Stop.
Barrett's clipboard snapped open. "Let's run the forecheck pattern one more time."
The words cut through my spiral like a blade.
I inhaled once—slow, deliberate. Let the air fill my lungs completely. Held it. Released.
Click.
Everything else dropped away.
The café. The coffee. The girl in the stands with eyes too familiar and a fear I recognized down to my bones. Gone. Locked behind a wall I'd built years ago, reinforced through thousands of hours exactly like this one.
The ice sharpened into focus. Players repositioned themselves—sloppy transitions, lazy stick placement, angles that would get exploited the second we faced real pressure.
I stepped onto the ice.
The cold bit through my clothes immediately. Familiar. Grounding. This was my territory. The one place where everything made sense, where cause and effect followed predictable patterns, where I controlled every variable that mattered.
No messy emotions. No impossible attractions. Just physics and strategy, and muscle memory.
"Maddox." My voice cut across the rink—low, calm, absolute. "You're too high. Drop back three feet."
He adjusted without argument. Good.
I skated along the boards, eyes tracking every position, every gap in coverage. Crown drifted too far left—I tapped his stick with mine, pointed to the correct lane. He moved. Hudson's posture was wrong—shoulders too square, weight distributed poorly. I demonstrated the correction once. He mirrored it immediately.
The team shifted around me like a living organism responding to pressure. No one joked. No one questioned. When I spoke, they listened.
Because here, I was something they understood. Not the damaged man avoiding human connection. Not the coach with too many ghosts. Just the enforcer who'd survived two decades in the league by reading plays three steps ahead and never hesitating when violence was required.
"Parker—tighten up on the weak side. Sam, you're pressuring too early. Wait for the commit."
They adjusted. Better.
"Again."
The whistle blew. Skates carved ice. Bodies moved through the pattern with increasing precision. I watched every detail, cataloging weaknesses, identifying improvements, my brain operating in that cold analytical space where nothing existed except the game.
This was control. This was certainty. This was the only place I didn't question every decision, didn't second-guess every instinct.
The drill ran clean. Smooth. Exactly how I'd designed it.
"Good. One more time—game speed."
They exploded into motion.
And for thirty perfect seconds, I forgot about everything else.
Maddox's outside edge wobbled on the crossover—barely noticeable, split-second sloppiness most coaches would miss.
I didn't miss anything.
Our eyes met across the ice. I didn't speak. Didn't need to. Just held his gaze with the same expressionless intensity that had ended fights before they started, the look that said I saw that, and we both know better.
His jaw tightened. He reset his stance and ran the drill again—edges clean, transitions sharp, no wasted movement.
Better.
