Ryan pointed. “Cabinet by the fridge.”
“See, that one’s useful,” Mom said, then dragged me toward the kitchen like I was still twelve and had come home with gravel in my knee.
“I can clean it myself.”
“Congratulations. I can also clean it, and I outrank you.”
“You don’t outrank me in Hockey House.”
“I outrank you in every house because I made your skeleton.”
Briggs whispered from the living room, “That was powerful.”
“It was,” Rider agreed.
Mom sat me at the island and opened the kit with the efficiency of a nurse who had patched too many people together to be impressed by blood. She cleaned my knuckle without babying me, pressing her thumb down once to hold the skin steady. The sting cut cleanly through the noise in my head.
“You look like hell,” she said.
“I’ve been cleaning all day.”
“You looked like hell before cleaning. This is simply lemon-scented hell.”
I glanced toward the living room. Skylar had taken control of Briggs’s phone and was judging his playlist with the mercy of a firing squad. Vivi stood beside Cade, watching him demonstrate how he taped his stick, while Rider sat on the arm of the couch and Ryan leaned nearby with his arms folded.
They were all calm enough that I could feel my shoulders trying to come down.
Mom watched me watching them, then looked at my face again. The humor eased from her mouth without fully leaving her eyes.
“You’re stretched thin.”
“I’m fine.”
“Baby, I have worked emergency intake on holiday weekends and raised children on shift sleep and vending-machine dinners. Do not stand in front of me with those dead eyes and tell me ‘fine’ like I’m new.”
My throat tightened. “I said I’m fine.”
“I heard you. I’m choosing to be unimpressed.” She wrapped gauze around my knuckle, neat and tight. “Why don’t you tell Coach you’re overwhelmed?”
I looked at her sharply. “I’m not overwhelmed.”
She gave me a look, and I hated that look. It had raised me. It had caught every lie I had told since kindergarten.
“I can handle it,” I said, quieter.
“I didn’t ask if you could handle it. Wades handle things until they crack a tooth, lose hair, and yell at refrigerators.” She taped the gauze down. “I asked why you won’t tell the man in charge that you’re carrying too much.”
“Because captains get seen by scouts.” The answer came out before I could sand down the edge. “Captains get minutes. Captains get talked about. Scouts look at leadership, Mom. They look at how you handle pressure, how the room follows you, and how you respond when shit goes sideways.”
I looked down at my bandaged hand. “Cade being back with an A is huge for the team, but the C is on me now. That means eyes are on me. I need that.”
Her face softened in the most irritating way possible. “At what cost?”
“It’s worth the stress.”
“You sure?”
“Yes. Our lives change if I get signed, Mom. Trust me with this. I can handle the pressure.”
