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The ice helped later, at least for a while. There was something about the cold and the speed and the pure physicality of it that quieted my mind in a way nothing else could. I threw myself into the warm-up with a kind of desperation, pushing harder than I needed to, chasing the puck like it was the only thing that mattered.

Max was on the ice too, running drills with his line, and I made a very deliberate choice not to look at him. It was easier than I’d expected it to be, which somehow made it worse.

How quickly we could slip back into the performance, into the careful distance. How easily last night could become something that had happened to someone else entirely.

The game started tight and tense, the kind of hockey where every shift felt weighted with more than just points. Vegas came out aggressive, testing our defense early, and I found myself in the thick of it immediately, throwing my body in front of shots, fighting for loose pucks like my life depended on it.

Anything to keep my mind off the man skating three lines over.

The announcers were doing their thing, voices smooth and practiced as they called the action.

“And Renaud with the puck at the blue line, looking for an outlet—”

But there was something different in their tone tonight, something almost pitying underneath the professional commentary.

They weren’t saying it outright. They were too smart for that. But I could hear it in the way they paused just slightly before mentioning Max’s name, in the way they seemed to emphasize the moments where he didn’t quite connect, where a pass went a fraction of an inch off target.

“The captain’s had a lot on his mind lately,” one of them said during a stoppage, and it was meant to be sympathetic, but it landed like an accusation. “You have to wonder if the off-ice distractions are affecting his play tonight.”

I hated them for saying it.

I hated that they were right.

Max was off. Not catastrophically, not in a way that would have been obvious to casual fans, but I could see it. I’d watched him for three years, and I knew the precise mechanics of how he moved, the exact angle he took into the corners, the way he usually read the ice like it was written in his native language.

Tonight, he was a half-second slow. His passes were good but not great, and his positioning was solid but not transcendent.

He was distracted.

He was thinking about tabloids and scandals and probably about me, about last night, about everything that was already falling apart.

The first period ended scoreless, and when we got back to the bench, I could feel the frustration radiating off him like heat off the ice. Kinkaid said something low, and Max nodded, jaw clenched.

I knew he’d heard the announcers too.

I knew he was feeling the weight of it.

The second period was worse because instead of going up to him and offering support, I was acting like he was toxic.

Vegas scored first, a clean breakout that our defense didn’t quite shut down, and the goal horn blared through the arena. Max was on the ice for it, and I watched him slam his stick against the boards as he came off, a gesture so uncharacteristic that even the announcers noticed it.

“Renaud showing some frustration there—very unlike the composed captain we’ve come to know,” one of them said, and there was a note of concern underneath it now, like they were watching something unravel in real time.

We tied it up five minutes later. Cole buried one that Keegan set up beautifully, and for a moment it felt like we might be able to push through this, like the scandal could stay off the ice where it belonged.

Then Max got called for a penalty that was borderline at best, and I watched something crack in him.

He didn’t yell at the ref or throw a tantrum. What he did was worse. He just looked at the official with an expression of such naked frustration that I could see the exact moment he realized he’d lost control, and then he turned and stalked toward the penalty box like he was trying to skate through concrete.

“That was a questionable call,” the announcer said carefully, “but Renaud should know better than to show that kind of reaction. The captain’s usually got better composure than that.”

Four on five, and Vegas scored again while Max was in the box.

Two-one Vegas, and I could feel the momentum shifting like a physical thing, like the ice was tilting under our skates and we were all just trying not to slide off the edge.

When Max came back out, he was angry in a way I’d never seen him be on the ice, and it wasn’t the focused, controlled anger of a competitor. It was the desperate, ragged anger of a man who was losing his grip on something fundamental.

He took a hit that he could have avoided, skating straight into a Vegas defenseman’s shoulder like he wasn’t thinking, like he was just trying to feel something other than whatever was happening in his head.