Page 47 of Rookie Rules

Rowan gave him a look.

Finn pushed away from the boards. "Half a beat, Cap. That's all I'm saying."

It was enough.

Practice moved to small-area work, three skaters below the tops of the circles, possessions changing on every save. There was no room to retreat from instinct. Luca collected a loose puck with Mateo on his back, rolled his hips to protect it, and almost forced a shot from below the dot.

Almost.

He heard Rowan call low and moved the puck without looking. Rowan touched it to Finn in front. Gabriel made the first save. Luca arrived for the rebound and, instead of reaching through the goalie's glove, stopped his stick and let the whistle go.

Gabriel looked up from the ice. "Appreciated."

"I am famous for restraint," Luca said.

Mateo laughed so hard he nearly missed the next change.

Rowan did not.

Luca's eyes found him anyway.

The laugh disappeared first.

Vale called the group in after the final rep. "Better when you let the puck do some work. Bennett, that delay below the circle stays. Hale, if you see the weak side, use it before it becomes a historical document."

A few players smiled. Rowan accepted the correction with a nod.

Luca took it without a joke. He repeated the route during the cool-down pace, tracing the turn once with his stick as if storing it in muscle memory.

Pride arrived before Rowan could block it.

Luca was learning. Not becoming smaller. Not surrendering the instinct that made him dangerous. Learning where other people could enter it.

And Rowan, in response, had made their line worse because distance felt safer.

Control that damaged the work was not control.

In the locker room, the ordinary noise returned around them. Tape tore. Shower water hit tile. Eli asked whether the foundation reception required a tie and received four incompatible answers.

"It requires pants," Jace told him.

"That was already assumed."

"Good. You're ahead of Mateo."

Mateo threw a balled sock across the room.

Luca dressed quickly at his stall. He laughed in the right places, answered Eli's question about parking, and never once looked toward Rowan.

Rowan finished unlacing the same skate twice.

Vale caught him before he reached the training room.

"Office. Two minutes."

The coach waited until the door remained open behind them. "Your line solved the drill after you stopped routing everything through Mercer."

"Yes."