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A man who would fight for a lot less didn’t turn around, didn’t even flinch at the sound of that voice rising, arguing, getting louder as the guard herded him toward the exit. He just kept walking, staring straight ahead at the locker room door like it was the only fixed point in a world that had started spinning under his feet.

Keegan had stopped whooping.

I caught him out of the corner of my eye, his easy grin faded into something more watchful, blue-silver eyes tracking Ash with the kind of attention he usually saved for reading a power play.

Cole had gone very still beside him, and I knew without asking that he was cataloguing this, filing it away somewhere behind that careful, guarded exterior of his.

Taz just watched, quiet as a held breath, his stormy eyes following Ash’s back until we rounded the corner and the tunnel opened into the locker room’s harsh fluorescent light.

Coach Kinkaid was two steps behind all of us, chewing his gum more slowly now, which was its own kind of tell.

He didn’t say anything.

He didn’t need to.

His gray eyes catalogued the whole scene—Ash’s rigid shoulders, my hand hovering at his back, the low murmur of unease rippling through the rest of the guys—and I knew he’d want a word with me later, once the room had cleared out and it was just the two of us and whatever explanation I could scrape together.

I didn’t have one.

Not yet.

Ash peeled away the second we were through the door, heading for his stall like the last ninety seconds hadn’t happened, like nothing at all was wrong. He sat and started unlacing his skates with quick, efficient movements, head down, jaw still tight enough to crack walnuts.

Nobody said anything to him.

Dante glanced over once, opened his mouth like he might, then thought better of it and busied himself with his own gear instead.

Ember was the same. One look, a flicker of concern crossing his face, and then he turned back to his own stall, giving Ash the space he clearly needed.

I lingered by my own stall longer than I needed to, peeling off pads I could have stripped in half the time, watching him without watching him.

He didn’t look up.

Didn’t say a word to anyone.

He just worked his way through the post-game routine like his body was on autopilot while whatever was actually happening inside him stayed locked down tight, out of sight, the way I guessed he’d had a lot of practice keeping it.

I wanted to ask.

I wanted to put my hand back where it had been, low on his back, and just leave it there until the tremor stopped for good instead of merely going quiet.

I didn’t do either.

I’d spent fifteen years building walls precisely so I wouldn’t do either, so I could stand this close to him and not fall straight through the ice.

The memory came unbidden, the way it always did—not summoned, just there, waiting behind some door in my skull that never quite closed all the way.

My mother’s hands had been fisted in my jacket. I’d been seventeen years old and already two inches taller than her, and she’d been pulling at me like she could physically keep me in that driveway if she just held on hard enough.

Ne pars pas. Maxim, s’il te plaît, ne pars pas.

Don’t go. Please don’t go.

Her voice had gone somewhere high and cracked I’d never heard before, not even the time she thought I’d drowned in Lac Saint-Jean when I was eight and stayed under too long showing off for my cousins.

My father had peeled her off me the way you’d peel a burr off a sweater, careful but firm, murmuring something low against her hair that I couldn’t hear over her crying.

Il faut qu’il y aille, Marie. C’est son rêve.