Page 3 of Saddle Storm

Contract renewal? No. Trade, possibly, but we won’t get much for an injured player. That’s the kind of stuff my personal insecurities allow to play over my head.

The puck drops.

I’m no longer focused on the dull pain when we win the face-off. I’m thinking about the winger flying the zone and the space behind their defense. The way their rookie keeps biting on the wrong angle. I pivot, stretch long to catch the pass, and the rush is there—the one I’ve chased since I was twelve, skating on a pond that might crack beneath me.

The burn returns.

A line of heat that runs from my shoulder blade down to my right bicep. I don’t know if it’s because the puck’s flying my way and I know I need to act. Or if it’s just “residual.” The ache that amplifies when I’m on the ice. When people are watching.

Regardless, I swing like I’ve got something to prove—sending it cleanly past the defenseman’s legs.

The rookie panics. The crowd comes up like a wave. Summers, the rookie last year, though still humble, catches it nicely and lands it into the net in the blink of an eye. I’m grinning but not because I’m proud of that pass. Pros don’t grin. Pros skate off like they’ve done this before and will again. I’m grinning through a hiss. Through the urge to reach for my shoulder.

Because in my mind—everyone’s watching for a sign.

And I’m not about to give them one.

I keep my shifts short for the next few minutes, but it’s almost impossible to hold back when you’re moving a mile a minute.

On the third time, I reach too far behind me for a puck, and I feel it. Something shifts painfully, a pop that’s more sensation than sound. My shoulder goes loose and I silently beg it to hold till I send this one flying.

It does.

And it’s a hard enough hit that my stick goes flying with it.

I try to brace for impact as I slide toward the boards but my arm refuses. Like there’s no longer something to support it.

I crash hard.

It’s not pain at first. It’s the loss of strength, blurred vision. The frightening immobility that sends a rush of heat through my body before I tumble.

“Thorne!” I hear my name but it’s distant.

I try to push up but a sharp pain shoots through my shoulder and my ears rush like a train I didn’t hear coming.

“Thorne!”

The trainer’s on the ice in seconds, sliding to his knees, gloves already tugging at the laces of my shoulder pad.

“Stay down,” he says, voice too calm. “Don’t try to move the arm.”

The arm.

I want to tell him I’m fine. The words have been a habit for the past year.

But I can barely breathe out the first syllable. Like the breath’s been knocked out of me.

Chase Reeves—our team captain and my best friend—slides into view, towering above me. “You good?” he asks, but it’s clipped. He knows that hit shouldn’t have sent me down. He’s asking if I’m going to lie to him now or later.

An hour later—or ten minutes, I can’t tell—the medic leaves Coach’s office with a nod that confirms it’s what they all suspected.

Coach shuts the door and leans back against it, arms folded. He looks like every coach I’ve ever had condensed into one person: square jaw, tired eyes, permanent scowl.

“How bad?” I ask, even though I heard enough in the trainer’s carefully neutral tone to know “bad” is the only category.

Coach’s mouth flattens as he moves to his desk. “From what they can tell, it’s tracking more bicep than shoulder,” he says. “But that’s as far as guessing goes until they get some images and . . . open it up.”

I clench my good hand into a fist against my thigh. The sling bites at my neck.