Page 3

Next up were board battles, the intensity ratcheting up immediately. Watching him, it was clear Porter wasn’t soft or a pushover, but he was fading.

Ten minutes later, it all fell apart.

There was a sharp whistle, and we went. Another whistle, and we went again. Down and back, blue line touches, red line touches, again and again and again, the drill designed to show the coaching staff who you were when there was nothing left in the tank.

At the end of the fourth rep, Porter skated hard to the boards and vomited a streak of bright red liquid that looked like something out of a bad horror movie. I watched his back heaving before he eventually straightened up and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He took a few deep breaths, skated back to the group, and said something to the guy closest to him that made him laugh.

The session closed with a small-area three-on-three below the dots—the part of practice where tired players made bad decisions, and coaches learned the most about their prospects.

Porter was running on nothing by this point, his legs genuinely spent, but he made a read in the corner that a fresh player would have been proud of. Unfortunately, immediately afterward, he lost a puck battle he might have won an hour ago.

I didn’t typically make a habit of caring how other people skated. Until the roster was set, the only performance that mattered was my own. And yet, I couldn’t stop watching him. Thinking about him. Considering what he could bring to the roster.

“That’s it,” Coach’s voice rang out as he waved us over to gather in a loose half-circle, each of us breathing hard. “Good first day,” he praised. “Go home, get some food in you, hydrate, and get your legs up. Tomorrow’s gonna be harder. See you all in the morning.”

I went through my cool-down, showered, pulled on my clothes, and sat at my stall with my hair damp and a towel around my neck, thinking about everything that I’d seen today. We weren’t terrible. We weren’t good either. But some of us showed real promise, Porter among them.

“Yo, we hitting that wing place by the water?” Darryl Koffstetter, the guy with the Boston accent, hollered across the room.

“Only if it’s twenty-five-cent night,” Ronnie Kowalczyk, a defenseman whose body was largely covered in questionable-looking tattoos, answered. “I ain’t made of money.”

“Callahan!” Tyler Banks, a backup goalie of no renown, shouted my way. “You in?”

Slowly, Porter turned to look in my direction.

I only knew this because I’d been looking at him. Frankly, it was becoming a real fucking problem.

“Can’t,” I said, dropping my attention down to the phone I gripped tightly in my right hand. “Got stuff to do.” I dragged my thumb over the screen so it looked like I was confirming plans or something.

It wasn’t unfriendliness that had me bailing. Or not only unfriendliness.

More like I struggled in groups where I didn’t really know everyone, and even then, it could still be difficult for me. I was much better in small groups of people I trusted to drop my guard with, though even those were few and far between.

“Your loss.” Banks shrugged.

I hauled myself up from the bench, set my phone down on the shelf in my stall, and grabbed my tin of hair pomade. I was heading for the mirrors when I stopped abruptly, the hair on the back of my neck standing on end. For some reason I couldn’t quite figure out, I turned to glance Porter’s way, only to find him already staring at me.

He held my gaze for a long beat, his head tilted to the side, before turning back to his group with a slight shake of his head.

Why the fuck was I so attuned to the guy? Why was I constantly watching him?

Whatever it was, I didn’t understand it.

And I really didn’t like it.

TWO

MIKEY

I adjusted my gloves, glancing down at the Marauders logo on my sweater, then blew out a breath and skated out onto the ice.

This was it—my last chance to turn a pre-season professional tryout agreement into a contract. If I fucked up and they failed to sign me, that was it for me and hockey.

My problems started with the drill after the warm-up, and only got worse from there. By the third transition sequence, my legs were absolutely screaming, all those mornings I’d rolled over and silenced my alarm after working a double shift instead of lacing up my skates coming back to haunt me.

I did the best I could with what I had in me, plastering a smile on my face and forcing myself to act like I was having the fucking time of my life. If there was one thing I’d learned grinding my way up through the ECHL and AHL, it was that coaches liked a guy who brought up team morale.

I could sell the hell out of having a good time.