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The goal wasn't my fault, but it didn't stop me from feeling as though everything going wrong on the ice was somehow connected to the fact that I couldn't keep my fucking head in the game.

I missed Dante on a pass I'd normally have made without thinking, then got caught too deep on the forecheck a few minutes later and had to burn energy getting back.

None of the mistakes were disastrous on their own.

Together, they were becoming a pattern.

“Thorne doesn't quite look like himself tonight,” Dave observed after I'd been late picking up my man again. “That's the third time we've seen him hesitate on a play he'd normally read immediately.”

“You have to wonder whether he's carrying something,” Jack replied.

“If he is, Colorado's medical staff haven't indicated it.”

“I didn't necessarily mean an injury. Sometimes players have nights when something just isn't clicking, and right now, Thorne looks like a guy trying to play hockey while part of his attention is somewhere else.”

For once, Dave didn't tease him.

I knew exactly where the rest of my attention was.

By the time I got back to the bench, Max was waiting. He let me sit and take a drink before leaning close enough that his voice wouldn't carry.

“You don't have to tell me what's going on, but I need to know whether you're okay enough to be out there. Not as the person you've asked for space from. As your captain.”

The distinction shouldn't have hurt.

I stared at the ice instead of him. “I'm fine enough to play.”

Max was quiet for long enough that I finally looked at him. He clearly didn't believe me, but instead of pushing, he nodded.

“Okay. If that changes, you tell me or Cinder. Preferably before one of us has to scrape you off the ice.”

There was enough familiar Max in the last sentence to make something in my chest ache.

I'd spent the previous day desperately trying to stop him asking questions, and now that he'd apparently decided to respect my wishes, I wanted to grab the front of his jersey and tell him I'd changed my mind.

Instead, I went back onto the ice.

My phone buzzed while Kinkaid was talking during the second intermission.

The sound wasn't particularly loud, but my entire body reacted before my brain caught up.

I waited until Kinkaid turned toward the board, then reached for it.

Enjoying the game.

For several seconds, I simply stared at the words.

There was no threat and no demand, nothing that should've made my pulse start pounding against the inside of my skull.

He was watching. He'd probably seen Max talking to me on the bench, and he'd obviously noticed the way Max kept watching me whenever I came off the ice. My father wasn't simply threatening Max anymore. He was studying him, paying attention to every interaction and learning exactly how much he mattered to me.

Worse, he was learning there might actually be an us.

Whatever the fuck that meant anymore.

I locked the screen and put the phone away. Whatever my father wanted, he'd already taken enough from me tonight, and I wasn't giving him the third period too.

For the first few minutes, I almost succeeded.