Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
bench minor for feelings
ROOK
Imissed an easy breakout pass during the power play drill, sending the puck directly to where Dmitri should have been except he'd shifted left two seconds earlier and I hadn't noticed. The puck skittered across the ice and out of the zone, and I heard Finn let out a low whistle from the bench.
“Captain's got jokes today,” Finn called out, grinning like this was the funniest thing he'd seen all week. “That's a new strategy, right? Pass it to ghosts?”
“Shut up, Finn.” I skated back to reset, irritation prickling under my skin because he was right and I hated it. That pass should have been automatic. I'd made that read a thousand times without thinking, and somehow today my brain had decided to just not show up.
Coach blew the whistle from the bench. “Reset. Run it again.”
We lined up and tried the drill a second time.
I took the puck from Jace, scanned for the opening, and sent a pass toward Cole that was half a second too slow.
Cole managed to adjust and catch it, but the play was already broken.
I could see the frustration in the set of his shoulders as he cycled back around.
This was bad. This was the kind of sloppy I didn't do, the kind of distracted that got people benched or worse. We needed to be ready. And I was out here passing to empty ice like I'd forgotten how to read a play.
Coach blew the whistle again, and this time when I skated to the bench for a water break, I could feel his eyes on me.
I grabbed my bottle and took a long drink, trying to clear my head and failing completely because the second I had a break from actively playing hockey, my brain went right back to where it had been stuck for the past eighteen hours.
I pulled my phone out of my gear bag sitting at the end of the bench and checked the screen even though I knew it was pointless. No missed calls. No texts from unknown numbers. Nothing.
I shoved it back into the bag and tried to focus on the drill happening in front of me, but my attention kept sliding sideways.
“Rook.”
I looked up to find Coach standing in front of me with his arms crossed and an expression that said he was not in the mood for whatever distraction I was carrying. “You're up next shift. Get your head out of wherever it went and get it back in this building.”
Coach wasn't being cruel. He was being a coach, and he was right. I was supposed to be the steady one, the guy everyone else looked to when things got messy. And here I was falling apart over a reunion that had lasted maybe ten minutes and left me with more questions than I'd started with.
“Got it,” I said quietly, and Coach held my eyes for another second before nodding and turning back to the ice.
I finished out practice making fewer mistakes but still not playing the way I should have been. By the time Coach called it, I was wound tight with frustration aimed entirely at myself.
In the locker room, I sat at my stall and started pulling off my gear, working through it methodically the way I always did — helmet first, then gloves, then the rest of it piece by piece. Jace dropped down onto the bench next to me with a careful expression while I was unlacing my skates.
“You okay?” he asked, keeping his voice low enough that the rest of the team wouldn't hear.
“I'm fine.”
“You've said that three times today and it's been a lie every time. This is about last night, isn't it? Did it go badly?”
I set my skates down and tried to figure out how to answer that. “I don't know. Maybe. He was there, we talked, and then I gave him my number and left.”
“And?”
“And nothing. He hasn't called or texted.” I pulled my phone out of my bag and checked it again even though I'd looked at it five minutes ago. Still nothing. “I don't even know if he's going to.”
Jace was quiet for a second, and then he said carefully, “Maybe give it more than eighteen hours before you spiral?”
“I'm not spiraling.”
“You missed a pass to Dmitri that my grandmother could have made, and she's been dead for six years.” Jace's tone was gentle, but the point landed anyway. “You're spiraling. Which is fine, honestly. This is a big deal. Just maybe try to keep it off the ice until we get through playoffs?”
I knew he was right. Knew I needed to pull myself together and focus on the team and the postseason we'd worked all season to qualify for. But knowing that didn't make it any easier to stop checking my phone every ten minutes or thinking about the way Soren had looked at me across the bar.
“I'll get it together,” I said, shoving my phone into my jacket pocket. “Sorry for being a disaster today.”
“You're not a disaster. You're just human.” Jace stood up and clapped me on the shoulder. “Get a shower, go home, get some sleep, and stop checking your phone like it's going to spontaneously combust if you look away.”
I managed a weak smile. “No promises.”
I grabbed my towel and stood up, and I'd barely made it three steps toward the showers before Finn's voice rang out across the locker room.
“Hey Cap, you planning on showing up to the actual playoffs or are you gonna keep passing to invisible guys?”
I flipped him off without turning around. “Shut up, Finn.”
“I'm serious, man. I've seen better decision-making from a zamboni.” Finn was grinning, I could hear it in his voice. “You know what a zamboni is, right? Big machine, goes in circles, occasionally runs into the boards—”
“I know what a fucking zamboni is.”
“Just checking. Thought maybe you forgot after today's performance.”
“You should be concerned about shutting your mouth before I make you skate suicides tomorrow,” I shot back.
Dmitri's voice came from a few stalls down, dry as hell. “Captain cannot make Finn skate suicides. Finn already skates like he is being punished.”
The locker room cracked up, and I heard Finn sputter indignantly. “Excuse me, my skating is beautiful. It's like poetry on ice.”
“Poetry written by drunk toddler,” Dmitri said calmly.
“Okay, first of all, rude. Second of all—”
“There is no second,” Tate cut in from somewhere near the benches. “Dmitri's right. You skate like you're constantly surprised the ice is slippery.”
“I hate all of you,” Finn announced. “Every single one of you is dead to me.”
“Good,” Cole's voice joined in. “Maybe you'll finally stop asking me to grab you coffee.”
“That was one time!”
“It was six times this week.”
I couldn't help grinning despite the shift I'd had. This was exactly what locker room banter was supposed to be — ruthless, stupid, and somehow still affectionate underneath all of it.
“At least Finn's consistent,” I said. “Unlike me today, apparently.”
“Damn right you weren't consistent,” Finn said, but his tone had shifted slightly. Less teasing, more genuine. “You good, Rook? For real?”
“I'm fine.”
“He says, while everyone in this room knows he's lying.” That was Benny, and I could hear him moving around near his stall. “Cap's allowed to have an off day. Just pick a better time next time, yeah? Like maybe during summer break instead of playoff prep.”
“Noted,” I said. “I'll schedule my personal crises more thoughtfully.”
“That's all we ask,” Jace said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “Well, that and for you to stop playing like you've never seen a hockey stick before.”
“Fucking hell, I had one bad practice—”
“One very bad practice,” Finn corrected helpfully.
“—and now you're all acting like I forgot how to skate.”
“If the skate fits,” Dmitri said sagely.
I turned on the shower and let the hot water hit my shoulders, trying to ignore the fact that half the team was probably still listening.
“I'm getting new teammates,” I called out. “All of you are fired.”
“You cannot fire us,” Dmitri pointed out. “You are captain, not owner.”
“Then I'm buying the team just so I can fire you.”
“With what money?” Finn asked. “You spent it all on whatever's got you checking your phone every five seconds.”
The comment hit closer than I wanted it to, and I felt my jaw tighten. But before I could respond, Jace's voice cut in smooth and casual. “Alright, that's enough. Give the man some room to breathe.”
“Fine, fine.” Finn held up his hands in surrender. “But seriously Rook, whatever's going on, we've got your back. Just maybe also get your head back in the game before Coach benches your ass.”
“Coach isn't going to bench me.”
“Coach benched Hartley last time,” Tate pointed out. “And Hartley's sleeping with him. You think you're special?”
“That's different—”
“Is it though?”
I turned off the shower, dried off, and pulled on my street clothes, letting the conversation flow around me as the locker room slowly emptied out.
They were right. Coach had given me a pass today, but if I kept playing like this, captain or not, I'd find myself watching from the bench.
And the team deserved better than a captain who couldn't keep his head in the game because he was too busy obsessing over a text that might never come.
“Alright,” I said, grabbing my gear bag. “I get it. I'll get my shit together.”
“Good,” Finn said cheerfully. “Because I was running out of creative ways to roast you and I really didn't want to start recycling material.”
“Your material was never good to begin with.”
“Take that back.”
“No.”
“Rook, I swear to god—”
I walked out of the locker room grinning, leaving Finn shouting half-hearted threats behind me. The chirping had helped, honestly. Reminded me that I had a team counting on me, brothers who'd call me out when I was being an idiot but also had my back when it mattered.
I just needed to figure out how to stop checking my phone long enough to be the captain they deserved.
I ended up at my parents' house instead of going home, partly because I didn't want to sit alone in my place with nothing to do except stare at my phone, and partly because being around them always made me feel steadier even when I was falling apart.