Chapter 14
Caden
“You ready for tomorrow?” Shaw asks, trudging beside me as we exit the locker room, both of us shouldering through the double doors that lead into the main area of the gym.
He’s one of the only guys on the team who I have agricultural economics classes with, seeing as both of our families are from small towns, with country businesses that we’ll one day work for.
Even though we both plan to play pro hockey once we graduate from Carter U, we want to go back to our country roots when we eventually retire.
We have two games left before winter break and every guy on the team is pumped for them, seeing as we haven’t broken our winning streak since the season started in October.
Under Benson’s instructions, we’re keeping low-key and staying humble, so I give Shaw a shrug of my shoulder as we head to the weight section at the back.
“Playing Denver’s always fun,” I admit, thinking back to our previous games.
For one, it’s beneficial to have away games that are close to Carter Ridge. And two, it’s more enjoyable to play a team when their skills match your own.
Denver’s team trains as hard as we do, and scrapping is way more fun when it’s a fair fight. And when you weigh over two-hundred-and-twenty pounds, having physical competition is what makes a game more stimulating.
Shaw walks over to the weight discs so that he can add a couple to the bar, and I drop my phone and bottle of water beside the bench as I heave myself down.
I sit there for a moment, resting my elbows on my knees, because our mid-season regimen is one of my favorite parts of the day. It’s long, brutal, and it’s exactly what my body needs, something that quiets my mind as I build my strength for our next game.
Seeing as it’s almost the end of term, all of our papers are due this week, so me and the guys have been working our asses off so that we can submit our finals around the kitchen table.
It’s become borderline tradition since I shared the floor with Hunter and Tanner, and I can’t deny that it feels awesome when we all hit send at the same time.
And with one more burden off our shoulders, we can put all of our focus on the next two games.
“Ten reps then switch?” Shaw asks as he turns back to me, pulling me from my thoughts as I get to my feet.
I grab the first pile of discs from him and he grunts as he hauls up the second stack, both of us moving to either side of the bar so that we can slide them into place before starting our lifts.
“Twenty,” I reply, and he breathes out a laugh as he smirks across at me.
“Twenty?” he repeats. “We’re not trying to put Denver in the hospital tomorrow, Caden.”
I almost smile at that. “It’s not just for Denver, man.”
We have another game to play the day immediately after tomorrow, and we might not have any workout time, considering the fact that we’ll be straight back on the bus after Denver.
And, even more importantly, I’ll be seeing Winter in four days’ time, so there’s no damn way that I’m about to start lifting light at the gym.
“What did Benson want with you earlier?” Shaw asks, as he heaves the final disc onto the bar, moving to stand behind it so that he can spot me as I settle on my back.
And I instantly pause, glancing up at him as I take hold of the bar.
I hadn’t expected anyone to notice Coach checking up on me with his next-year’s-captain agenda. And I don’t know if I feel like explaining it, considering the fact that I don’t even know if I want to do it.
I let my gaze drop back to the bar and exhale roughly as I heave it upwards.
“No big deal,” I strain quietly, focusing on the flex in my biceps as I count in my head.
Shaw rolls his eyes as he chuckles. “You are so full of shit.”
I swallow hard, warring with myself, because I fucking hate lying, and then I drop the bar back onto its rests after I hit rep number twenty.
I wipe my palms on my shorts, getting to my feet as we swap places, and then I meet his eyes with mine, nodding as he smirks at me in amusement.
“Fine,” I tell him. “But this stays between us.”
Shaw crosses himself and points to the ceiling. “Between us and the Big Guy.”
I breathe out a laugh as I move behind the bar. “Don’t play with me, man. I’m spotting you, remember?”
“I’m not playing!” he laughs deeply, grinning as he lowers his back onto the bench. “I know that you’re into all that Bible stuff. I thought that I’d get on your level.”
I chuckle quietly and nod my head. “Okay, man. Whatever you say.”
Then I move my palms beneath the bar, keeping them close as Shaw starts lifting.
“Fuck my life,” he chokes out roughly, his face turning red as he pumps the bar. “Twenty reps and then I’m murdering you,” he adds, and I shake my head as I stifle a laugh.
This is the same guy who showed me a photo last night of him carrying a chick on each shoulder in Rodeo Bar.
“I know what you get up to in your spare time,” I tell him drily. “This should be light work for you.”
He shoots me a look as he hits lift number ten. “They were no more than sixty kg each,” he rasps, knowing exactly what I’m referring to.
I roll my eyes. “Whatever. Give me another ten or we’re adding a disc.”
Shaw breathes out a laugh and I smirk back at him, steadying the bar in his grip so that he doesn’t annihilate his pecs.
“Fuck that,” he grunts, before powering his way through his next ten, exhaling gruffly when I grab the bar from him and drop it onto the rests, ready to switch.
“I’m done,” he says breathlessly, and I grab his towel from the floor so that I can smack him with it.
“Hey!” he laughs, rubbing his neck as I toss him the towel. He catches it with his free hand and I smirk as he tries to whip my ass.
“Well, you did it, didn’t you?” I say, rolling back my shoulders, and gesturing vaguely to the bar as I get into position to lie back down.
Because, admittedly, these workouts can be killer, but there’s almost nothing as satisfying as when you finish and you’ve hit all your goals.
Shaw’s gaze lingers on the weights for a moment, before he glances down at me and slowly nods his head.
“Exactly,” I murmur. “So stop acting like you can’t do it. It didn’t take you long, either. That was a decent set of reps.”
Shaw watches me for another beat and then, clearing his throat, he says, “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it,” I reply, lifting the bar from the rack and feeling my biceps tighten, enjoying the burn in my upper body as I start pumping the iron discs.
“So?” Shaw asks.
I glance back at him. “So, what?”
“Benson,” he says simply. “He’s been on your ass all semester.”
I pause halfway through my reps, holding the bar still so that I don’t lose my breath.
“Yeah.” I nod my head. “He wants to know if I’m up for being next year’s captain.”
And then I immediately avert my gaze, preparing myself for a burst of laughter as I start lifting again.
Because I’m the quietest guy on the team, and there’s no way that these guys will want me leading them.
But instead Shaw grips the bar, making my gaze flick to his as he bears down on me.
“You’re going to say yes to him, right?” he asks, widening his eyes in earnest.
And I stare up at him in surprise, my biceps rippling under the strain of the iron weights, because from the way that he just asked that… does he want me to say yes?
I get on well with the guys on the team, but… would they actually want me to be their captain?
“I don’t know,” I tell him honestly. “I’ve been trying not to think about it.”
Then I jerk my chin at him, silently asking him to let go of the bar, because my wrists are beginning to lock under the weight.
“Caden,” he says, watching as I finish up the last of my reps. “You don’t need to think about this. The answer’s gotta be yes.”
“Why’s it gotta?” I rasp, exhaling hard when I finally drop the bar, and resting my head against the bench as my chest heaves, feeling spent.
“Don’t you remember what you said to me at the start of this semester? You’re the best player on the team. Next year’s captain has got to be you.”
“I was kidding,” I murmur, swiping my palm over my forehead as I catch my breath.
Shaw smirks as he looks down at me. “Caden, you weren’t kidding.”
I drop my hand and glance up at him. “Okay, fine. I wasn’t kidding.”
“So why the hell should anyone else take the role of next year’s captain?”
I slowly haul my body upright and drop my elbows onto my knees, looking at Shaw from beneath my lashes as he moves to stand in front of me.
And I run my palm around my nape, swallowing hard as my skin burns crimson.
“Me?” I rasp quietly. “As team captain? No way.”
“Why not?” he asks disbelievingly.
I gesture to myself. “Have you met me?”
“What, because you’re quiet? We want a captain, Caden, not a clown.”
I roll my shoulders, trying to release the tension. “Being quiet is one thing,” I admit. “But what about when I… when I just…?”
And, as if on cue, I feel my whole chest tighten, my airways seizing as the words refuse to come out.
I suck in a sharp breath and slowly rub my sternum, grunting as I stare blankly at my sneakers, feeling the whole world tilt sideways as I wait for the pressure to pass.
It’s probably only a minute, but it feels like an hour before my shoulders drop, and I swipe my bottle from the floor, gulping the water as my muscles relax.
I toss it back beside my cell and glance up at Shaw, feeling like an idiot.
“Sorry,” I rumble, pushing my hair off my forehead and getting to my feet. “I just, you know…” I gesture to my chest and shake my head, not knowing how to explain it.
It’s been rare for me to go nonverbal while at Carter U, which is mostly because I’ve spent the past three years not saying too much, anyway. Despite being nonspeaking during some of my teen years, I pushed past it as an adult, although sometimes it’s a hard inclination to shake.
I spend a lot of time with the guys on the team, during practise sessions or at the hockey house, so there have been a couple of moments when I’ve completely choked and they’ve all been there to witness it.
Those occasions haven’t mattered in the long run, but it still surprises me that they never gave me shit for it.
Shaw’s gaze is steady as it meets mine. “It’s okay, man,” he says quietly.
I rub my stubble, avoiding his eyes. “Yeah, but you can’t have a captain who can hardly speak.”
“Caden,” he says seriously, stepping over to me, “would you be talking that way if it was any of us? Like, if it was me, or Austin, or – fuck – even Brett, would you be saying, ‘yeah, they’re great, but they can’t lead us, because they’re not the loudest guy on the team’?”
I stare expressionlessly back at him, kind of annoyed that he’s got a point.
“When Hunter was our captain last year, did you wish that he’d been louder? Or did you respect him all the more because, when he said less, the words he spoke really mattered? He didn’t talk shit or give us unnecessary pep-talks – he said exactly what we needed to do, and that was it.”
I push my fringe back from my forehead as I look across the gym. “I’m not sure it’s for me.”
“Have you talked to Winter about it?” he asks, and I stand from the bench so that we can swap places.
I exhale quietly. “Yeah.”
“And what did she say?” he asks simply.
I rub my palm around the back of my nape. She said it would be sexy if I was next year’s captain. But I’m not about to say that to Shaw, so instead I mumble, “She thought it was cool.”
Shaw breathes out a laugh, shaking his head in amusement as I move around to spot him. “One thing you need to work on when you become captain?” he suggests. “Get better at lying. You can’t lie for shit.”
I chuckle quietly as I watch the bar, keeping an eye on Shaw’s form as he pumps the iron.
“Actually, scratch that,” he rasps out, mid-lift. “Keeping it real is what makes us respect you.”
My brow rises slightly, my gaze flicking to his. “What do you mean?”
“You don’t bullshit,” he chokes out, and I can’t help but smirk at how fucking red he’s going.
Yeah, we shouldn’t really be having a conversation while he’s lifting more than one-hundred-and-twenty kg.
“You say it like it is,” he rasps, “and you push us to be our best. Even when we don’t want to be.”
He reaches the twentieth lift and I grab the bar, dropping it back onto the rack as he sits upright.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I admit cautiously. “I don’t… push you guys to be your best.”
Shaw smiles, chuckling as he gets to his feet, and my brow arches in confusion.
“You see me pumping weights this heavy when I’m with any of the other guys on the team?” he asks. “Lifting the logs or any of that shit, except when I’m with you?”
I stare at him as we walk to the next area, which, ironically enough, is the logs.
“Uh…” I rumble awkwardly, “I haven’t been keeping tabs, so I don’t know–”
“The answer’s no, Caden,” Shaw laughs, shaking his head at me when he sees my expression. “No-one goes as hard as you in the gym, which is why I always play my best after we do our sessions.”
I give him a look as we head to the weights. “No way, man. We all train hard.”
“I promise you, Caden, no-one on the team has your level of discipline. You train like a beast, you don’t complain about your essays, and you don’t even balance the good shit out with, like, partying or whatever.
You’re loyal to a girl who lives a million miles away, and don’t think that we haven’t noticed that you do Bible study in your bedroom. ”
I pause with the log as I just stare at him, my gaze unblinking as my cheeks heat up.
“Caden, you’re exactly who we all want to be. Fuck the partying, fuck the drinking – you’re the only guy who’s doing it right.”
Shaw breathes out a laugh, keeping his voice low as he gestures around us.
“You think that the guys won’t respect you because you don’t live their lifestyle?
” he asks. “Caden, I’m being serious – that’s the exact reason why they respect you.
You’re so devoted to your way of life that it’s like you can’t even see how disciplined you are.
And it’s that exact level of discipline that these guys are freaking fighting for every day. ”
I blink back at him in shock, my muscles bulging under the strain of the weight in my fists.
“Shaw,” I rumble quietly, “I’m not trying to be a figurehead. It’s just my way of life.”
“Exactly,” he says, smiling over at me, “and that’s why you’re going to be the best captain we can get.”