Bright lights glared down on the film room that evening. I claimed a seat in the back row, slouching into the rigid gray folding chair in an effort to blend in and survive Coach Corby’s pre-series lecture.
Aleksey sat three rows ahead of me. We were barely ten feet apart, but we might as well have been in different states.
A stubborn, stupid urge pushed at me to walk over to him and demand his attention. The fact that I still wanted him this badly, even when he was icing me out, rattled me.
My eyes locked onto him, anyway.
He refused to look back at me.
“This weekend against Michigan University is not a joke,” Coach Corby said from the front of the room. He tapped a dry-erase marker against the whiteboard. “We gonna have scout presence coming in for this. So there’s zero room for error.”
Elliot spoke up from the front row. “We’re ready, Coach.”
“You better be,” Corby said. “Because right now, I’m seeing guys gliding through the neutral zone and blowing defensive assignments. Michigan is a strong team. They will make you pay if your head isn’t completely in the game. So, I don’t care what kind of garbage you’ve got going on outside this building. When you step on my ice, you do your job. Period.”
I stared hard at the toe of my sneakers.
When the film session wrapped up, I grabbed my duffel and headed for the exit. Angel Perez stepped into my path before Imade it to the double doors, backing me up against the concrete wall.
I stopped short, my grip tightening on my bag strap.
Perez and I didn’t talk. We’d been sharing a roster for months, but outside of calling out plays on the ice, I didn’t think we’d ever exchanged a single actual sentence.
“Were you listening to Corby in there?” Perez asked. He chewed his gum aggressively, shifting his weight from side to side.
“Yeah,” I said, keeping my voice neutral. “I heard him.”
“Then start acting like it.” Perez stared right at me, zeroing in. “Whatever’s going on with you and Zotov, sort it out.”
My teeth dug into my bottom lip. “What’s your problem? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Save it.” Perez shook his head. “You’re both playing like absolute garbage, and it’s dragging the whole line down.”
“We simply had a bad skate.”
“You missed three passes. And Zotov took a stupid hooking penalty because he was watching you.” Perez leaned in close. “There are scouts in the stands on Friday. I need a contract. He needs a contract.”
I stopped moving.
“We aren’t doing anything,” I argued, keeping my voice low.
“I don’t care what you’re doing,” Perez snapped. “I care that it’s visible. Do you think Corby won’t notice? You think Trenton isn’t just waiting for an excuse to steal his minutes?”
My throat clicked as I swallowed. “I’ll talk to him.”
“Good.” Perez stopped chewing his gum for a second, pointing a finger hard at my chest. “Because if he keeps playing like this, Corby’s gonna scratch him. If you have a bad week, you’ll be fine. But if he has a bad week, he loses his scholarship. Don’t take him down with you.”
Perez turned and shoved through the double doors. The metal clanged shut, leaving me alone in the drafty corridor.
The anger I’d been carrying around all week evaporated, leaving me feeling like I’d just taken a puck to the throat. I dropped the back of my head against the cinderblock wall.
I stood there in the empty corridor for a long minute, letting the cold reality of it sink in. Then I hitched my duffel higher on my shoulder and pushed off the concrete.
I shoved my way out the double doors into the freezing night, letting the wind bite at my face without bothering to pull my collar up. Normally, this was the exact moment I’d walk back to the Ice House, put my headphones on, and once again try to pretend the whole mess didn’t bother me.
But not tonight. Waiting around to see what happened next wasn’t an option anymore, so I took a detour to a 24-hour diner off campus, grabbed two orders of chicken and fries, and walked straight back to The Ice House.
Standing in the drafty attic hallway, I stared at Aleksey’s closed door with my heart hammering in my ears. Every ingrained instinct demanded that I retreat to my own room before he told me to go to hell. To shut the warning out, I finally tightened my grip on the plastic takeout bag and raised my free hand.
