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Sweat drips down from the ends of my hair, across the bridge of my nose, and across my re-split lip. I grunt before darting down the ice again—a sprint before a blue line lateral drill, then another sprint.

My gaze flickers to Holden where he’s half heaving against his stick but ready to start again.

“I said—”

“Give me a minute,” I say, cutting him off. My tolerance for our new coach is high, because I’ve been here. But Holden doesn’t have that advantage.

“We’ve barely started, Kane.” LaBlanc’s voice is calm, almost an outright laugh. “Again. Don’t make Dougherty pick up your slack.”

I shut my eyes and shake my head, trying to breathe slower, to calm my racing heart and settle my hands. Partially to get this drill so goddamn perfect he can’t force us to do it again. Partially so I don’t throw up the protein bars I shoved down this morning.

The meeting with Harris earlier had changed everything but didn’t get rid of my desperate need not to be here.

“I’m doing this for you,” Harris says, sliding the paper toward me. My eyes alight across the small list of interested NHL teams—even some that had publicly passed on me three years running. “You might not like him, for whatever reason, but your stats don’t lie. You played best under him.”

The stats might not lie, but they only told half the story. Still, I keep my arms crossed over my chest, tapping my foot as I wait.

I don’t say anything. I just sit there.

“Just do what he says and keep your act together—off the ice and on it. Please.”

“Toren?” Holden asks. He seems to be the only one on the team who opts to use my given name. “You okay?”

Settling into my start position, I nod—then I take off like a shot.

• • •

“Does he have a personal vendetta against us already?” Holden asks, his voice breathy and full up with exhaustion.

Me, I want to warn him, but I stay quiet. Attempting not to drown myself with the water I’m chugging back is a feat in and of itself.

“Save your breath,” I say, slumping my naked back against the cool concrete. “We still have our actual team practice to get through.”

Holden groans, slamming his blond head back against the wall where he’s sitting. “Don’t remind me. Maybe I’ll take a page from your book and quit.”

I smile without meaning to. Mostly, I think, because no one else is in here. Just us.

Holden and I are arguably comfortable with each other, whether I’ll openly admit it or not. He’s attempted to pull me into the inner circle of the Waterfell Wolves since the day I joined the team. Despite the hatred that boiled from almost everyone else in defense of their captain.

Maybe, in a different world, we could have been friends.

But I’m me. And the sting of almost-friendships I’ve regrettably tried before is still just as fresh as the day I left Michigan. Hell, maybe the day I left North Carolina.

And worse now: Lily LaBlanc is here, in my space. So close I can nearly taste her skin on my tongue once again.

“So—you gonna tell me how you know her?”

“Who?”

“The girl from the hallway? Lily?”

Lily. God, it never gets better.

Hearing her name out of anyone else’s mouth makes my entire body cramp with pain. A thousand memories threaten like wolves nipping at my heels, just as dangerous and terrifying, though each one is soaked in lavender and cinnamon, the spritz of some expensive perfume I couldn’t pronounce. I tamp them down, running further from the memory of her before it can turn dirty and blood soaked.

I stand, shaking my sweat-damp hair out like a dog before wrapping a towel around my neck. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure,” Holden replies sarcastically. “You just stare at every girl with the intensity of a thousand suns. Very normal for you.”