Page 47

I breathed through the tightness in my chest.

The camera strap pressed into my palm.

“Then why are you telling me?”

“Because he went looking for the person who sees him.” Brick’s voice softened, not gentle exactly, but careful. “And she was gone. And I think that scared him more than the thing that cracked him open in the first place.”

The words settled into me, heavy and sinking.

I looked out at the ice. Players were beginning to drift on for warm-ups. Ryan first, controlled as ever. Finn behind him, all restless motion. Mack and Colt talking near the bench. The room assembled itself around routine, as if routine could hold anything if you gave it enough repetition.

“I wasn’t wrong to leave,” I said.

“No,” Brick said. “You weren’t.”

He let that sit.

Then, softer:

“But you were not the only one hurt.”

Brick pushed off the boards.

“That’s all I came to say.”

“Does he know you’re saying it?”

“No.”

“Would he like it?”

“Absolutely not.”

That almost pulled a laugh out of me. Almost.

“Then why?”

Brick looked back at me, and for once there was no joke in him at all.

“I’m tired of watching two strong people bleed quietly in separate corners like that is a personality trait.”

He skated away before I could answer.

I stood at the boards with my camera in my hands and let the cold air press against my face.

Across the ice, Evan stepped out from the tunnel.

He did not look at me right away. He stopped near the boards, adjusted the tape on his stick, and stood there like a man obeying an instruction that cost him something. Not running. Not approaching. Not asking me to make this easier for him.

Just there.

Waiting to be seen.

I lifted my camera because it gave my hands somewhere to go.

He looked up.

Our eyes met across the ice.