Armstrong seems to be very colorful with his macabrethoughts, and maybe that’s not healthy or safe, but I’d like to see what else he can come up with.
Just one more time.
That’s all.
Not very wise. I know.
But something about Preston Armstrong…
I zoom in on his face, and a fierce jolt surges through me, lighting every nerve.
Now, this is interesting.
It’d be hilarious if I didn’t find this morbid attention I’m giving Armstrong a touch disturbing.
He doesn’t know it yet, but tonight, he gave me the opening I need to have him exactly where I want him.
After I makesure all my team members have gone home, either alone or with their fuck for the night, I leave the club.
But I don’t head back to the house.
I can’t.
It’s one in the morning, and I’m too wound up to sleep. The drinking didn’t help, and neither did acting as the team’s unpaid manager. Nothing’s dulled my senses enough to make sleep feel possible.
And since I can’t pick a fight with random strangers—well, I can, but it’d be a hassle tonight—I ride my bike to the arena.
Late-night solo skating and drill shots have always grounded me and pulled me back into something resembling reality.
It’s a quarter past one when I push through the arena doors. The air’s colder here, stale with old sweat and the faint bite of disinfectant.
The lights are half dead—only a few humming fluorescents left on by some lazy custodian. The rest of the place drowns in shadows. The echo of my boots against the concrete corridor sounds too loud in the silence.
And this feeling of solitude is…comforting.
The coach sometimes calls me a lone wolf, not because I’m not a team player—I didn’t get the captain’s position for being selfish—but because he said I shine best when on my own.
That’s true.
I always did things on my own when Mom was fighting for her life, working more shifts than humanely possible to keep food on the table.
It’s not that Dad never gave us money. He did. But she refused to use it, only dipping into it when things got too dire. She saved the rest in a trust fund for me that I also refuse to use, even when I turn twenty-five.
Dad calls it poor-people pride. It’s not. Mom and I only ever wanted him to be a father, which he barely was. We don’t need his money.
The locker room’s empty. Gear bags line the benches, damp from the earlier game. I drop my keys, run a hand over my face, then stop when I notice my skates are gone and so are all five of my sticks.
A sharp crack like thunder trapped indoors echoes in the air. Then another. And another.
Wood snapping.
I follow it through the corridor, past the equipment cage and the vending machines, until the air changes, turning colder, sharper, cleaner.
My steps slow near the rink when I see who’s there.
Preston Armstrong.
The Vipers sport jacket and jeans look washed-out under the dim lights, but the skates on his feet are unmistakably mine. Broken sticks litter the ice around him as he drifts in loose circles, a ghost looping the same path.
