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“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Harris mutters beneath his breath. “Toren—”

“It’s not—” Lily says, jolting forward out of the closet. She looks mussed up and a tinge wild, which makes it worse. “We were just talking.”

“Lillian,” LaBlanc snaps, his voice louder and harsher than I’m sure I’ve ever heard him be with her. It makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “Come here. Now.”

I was ready to push her out of here myself, but now my hand grasps her arms to keep her near me. Harris’s eyes catch the movement easily, his frown only deepening.

“Toren.”

Lily’s head is tilted toward me as Harris asks low and quiet, “Lily, can you go with your dad? I need to talk to Toren.”

She doesn’t move and my chest squeezes at the look in her eyes. She didn’t hear him. She’s not wearing her hearing aid; he’s on her right side and the noise of the rowdy locker room in the distance isn’t helping.

“She’s fine,” I say. There’s an almost childlike need for her to stay here. As if I’m seven years old again and I know that getting in trouble is so much easier with her near my side. “We were just talking. Practice is over anyway.”

“Not for you,” LaBlanc decrees. “We’re going for another hour.”

This is the punishment then. I shake my head, but this time it’s Harris who agrees.

“Go with him, Toren,” he says, still quiet. My mouth gapes open, betrayal lodging like a knife.

“You can’t be serious.” The words leave me unprompted, falling out of my mouth. Anger and disappointment and a deeply tucked-away fear grow in the space between us all. “Coach, I didn’t—”

“You’re upset. Skate it off and we’ll talk at the house.”

The fuck we will.

I tear my hand out of Lily’s, ignoring whatever look is on her face. I don’t even know if she says anything, if LaBlanc makes some demand of her—I can’t hear any of it over the rushing in my ears. My skates scrape the ground for a second with how hard my stomp is before I hit the mat-like texture of the softer floor in the locker room, ignoring every eye on me, every pause in conversation as LaBlanc follows behind me.

• • •

My entire body aches, chest tight where I took a puck right to the center. Had it been Freddy’s or Koteskiy’s shot, I might have gone to the hospital, but LaBlanc is past his prime. And I’m used to it.

Now, I’m sitting on my bike two doors down from the Harrises’ house, waiting for them to shut the porch light off before I dare to use my key and sneak down to the room in the basement.

It’s dark but I can make out the small figure of Sahara as she steps out the front door, again.

“Call him again,” she says. I can just hear her in the quiet dark, her voice echoing a little. She’s being loud—enough that Harris, stepping up behind her, tries to shush her softly. It makes my throat feel tight.

“He’s fine.”

“You said he was upset. He could be—”

“Sahara,” he says. “He’s fine. Just take a breath.”

It’s quiet for a long moment and I’m nearly sure I’ll choke on the guilt, my body instinctively pushing off my bike to head that way. I stalk across, leaving my bike between the street’s parked cars and stepping onto the walkway up to the porch, letting the orange light toss my shadow backward.

But I can’t bring myself to raise my head and face the sight of their disappointment.

“Oh, thank god,” Sahara says, almost leaping off the steps and grabbing me in a tight hug. I know she feels my body flinch, and I hate it, but I’m sore and upset and still fucking angry at Harris.

He looms behind her, his eyes guarded and arms crossed. Sahara backs away, her hands hovering in the air. It almost seems like she wants to touch me again but is holding herself back.

“I was getting worried,” she says with a forced laugh before heading inside. “Let’s go in; it’s freezing and you must be exhausted. And hungry! I kept your food warm, just in case—”

I don’t speak as Sahara plates me warm food and bustles around me like she can’t sit still. I can tell that Harris wants to talk to me, but he won’t push her out or rush her.

“Sahara, sweetheart,” I hear him say softly as she turns the corner to get more water for me, despite the fact that I haven’t opened the bottle in front of me yet. “Why don’t you head to bed? It’s late. And I need to talk with Toren.”