3. Dante
Dante
The Chronicle building door swings shut behind me, and the cold scrapes the side of my face that had been turned toward her desk—sharper at the fresh skate cut under my jaw, a sting that feels like a fucking reminder.
The interview is an hour from now. Mid-season feature, four-thirty, Cole booked it last week. Skate first, then her, and my body already knows the order.
She didn't open the drawer above her left knee, but I tracked the place anyway. Her hand on the desk had gone still when my eyes landed there, and the memory of that stillness sits in the back of my throat like something I should have swallowed.
The arena lights are up for the second skate. Two-a-days through Frozen Four prep. Three-thirty on the ice. My quads still ache from the morning skate in tight bands above the knees, the kind of ache that builds across a season and only lets go when the season fucking does.
I push through the rink doors, bag on my shoulder, and take my stick from the rack along the tunnel wall as I head down the corridor.
The Briarcliff tunnel smells the way it always smells: cold rubber, sweat locked into concrete, the sharp metallic bite of ice coming off the rink.
Sixteen games are left, every one of them with scouts in the stands now, clipboards and pens moving, eyes tracking every shift.
The overhead lights buzz, and most people stop hearing the sound after a while, but that buzz never fades into background for me—it's the sound of being watched, and my shoulders tighten under it.
Two freshmen drag bags toward the locker room ahead of me, slower than the morning, skates hooked over their shoulders by the laces.
My phone vibrates in my warmup jacket.
Marco: La famiglia chiede di te. Quando torni a casa?
I read it in English before I answer. The family asks about you. When are you coming home?
I move the stick to my off hand and type with one hand without breaking stride.
Me: Dopo la stagione. Dì a papà che sto gestendo tutto.
After the season. Tell Dad I'm handling things.
The phone goes back into my warmup pocket, and the weight of the words sits heavier than the device.
The locker room hits me all at once when I push through the door—tape tearing, pads hitting tile, metal lockers slamming—the later-skate routine, everyone's hands slower and the talk looser, like we've already survived the hard part of the day.
I drop my bag on the bench at my stall and pull the tape roll from the side pocket.
Stick, tape, blade. I wedge the stick between my knees and lay down three wraps at the base, two across the middle, one final strip along the edge, tight enough the shaft creaks.
The cotton tape bites into my fingertips, adhesive tack and rough grain.
I run my thumb along the seam until the air pockets are gone, smooth and exact, because anything less is a weakness I can't afford.
Adrian's locked in two stalls over, eyes shut, that pre-skate jaw set I know means don't fucking talk to him.
In the corner, Declan's working the grip on his stick like he's trying to strangle it, and Gio's hunched so tight over his phone by the door that the strain of him reaches me across the room.
The Whisperer posts have him wound like a spring.
I have a few names in mind for whoever's running the account, and the thought sits buried behind my ribs.
Cole's in the middle of the room with one skate on, stick on his shoulder, running some goddamn sandwich story for the freshmen again—third time this season. Their laughter hits the exact beat he expects, and something tightens behind my ribs at the sound.
"Sit down." My voice carries without volume. "Skate in ten."
He finds me across the room. "You went to the Chronicle."
"Yeah."
"How'd that go?"
"She didn't say yes. She didn't say no."
"To Elm House."
"To anything."
I take the chest pad from my bag and set it on the bench. "Sit down, Cole."
He doesn't sit. He plants one foot on the bench and laces the skate faster than I've ever seen, each tug snapping tight, and when his eyes come up to mine they don't move. The force of it lands across my chest like a shove.
"She's coming."
"You think."
"I know." He drops onto the bench, pulls the second skate on, ties it, stands. "She heard Elm House. She's coming."
"You think she takes orders from me."
"I think she takes notes." He shoulders his stick. "Press room first. Four-thirty. After that, we go."
The room around us keeps moving—tape ripping, locker doors slamming, Adrian counting his breaths four in, four hold, four out—but none of the sound carries across the bench between Cole's stall and mine.
He tilts his head a fraction, the way he does at night in the hallway outside my door. You good?
I nod once. He gives me the smaller version of his smile, the one that only shows up there, and the tension along my shoulders lets go just enough that I can fucking breathe again. I lift the stick off the stall and shoulder it.
I head out through the tunnel.
Cold air hits my lungs the moment I step onto the ice, clean and sharp.
It's cleaner than morning, the surface fresh from the Zamboni, the gouges from the last skate scraped smooth.
Cole steps out behind me and slides into my periphery on the second lap, matching stride without a word.
Our skates hit the ice in the same rhythm.
Third lap, I cut left a half-stride early, and he reads it before the blade lands, crossing behind me to take the space I just opened.
The next sixty minutes grind through drills.
The morning's four goals sit in the hollow under my ribs like stones.
They were too clean. Easy means someone let me score.
Three sophomore defenders giving ground before I made them, and the hollow stays cold no matter how hard I drive on a loose puck in the corner.
Coach blows the whistle on a transition rep.
I plant the inside edge to cut, and the quad locks for half a second, the morning skate catching up, and I force through it until the muscle burns.
My shoulders are tight in a way they weren't this morning.
My lungs don't burn for any of it, which means the problem isn't my body.
By the last drill, the rookies are leaning on their sticks at the boards. I'm there too, gloves on the rail, breath coming in clouds that vanish into the arena air.
In the locker room, the talk has dropped off.
Pads come off in silence. Sweat drips from my hair onto the tile and beads where the floor still holds the rink chill.
A track of it runs over the skate cut under my jaw and stings, a bright, clean pain.
I lean the stick against the stall and peel the tape from the blade in a long strip, ball it for the bin.
I shower fast, then pull a clean compression shirt from the bag, sweatpants, the team warmup over it, my coat off the hook last. My hair is still wet at the nape when I head down the corridor toward the press room, the damp settling against my skin.
The press room at Briarcliff tries too hard: polished oak table, leather chairs, the school crest glowing behind the interview seat.
Maya's already set up, laptop open, recorder centered on the table, notebook beside it.
Her hair is pulled back, the press badge centered on her chest like a uniform.
She's taken the chair with its back to the wall and the door in front of her, because she doesn't miss a fucking thing.
I take the chair opposite her, my back to the door. She notes the adjustment, and her eyes don't leave mine for a full second.
Cole drops into the seat beside me, his knee against mine under the table, a solid line of heat through two layers of fabric.
Maya starts with him—season outlook, team chemistry, his role on the line—and Cole leans back in the chair like he owns the fucking room, his voice so relaxed it sets my teeth on edge.
"The line works because we don't think about it anymore," he says.
"Dante reads the ice faster than anyone I've played with.
My job is to already be where he's going to need me.
" He says it easily, the way you describe weather.
He gestures toward me without looking over.
"Three years of that. You stop planning. You just know."
I sit still, my hands flat on the table. She types all of it, every key strike sharp in the quiet room.
Then Maya looks at me.
"Voss. Scouts have been in the stands. Four teams, last I counted." She holds my gaze. The recorder's red light blinks between us. "How does draft pressure affect your on-ice play?"
"It doesn't."
"Three of your turnovers last week came in the third period of the Greystone game. You don't usually turn the puck over in high-pressure situations. Something was different." She says it without looking down at her notes.
"I had an off shift," I say. "It happens."
"You had three off shifts. In the period when the Carolina scout was sitting behind the bench." She tilts her head slightly. "You're not usually someone whose game suffers under observation. Seems worth noting."
The morning's four goals come back: too clean, defenders who moved before I made them. And there she is in the press box every game this season, sixty feet above the ice, taking notes.
"You cover hockey from sixty feet above the ice, Maddox. Observation and understanding are different fucking things."
"Observation is where understanding starts. That's called journalism."
"Is it? I'd call it tourism. You show up, you take notes, you write about things you've watched from a safe distance."
She stops typing. "Tourism," she repeats, her voice flat.
"You've been at Briarcliff for four years.
You've covered this program for three. And you still sit in the press box like you're visiting someone else's house.
" I lean forward. "You want to understand draft pressure?
Lace up. Step onto the ice. Scout behind the bench, clock running, thirty seconds to prove you belong somewhere.
Until then, you're a tourist writing postcards. "
I lean back. Cole's knee leaves mine—he drew it away, and the absence hits me like a cold spot in the room before I even look down. Something tightens in her jaw, one small crack in the line of her, but the rest doesn't break with it. My pulse moves up half a beat and stays there.
"The scout's name is Jim Weaver," she says, quiet and controlled.
My molars press together hard enough to ache.
"He covers the northeast corridor for Carolina's front office.
He was in the building for the UConn game too, but you didn't turn the puck over once in that one.
" She closes the notebook. "Maybe the question is which observer. "
I hold her gaze. My hands are flat on the table, my right index finger digging into the oak hard enough that the nail bed has gone white. I look down at it and ease off, but the ache stays in the joint.
"You showed up in this world with your stepbrother's name, Maddox." My voice is even. "You're good at watching from the outside. That's what tourists do."
The skin between my thumb and forefinger tightens on the table. I flatten my hand before the tension travels up my arm.
The press badge rises and falls on her chest. I count one breath, then two. She closes the laptop and picks up the recorder, and something behind my breastbone tightens against her leaving, a band drawn taut. She stands.
"I'll note that you declined to comment on the actual question. Thanks for your time."
I stand before she reaches the door. "Maddox." She stops. I close the distance between us. "Recorder."
She turns, her gaze coming from my open hand up to my face and staying there.
My lungs hold the count—one beat, two, three—and then she places the recorder in my palm, her fingers stopping just short of mine.
The gap between her skin and mine is less than an inch, and the heat off her hand crosses that space anyway, a current that tightens the air in my lungs and lands hard in my throat.
This close, the flecks in her eyes surface, blue-green. I look down at the badge on her chest, the rise and fall of it, and drag my gaze back up before it becomes anything I'd have to name.
"I'll need that back," she says.
"Then come get it."
She holds my gaze long enough to make it deliberate. Then she turns and walks out at an even pace, and the heat that crossed the inch of air between her hand and mine hasn't faded out of my palm yet.
Cole's voice reaches me from the table. "Truck's out back," he says, on his feet now, his voice easy as he looks at the recorder in my palm, then at me. "She's coming."
"You said."
"She doesn't miss things."
The drawer in her desk. Her eyes dropped there for half a second, her hand stilling on the desk. The recorder sits heavy in my hand, and the weight of it feels like a dare.
I slide it into the inner pocket of my coat, the weight settling against my hip, constant and deliberate.
"Let's go," I say.
We leave the press room and head down the corridor to the tunnel, out into the parking lot.
The sky has gone purple at the edges, the air biting deeper now.
Cole's truck is the third vehicle in the row.
He unlocks it and rounds the hood to the driver's side.
I open the door and drop into the passenger seat, slam it behind me.
The recorder presses against my hip through the coat, a small, insistent heat.
He pulls out of the lot. Elm House is twenty minutes away, fifteen if he runs the light at Briarcliff and Wycombe—and of course he runs it. Streetlamp light stripes his face and slides off as we pass each pole, and he never once glances my way.
"You took her recorder," he says.
"Yeah."
"On purpose."
"Yes."
The quad on my right side cramps where the lap belt cuts across the top of it. I work the muscle with my thumb until it lets go, but the ache lingers.
Cole flexes his grip on the wheel and eases it, and the movement stays in my peripheral vision until he turns onto the Elm drive.
The porch light is on. A second-floor window glows.
Elm House sits on a corner lot at the edge of the residential strip, the porch wide and the front door painted dark green.
Cole kills the engine. Neither of us moves.
"Okay," he says, like he's decided something.
I unbuckle and get out. The cold hits the back of my neck where the hair is still wet, a shock that goes straight down my spine. The driver's door shuts. The recorder rests against my hip. The drawer in her office. The half-second her eyes dropped to it.
I head up the walk. The porch steps creak under me. Cole comes up behind, key already out. He steps past my shoulder to the door, fits the key in the lock.
A car turns onto our street from the cross street, headlights cutting through the dark toward the porch where we're standing.