Crossing the Lines (Breaking The Rules #2)

Chapter One

Shay

The thing about locker rooms was that they had a frequency.

A specific, chaotic, beautiful pitch that only existed when twenty,something men who'd just beaten the hell out of each other on ice were crammed into a tiled room that smelled like sweat and ambition and Kieran's truly offensive body spray.

I lived for that frequency.

"and then," I announced to the room at large, hoisting myself onto the equipment trunk like it was a throne, "the ref has the audacity , the nerve , to look me dead in the eye and call that a penalty."

"It was a penalty," Mivo said from his stall. He didn't look up from untying his skate.

"Mivo. Baby. Rookie. My left elbow barely grazed that man."

"You hit him so hard his helmet rotated forty,five degrees."

"That's called passion."

Reeves snorted from two stalls over, which I took as encouragement.

Hartley, the veteran defenseman who communicated primarily through sighs and meaningful silences, made a sound that may have been a laugh or may have been the onset of a migraine.

It was hard to tell with Hartley. I chose to believe it was a laugh because it was better for my ego.

Kieran looked up from his phone. "I have video."

"Destroy it."

"I'm sending it to the group chat."

"Kieran. I will end you."

He sent it to the group chat.

The room erupted , phones pulled out, guys leaning over each other's shoulders, the sound of the clip playing on three different devices at slightly different times like a terrible echo.

Even Coach Denny, passing the doorway with his coffee and his clipboard and his permanent expression of a man who had chosen the wrong profession, paused to look at his phone, shook his head, and kept walking.

I spread my arms wide. "You see? Even Coach agrees that was not a penalty."

"Coach just walked away in silence," Reeves said.

"In awe."

I was aware , peripherally, casually, in the way you're aware of the sun when you're standing outside , that Felix had come in from the ice and was now at his stall on the far side of the room.

He moved through the chaos with the particular efficiency of someone who had learned to exist in it without being part of it.

Gear off in a specific order. Pads stacked.

Skates unlaced left before right, which I knew because I knew everything about Felix Wren that I had zero business knowing.

I did not look directly at him.

Kieran had now set the clip as his phone wallpaper. Mivo and Reeves were debating the geometry of my elbow trajectory with the seriousness of men arguing a criminal case. Hartley had retreated fully behind his stall door in the manner of a tortoise who had seen too much.

I was in the middle of a spirited defense of my own innocence when Charlie dropped onto the trunk beside me.

He had the look he always had after a good practice , loose in the shoulders, hair damp, one of those quiet smiles that meant he was happy in a way that still sometimes caught me off guard.

Charlie had not always been a man who wore his happy easily. He did now.

Henry Blackwell had done that. Wild.

"You know," Charlie said, stealing my water bottle without asking because he was my best friend and also my personal torment, "most people, when they're trying to stay out of headlines, don't assault referees."

"I didn't assault,"

"The man's helmet rotated forty,five degrees, Shay."

"Everyone keeps saying that like it's a fact."

"It is a fact. There's video."

I pointed at him. "You're the team captain. You're supposed to defend me."

"I do defend you." He handed back the water bottle. "I defended you to management for twenty minutes this morning. Again."

I had the grace to wince slightly. Just slightly. "I'll be better."

"Will you?"

"Probably not. But I'll be better at being caught."

Charlie looked at me with the expression of a man who loved me deeply and found me exhausting.

I found this very endearing. Across the room, I heard Felix tell Mivo something about the defensive coverage in the second period , calm, specific, already thinking about the next game.

The room was still loud around him, and he moved through it like he always did: unbothered, contained, a closed door in a hallway full of open windows.

Mivo nodded and made a note on his phone. Reeves leaned over to look. Even Kieran, who was not on the defensive line and had no professional reason to care, drifted that direction to listen.

Felix had that effect. The room trusted him the way it trusted Hartley , not because he was loud about it, but because he was never wrong.

I was loud about everything, and I was wrong at least forty percent of the time, and somehow we'd been best friends for four years, which I chose to interpret as evidence that the universe had a sense of humor.

"You're doing it," Charlie said.

I turned back to him. "Doing what?"

He didn't answer. He had a small, specific smile that I categorically did not like. He took another sip of my water.

"I'm not doing anything," I told him.

"Mm."

I grabbed the water bottle back. "Don't mm me, Drayton. You've been spending too much time with Henry. You've caught his whole 'say nothing and be devastating' thing."

Charlie laughed , a real one, bright and a little surprised , and it was loud enough that heads turned. Felix looked up. Just for a second. His eyes found us, found me, and then he went back to Mivo and the defensive coverage.

Two seconds. Barely a glance.

I felt it for a full thirty seconds afterward, warm at the back of my neck.

"I'm going to shower," I announced to no one, sliding off the trunk. "And when I get back, no one is allowed to have opinions about my elbows."

"No promises," Mivo said.

"Truly no promises," Reeves agreed.

Kieran had already added the clip to his Instagram story. I pointed at him. He pointed back. This was our relationship.

I grabbed my towel and my shower kit and made it three steps before I walked directly into Felix, who had apparently finished with Mivo and was heading the same direction.

He caught my arm on instinct , one hand, steadying, the way he always did when I failed to watch where I was going, which was often.

"Watch it," he said. Not sharp. Just , Felix. Automatic.

"You watch it," I said. Also automatic. Also probably less cool.

He let go of my arm. I was aware of the absence of his hand the way you're aware of a door closing in a quiet room.

He nodded once, moved past me toward the showers.

I stood for a second like an idiot and then followed, because we were going to the same place and there was no normal version of me that would hesitate for three full seconds to walk to the showers because Felix Wren had touched my arm.

I was fine.

This was fine.

Behind me, I heard Charlie make a sound. Low. Amused. The very specific sound of a man who was going to be absolutely insufferable about something later.

I did not look back.