The room goes silent.
“Whoever posted that video runs bag skates for a week.” I keep my voice flat, controlled. “We’re not discussing it. We’re not making jokes about it. We’re moving on. Copy?”
Nobody answers. They’re all looking at each other with that expression I’ve seen a thousand times on a thousand faces—the one that says the boss is clearly not okay but nobody wants to poke the bear.
I hate that look. It means they don’t trust me. Which means I’ve already lost them, even if they don’t know it yet.
“I said copy.”
A scattered chorus of agreement, none of it convincing.
“Good.” I turn toward my locker, reaching for my gear. “Full practice in fifteen. We’re running the power play sequence until it doesn’t look like we’ve never seen a puck before. We don’t have time for this. Not this late in the season. Last night was unacceptable.”
“Bennett—” That’s Boone, my brother, using the tone that means he’s about to say something reasonable and supportive, and I don’t want to hear it.
“Fifteen minutes.”
I shut my locker harder than necessary. The sound echoes off the concrete walls like a gunshot, and every pair of eyes in the room track me as I push back through the door and onto the ice.
First mistake: thinking I could outwork this.
Second mistake: thinking they’d let me.
Practice starts exactly on time because that’s how I run things. Every drill mapped out, every minute accounted for, every transition planned to eliminate the empty space where problems grow.
The team lines up. I run them through warm-ups, then straight into passing sequences that we should be able to execute in our sleep. Basic stuff. Foundational.
They’re sloppy.
“Tighter.” I blow the whistle, resetting them. “Heath, your stick’s too high. Holden, stop anticipating the pass and react to it. Again.”
They run it again. Still sloppy. Heath’s pass goes wide. Holden drops an easy reception. Someone—I don’t even catch who—completely misses their positioning and crashes into the boards. Practice starts on time. Warm-ups. Passing sequences. Basic stuff we should be able to do in our sleep.
They’re sloppy.
“Tighter,” I bark, resetting them. “Again.”
It gets worse. Tension spreads through the lines. They’re not watching the puck—they’re watching me. Waiting for me to snap.
I skate into the formation. “This is foundational. Why does it look like your first day on skates?”
Shep shifts. “We’re trying, Cap.”
“Full contact drill,” I snap. “Blue line. First man back with the puck sits out bag skates.”
The drill dissolves into chaos within thirty seconds—bad collisions, crossed sticks, elbows flying. I blow the whistle hard.
“What the hell was that?”
“You said full contact,” Heath mutters, skating back to reset.
“Full contact, not assault. There’s a difference. Figure it out or—”
The door at the far end of the rink opens.
I know who it is before I even turn around. Know it from the way Shep’s face lights up, the way the energy in the room shifts, the way my entire nervous system goes on high alert like it’s been waiting for exactly this moment.
Gisele walks through the door, and every instinct I’ve got shifts off the ice and straight to her.
