightens on the table. I flatten my hand before the tension travels up my arm.
The press badge rises and falls on her chest. I count one breath, then two. She closes the laptop and picks up therecorder, and something behind my breastbone tightens against her leaving, a band drawn taut. She stands.
"I'll note that you declined to comment on the actual question. Thanks for your time."
I stand before she reaches the door. "Maddox." She stops. I close the distance between us. "Recorder."
She turns, her gaze coming from my open hand up to my face and staying there. My lungs hold the count—one beat, two, three—and then she places the recorder in my palm, her fingers stopping just short of mine. The gap between her skin and mine is less than an inch, and the heat off her hand crosses that space anyway, a current that tightens the air in my lungs and lands hard in my throat.
