Chapter 9 #2
I stripped off my gear slowly, letting the conversations wash over me without fully engaging, and by the time I'd showered and changed into street clothes, most of the team had already cleared out.
Coach caught me on my way out the door, one hand on my shoulder and an expression on his face that was equal parts pride and concern.
“Good game tonight,” he said simply. “You were exactly where you needed to be.”
“Thanks, Coach.”
“Whatever you worked through over the past few days, it's showing.” He squeezed my shoulder once and let go. “Keep your head clear. Playoffs start soon, and we need this version of you.”
I nodded, throat tight in a way that made words feel impossible, and he seemed to understand because he just clapped me on the back and walked away.
The dive bar where Soren's band played was packed by the time I got there, bodies pressed close together in the dark and the air thick with the smell of beer and sweat.
I'd thought about this move for exactly ten minutes in the car after leaving the rink before deciding to just fucking do it instead of overthinking myself into paralysis.
Soren had mentioned the gig yesterday, said the band was playing tonight, and I'd filed that information away without consciously planning to use it.
Except here I was. Standing in the back of the room with a drink I wasn't planning to finish, watching the stage where Soren sat behind the drum kit like he'd been born there.
The guitarist was shredding through a solo that made half the crowd lose their minds, the bassist was holding down a rhythm that rattled my ribs, and Soren was driving the whole thing forward.
He looked different up there under the stage lights, tattoos on full display, hair damp with sweat, completely absorbed in the music in a way that felt almost private despite the crowd watching him.
The set ended with a crash of cymbals and a final sustained note from the guitar that seemed to hang in the air for longer than physics should have allowed.
The crowd screamed, Soren stood up from behind the kit with his sticks still in hand, and the grin on his face was bright enough to cut through the dim lighting.
He said something into the mic I couldn't hear over the noise, waved to the crowd, and disappeared backstage with the rest of the band.
I waited and finished my drink. Tried to figure out what the hell I was going to say when I showed up in his dressing room unannounced.
The venue was small enough that “backstage” was really just a narrow hallway and a converted storage room, and I found it easily by following the sound of loud voices and laughter.
The door was half-open. I knocked anyway, more out of habit than actual politeness, and pushed it open when someone shouted, “It's open!”
The room was chaos. Gear everywhere, empty beer bottles on every flat surface, the bassist sitting on a torn couch with her phone out, and the guitarist arguing with someone about whether their setlist had been too heavy on new material.
And in the middle of it all was Soren, shirtless, toweling off his hair like he'd just stepped out of a shower.
I stopped moving. Couldn't have moved if someone had paid me. Because Soren without a shirt was apparently a thing my brain had no idea how to process.
He'd always been lean, even in high school.
Wiry and fast and built for speed more than power.
But the man standing in front of me now had filled out in ways that made my mouth go dry.
His shoulders were broader, his arms were defined in a way that came from years of drumming, and his torso was all muscle and ink and skin that looked like it would be warm to the touch.
The tattoos wrapped around his ribs, across his chest, down his arms in patterns I wanted to trace with my fingers just to see if they felt different than the rest of him.
I looked away and tried to remember what I'd walked in here planning to say.
“Rook?” Soren's voice cut through the noise, and his eyes went wide when he registered that I was standing in his dressing room doorway. “Holy shit, what are you doing here?”
“You did say that you had a gig,” I managed, and my voice came out steadier than I felt. “Thought I'd check it out.”
“You came to see us play?” He was grinning now, that expression lighting up his whole face in a way that did absolutely nothing to help my current situation. “That's—wow, okay. Did you catch the whole set?”
“Most of it. You guys sounded great.”
“We sounded drunk,” the bassist called from the couch without looking up from her phone. “But also great, so I'll take it.”
Soren laughed and tossed the towel onto a chair before grabbing a clean shirt from a duffel bag on the floor. I watched him pull it over his head and tried not to feel relieved when the distraction of his bare chest was finally covered up. This was insane. I was losing my mind.
“Rook, this is the band,” Soren said, gesturing around the room with an ease that suggested he was completely unaware of the crisis I was currently having. “June on bass, Luca on guitar. Guys, this is Rowan Kincaid.”
The room went dead silent.
June looked up from her phone with her eyes going comically wide. Luca stopped mid-sentence in whatever argument he'd been having and just stared at me like I'd materialized out of thin air. The silence stretched long enough to get uncomfortable, and then June said, “Holy shit, you're the captain.”
“Uh.” I glanced at Soren, who looked like he was trying not to laugh. “Yeah?”
“The captain of the Wolves,” Luca clarified, like I might have forgotten which team I played for. “The actual Rowan Kincaid. Who's been on the cover of, like, three sports magazines this year.”
“Two,” I corrected automatically, and immediately regretted it because now I sounded like an asshole.
“Two sports magazines,” June repeated slowly, like she was testing the words. Then she turned to Soren with an expression of absolute betrayal. “You didn't tell us you knew Rowan fucking Kincaid.”
“I told you I played hockey in high school,” Soren said defensively.
“You said you played hockey! You didn't say you played hockey with a literal professional athlete who's probably going to the playoffs!”
“If the league ever figures out the schedule,” I said, because apparently I'd decided to join this conversation instead of backing slowly out of the room.
“Right, the snow thing.” Luca was still staring at me like I was a zoo exhibit. “That sucks, man. But you guys are gonna crush it when it starts, right? You were on fire this season.”
“We're hopeful.”
“Hopeful,” June snorted. “Modest as fuck for a guy who's probably going to win a championship.”
“Subtlety is not their strong suit,” Soren said to me, and the apology in his voice was clear. “Sorry about this. They're usually better behaved.”
“We're literally never better behaved,” Luca countered cheerfully. “You know this about us.”
I found myself smiling despite the absolute weirdness of the situation. “It's fine. I've dealt with worse.”
“Worse than us?” June looked genuinely offended. “Impossible.”
The conversation spiraled from there into the kind of chaotic, overlapping mess that seemed to be the band's natural state.
Luca wanted to know if I'd ever fought anyone on the ice, June wanted to know if the Wolves' goalie was single, and Soren was trying very hard to steer the conversation in literally any other direction while failing spectacularly.
I answered what I could, deflected the rest, and tried not to think about the fact that I was standing in a dive bar dressing room making small talk with a bassist and a guitarist while Soren watched me with an expression I couldn't quite read.
Eventually, June and Luca got distracted by the need to pack up their gear, and the energy in the room shifted from manic to merely loud.
Soren crossed the small space to stand next to me, close enough that I could smell whatever soap he'd used in the shower mixed with the faint scent of sweat and stage smoke.
“Sorry about them,” he said again, quieter this time. “They've been following the Wolves all season, so seeing you show up here probably just broke their brains.”
“They're fine. Enthusiastic, but fine.”
“That's a generous way to put it.” He was smiling, and the expression was soft enough to make me want to see it all the time. “You really came to see the show?”
“I really did.”
“Why?”
“Because you invited me into your world, and I wanted to see more of it.”
“Well,” he said finally, voice rough around the edges. “Thanks for coming. It means a lot.”
June and Luca eventually cleared out, leaving me and Soren alone in the dressing room with the door propped open and the muffled sound of the bar's house music filtering in from the main floor.
He was sitting on the arm of the couch, legs stretched out in front of him, and I was leaning against the wall trying to figure out how to start the conversation I'd been thinking about since the game ended.
“So, what do you do when you're not being terrifyingly competent at sports?” Soren asked breaking the silence.
I laughed despite myself. “I'm not terrifying.”
“You absolutely are. You have resting captain face. It's intimidating as hell.”
“Resting captain face,” I repeated slowly. “That's not a real thing.”
“It's extremely real. You do this—” He made an expression that was probably supposed to be me but mostly just looked constipated. “—and everyone immediately knows you're in charge and they should probably listen.”
“I don't look like that.”
“You do. It's part of your charm.” He stretched his arms over his head, and I tried very hard not to watch the way his shirt rode up to show a strip of tattooed skin above his jeans. “But seriously, what do you do for fun? Please tell me you have hobbies that aren't hockey-related.”
“I run sometimes. Hit the gym. Read when I have time.”
“What do you read?”