Page 12

“Physically, I was ready. I’ve always been bigger and stronger. Mentally? Not so much. Therapy and meds helped, but it was mostly time that got me there. And the Marauders were really decent about everything, so that helped too. Voss told me if four years at Harvard was what it took to get the best version of me, they’d wait.”

“Wait—they knew going into the draft you were holding off on signing?”

“Oh. For sure.”

I’d been scared shitless sitting across from Hendricks and Voss, but I wasn’t about to fuck them over by pulling a bait-and-switch later. “It didn’t hurt that they’re both very familiar with my father.”

He nodded slowly, as if absorbing everything I’d just dropped on him. Then, “Therapy, huh?”

Going into this, I knew Porter thought I was an asshole. Hell, he’d flat-out called me one, no interpretation required. But from the way he was looking at me now, I had to wonder if opening up to him the way I had might have changed his perception of me. I certainly hoped so.

“Thanks for telling me,” he said finally. “More of us should probably look into that.”

“Yeah,” I breathed out, pulling my gaze away.

I wasn’t used to offering up these parts of myself willingly—especially not to someone I’d just met. I thought I could trust him, but I’d believed that once before, and there was a reason I no longer let myself get close to people.

Porter cleared his throat and set his bottle aside. “Okay. Break time’s over.” He pushed off the wall and pivoted into a backward glide, his arms spread wide. “You coming?” He beckoned me forward.

“Right,” I said, back to business. “Transitions next.”

Twenty minutes later, Porter was running on nothing. His push-offs had gotten progressively shorter, his recoveries longer. He was still trying, still grinding, but his body was done, and we both knew it.

I cut the hard conditioning set I’d planned and replaced it with lower-intensity flow work that would still tax him but wouldn’t break him.

“You soft-pedaling me, Cally?”

“Nope.” I crossed my arms over my chest.

“Then why is this easier?” He came to a stop in front of me.

“This serves a different purpose.”

“Mm-hmm,” he hummed. “Sure.” He skated away, running the route again. When he cleared the far side of the cone, he spun to face me. “How was my form?”

“Fucking awful,” was out of my mouth before I’d even considered my words.

He huffed out a laugh. “Wow. You could have lied, you know?”

I skated over to him. “I won’t ever lie to you. Not about this.”

His eyes met mine, and I almost looked away from how steadily he was watching me. Then he blinked, and whatever thought had made his face go flat like that was gone. The change was fast enough that I might have been able to convince myself I’d imagined it if I hadn’t made a habit of obsessively studying Porter’s face this past week.

“But you’ll lie to me about other things?” he asked quietly.

I’d given him more of my truths than I’d ever given another living soul, telling him things about myself I’d only ever voiced aloud in my head. But there was one thing I couldn’t ever tell him. Was that lying? It was probably a gray area, but I figured if he never asked, I never had to answer.

“No,” I said. “That’s not who I am.”

He nodded and looked away. “Okay, Cally. What’s next?”

FIVE

MIKEY

Cally and I developed a solid routine: gym at six, ice at seven, the rest of the day spent with everyone else. At first, I’d been skeptical that his plan would work, but the results didn’t lie. My conditioning and strength were definitely improving—even if accepting how it was improving was a hit to my pride.

I’d always considered myself a naturally strong guy. My back and shoulders were built doing heavy manual labor around the marina long before I ever stepped into a pro gym. And on my old teams, I could outlift almost anyone. Was my form shit? Was I exacerbating problems instead of fixing them? As long as you could lift the bar, no one seemed to care.