Page 28

Maybe it never had been.

NINE

MIKEY

The two stalls flanking mine had been emptied overnight, the nameplates above them now missing.

I’d eaten lunch with Crocker a couple of times, nodding along and making the appropriate noises when he showed me photos of his girl back home in Sault Ste. Marie. They’d been talking about adopting a dog.

Coombs and I had been on the fourth line together against Cleveland the day before, and I thought he’d done well—or as well as someone could do when they were only on the ice for two minutes. Twenty-nine and with no contract lined up, he’d told me the Marauders was his last shot. He’d been betting everything on making the final roster.

Sounded familiar.

But that was the nature of the sport—one day you were here, the next you could be gone. Still, that didn’t mean you had to like it.

I sure as fuck didn’t.

And it didn’t look like I was the only one feeling that way, either.

We’d won our pre-season opener; we should still be riding the high from that. But the energy in the room was off, no one talking except for Banks who was doing a bad impression of the Cleveland goalie flailing in the crease when his own defenseman had backed into him chasing the rebound and taking his skates out from under him. It could have happened to anyone.

Everyone else was quiet—and this was not a typically quiet room. But heads were down, earbuds in, no one looking toward those stalls.

Or maybe it was me they didn’t want to look at—like I was already gone, too.

I jerked my head, trying to shake loose that thought, but it lingered like a bad taste in my mouth as I dressed for practice.

When it came time to tie up my laces, I zeroed in on Cally across the room, taping his stick with that same locked-in, mechanical focus I’d noticed that first day.

He’d been on fire against Cleveland—one goal, two assists, and a no-look backhand pass in the third that made the guys on the bench lose their fucking minds. His name would definitely be on the final roster.

Lucky bastard.

I forced a pass into a closing lane that I’d normally have held a beat longer, turning it over and having to hustle back. Thankfully, with all the extra conditioning work with Cally, I could do that now. The point was, I shouldn’t have had to hustle in the first place.

On the next rep, I backchecked so hard I blew past my own coverage and left a guy open behind me. Then I overcorrected on the next one, hanging back when I should have pressured. Stockhard looked for me in the middle, but I wasn’t there. By the time I got moving again, the lane had closed, and the puck was heading the other way. I saw it happening like I was observing the drill from outside my body—like it wasn’t even me on the ice, but an ugly facsimile of me.

I peeled off, telling myself to get my shit together, to not let the fear pull me down. But it was relentless as I coasted into the back of the line, my head forward, and sweat dripping off my nose onto my skate.

When I looked up again, Cally was watching me. “What the fuck?” he mouthed.

I shrugged. I didn’t have a good answer.

By the time Hendricks blew the whistle to signal we were done, I was cooked.

I trudged off the ice at the back of the pack, my shoulders bowed, and dropped my stick into the rack on my way through the tunnel. At my stall, I sank heavily onto the bench, my breath leaving me in a loud whoosh. I pulled off my helmet and gloves, grabbed the soaked collar at the back of my neck, and hauled the jersey over my head.

I held it in my lap for a second, the snarling bear logo face up, before I balled it up and tossed it into the laundry bin. I stood to hang my shoulder pads, wondering if I’d still be here tomorrow or back in Minneapolis explaining to my grandma why we couldn’t afford her meds anymore.

“Knock it off.”

My body jerked with surprise as I turned to find a bare-chested Cally beside me, his damp hair flattened to his head. How long had he been standing there?

“Fuck dude. Put a bell on or something,” I told him with a grimace.

We’d spent enough time together, and he knew me well enough by now to recognize when I was freaking out. Which meant he should also know that I wasn’t like him—I couldn’t just shut that shit down like a robot. Once I was all up in my head, it took a lot to calm me down, and telling me to knock it off wasn’t the fix he seemed to think it was.

“You’re being weird,” he said. “This isn’t like you.”