Page 4 of Rookie Rules

"We value structure here."

There was something in the way Finn said it that made Jace laugh again.

Luca set his bag beneath his stall. His gloves were exactly where they should be. Three fresh sticks leaned in the rack nearby, taped and marked. Equipment staff had arranged his new life into clean, usable pieces.

Eli appeared at the edge of the stall, all restless curiosity. "Why eighty-eight?"

"Four times better than twenty-two."

Eli frowned as if Luca had given him a real equation. "That's not how numbers work."

"Give him time," Jace said. "He's been here nine minutes."

"Long enough to lead the rebuild," Luca said.

The line landed. Finn's mouth moved around the edge of his coffee. Jace tapped his stick against the floor in approval. Even Eli smiled once he decided he had not missed a rule.

And still, for one quiet beat beneath the laughter, Luca heard Martinez's eleven-year-old daughter expecting him to save something he had not yet touched.

He bent to unzip his bag.

The room changed before anyone announced why.

It was not silence. Conversations kept going. Tape still tore. A speaker still pushed bass through the room. But the noise aligned itself, small currents turning around one fixed point.

Rowan Hale had walked in.

Luca knew the number before he saw the face. Nineteen on navy shorts. Nineteen on the small tag fixed to a stall near the room's center. He had watched that number hold a puck against the boards with forty seconds left and two opponents trying to pry it free. Watched Rowan turn a dying shift into control by refusing to hurry. Luca had been young enough then to think composure was something a man was born with.

He had learned since that it was usually paid for.

Rowan greeted the equipment manager by name, exchanged two quiet words with Finn, and moved through the room without wasting a step. At thirty-two he did not look old. He looked complete in a way Luca did not mean kindly: sharpened down to exactly what the job required. Dark hair still damp from a shower or a morning workout. Gray training shirt close across a body built for the middle of the ice. No need to advertise that he belonged here. The room had already done it for him.

Then Rowan looked at Luca.

Not at the jersey. Not at the number. At him.

The assessment was brief and complete enough to be irritating.

Finn angled his coffee between them. "Cap, you met Bennett yet?"

Luca stood. "We've been building suspense."

Rowan stopped at the edge of his stall. Up close, his expression was no easier to read. "Luca. Welcome to Northstar."

There was his chance to say it. I watched you. I know what you can do with a line. I know exactly how much this room belongs to you.

Luca rested an elbow against the stall instead. "Thanks. PR says I'm approachable, so this should be easy for both of us."

Finn lowered his coffee, suddenly interested in the lid.

Rowan's gaze moved once over Luca's camp gear, taking inventory rather than admiring. "First group in eight minutes. Vale starts on time."

"I've heard terrifying stories."

"He starts on time," Rowan repeated.

Dry enough that Luca nearly smiled for real.