A cold knot formed in my stomach. The thought of losing my only guaranteed time with Aleksey made my heart-rate jump. “Wait. Elliot, don’t do that. I—”
Coach Corby blew his whistle. The shrill blast echoed off the glass, instantly drowning me out.
“Listen up,” Coach said. He took off his cap and ran a hand over his bald spot. “The Upper Peninsula tournament is next weekend. We leave Friday morning. That means an eight-hour bus ride and an overnight stay in a hotel. So donotmake me regret taking you idiots on the road.”
My stomach flipped. The text from my dad was right. Scouts would be there.
Glancing down the bench, I watched Aleksey process the news. He didn’t say a word, but he went still, staring dead ahead at the empty ice.
I spent the next hour of drills checked out, my mind spinning with ways to stop my brother from talking to Coach. When practice finally ended, I stepped off the ice and took the rubber-matted tunnel back to the locker-room at a fast pace. I needed to get to Aleksey before Elliot ruined everything.
Inside the locker-room, the post-practice noise level was already high. Trenton stood in the middle of the room, tossing a roll of tape in the air.
“Eight hours on a bus with you losers,” Trenton joked. “Someone save me a window seat.”
I unlaced my skates in the far corner, my mock-neck pulled high to hide the bite mark. Usually, this was the part of the day when I shut down. In a locker room full of naked guys, my standard routine was simple: keep your head down, get in, get out, and never let your eyes drift below the waist.
But as I tracked Aleksey across the room, that instinct vanished, replaced by a slow, sinking letdown. He was violently shoving his equipment into his duffel bag.
He was skipping the showers.
I slumped against my locker. The disappointment hit me before the confusion did. Last night, his hands had been all over me. Now he wouldn’t even look up.
Heat climbed the back of my neck and settled low in my stomach. I’d never thought about another guy like this. Not once. But the library had cracked something open, and now I couldn’t shove it back inside.
I needed to talk to Aleksey.
Across the room, he threw his bag over his shoulder. He didn’t glance back. Just pushed through the door and vanished into the hallway, leaving me staring at the empty stall where he’d been standing.
Trenton’s loud voice carried over the benches, laughing about legacy row on the bus. I ignored him. Instead, I tugged on my jacket, then slammed my locker shut with a sharp crack that made a couple of my nearby teammates jump. Turning on my heel, I hurried straight out the door.
I followed Aleksey a little way down the hall and watched him duck into the small equipment room to drop off a stack of dirty practice jerseys he’d grabbed on his way out. The sharp stench of stale sweat and hockey tape hit me the second I stepped through the doorway.
Aleksey turned around and went rigid.
“Are we going to talk about yesterday?” I asked.
His eyes narrowed as he wiped his hands on the front of his faded sweatshirt. “No.”
He stepped forward to leave. I moved directly into his path, blocking the doorway.
“Move,” he warned.
“Not yet.”
“I don’t have time for this.”
“Make time.”
A sharp breath punched out of him, half laugh and half disbelief. “You really don’t know when to quit, do you?”
“I’ve been told it’s my worst quality.”
“It’s your dumbest quality.” He took a single step toward me, but I didn’t retreat. “Go back to your legacy friends and leave me the hell alone.”
“Don’t have any,” I said. “Legacy friends, I mean. Turns out they’re not great company when you’re losing your mind.”
His hands flexed at his sides. For a split second, something fractured in his expression, a crack in the mask he wore. Then he shoved past me hard.
