Chapter 12
twelve
MIKE
The inside of my thigh pads has gone from damp to soaking, the foam compressed into a second skin that squelches with each shift on the bench. I’ve been rotating my ankle in slow circles for the past thirty seconds, testing the joint with delicate precision.
Meanwhile, from the ice, the scrape of steel on frozen water fills the arena—that distinctive sound that used to mean everything to me, but now it means just a tiny bit less, and is the background music to the symphony of doubt playing in my head.
Rotate. Test. Breathe. Don’t let them see.
“Nice shift, Cap!” Kellerman crashes onto the bench beside me, and the impact sends a sharp twinge down to my ankle.
The kid’s face glows with second-period sweat and first-year enthusiasm. I force something that might pass for acknowledgment, keeping my focus on Schmidt wrestling for position in the corner. But even as I watch, my peripheral vision catches movement in section 104.
Four suits. Two from Colorado. One from Dallas. The fourth is a mystery. Combined, they all have that same predatory stillness—watching, waiting, documenting—that makes me feel like a piece of meat being assessed by hungry carnivores.
Because I know they’re not here for Schmidt.
The ankle throbs its own rhythm now—boom-boom-pause, boom-boom-pause—an irregular heartbeat beneath the skin. Irritating, but different from last year’s knife-sharp betrayal that sent me crashing to the ice in front of fifteen thousand people.
It happened in the second period. I cut and felt a twinge and prayed like hell it wasn’t the ankle totally failing me. So far, so good, but it was a timely reminder about how fragile this all is—my ankle, my hockey career—and how important it is that I’ve stopped making hockey my whole identity.
As for the ankle?
Well, this pain is subtler, like a persistent whisper that some injuries never fully mend, no matter how many months you spend in that antiseptic-scented PT room, how many workouts you put in, and how many times you tell yourself you’re going to be fine.
The stretches once I reached the bench helped. They always help. And the question isn’t whether I can play through it. The question is whether I can play through it while four NHL scouts document every hesitation, every favored step, and every fraction of a second I’m slower than I used to be.
“Forty seconds!” Coach Pearson’s voice cuts through both the crowd noise and my spiral. “Altman, your line is up next!”
Maine drops beside me, jersey dark with sweat. “You’re making that face again, Cap.”
“What face?”
“The one where you’re solving world hunger in your head.” His blue eyes narrow, reading me with practiced ease. “What’s wrong?”
“Just working out how to shut down their center.” The lie tastes metallic, like blood from biting your cheek too hard.
“Bullshit.” Maine’s not buying what I’m selling, never has. That’s what makes him the perfect linemate.
The assistant coach’s tap on my shoulder saves me from further interrogation.
I grab my stick and vault over the boards, definitely not calculating the landing to protect my right side, definitely not breathing through the shock of impact.
The first few strides feel sluggish, but then muscle memory takes over.
Schmidt wins the draw clean, and suddenly we’re flying. The ice opens up before me. Their defenseman cheats toward Maine on the left wing, leaving Cooper acres of space on the right. The pass leaves my stick before I’ve consciously decided to make it—a laser through traffic that hits Cooper’s tape.
He puts it up top.
The goal light bathes everything in red.
And the building erupts.
“Beauty!” Maine slams into me with barely-controlled joy, and I lock my knees to keep from showing how the impact rattles up my leg.
Trust is a luxury I can’t afford. Not with this ankle. Not with what’s at stake.
We cycle through the celebration ritual—glove taps, helmet pats, the choreography of success—before heading back to the bench with seven minutes left in the period. Seven minutes to prove I’m not just yesterday’s prospect trying to recapture something that might be gone forever.
“Altman! Hamilton! Ready in ninety seconds!”
I drain half my water bottle in one big gulp, using the motion to test the ankle’s range of motion. It responds better now, grateful for the brief rest, but I’m still not sure about it. Part of me is convinced it’s spent the last few months luring me into complacency before the next betrayal.
God, even my internal monologue has trust issues now.
I go back over the boards, and this shift feels sharper and cleaner. My edges bite deep, my passes snap with magnetic precision. Even Colgate’s only half-decent player can’t keep up as I shadow him around the ice, always a half-step ahead, always knowing where he wants to go before he does.
Then it happens.
The puck rims around the boards behind our net—a nothing play, routine as breathing. I pivot to collect it, and something about the angle, the torque, the way my weight shifts?—
My ankle doesn’t scream. It simply opts out.
Not the catastrophic failure from last year that left me writhing on the ice, trying not to cry in front of half the hockey world. Just enough rebellion to throw off my timing by a heartbeat.
The puck bobbles off my stick. Their center—the one I’ve been suffocating all game—pounces on it with desperate hunger. He’s alone with Rook before my brain catches up to what my body’s done.
The shot comes hard and low. Rook sprawls across the crease, pad flashing out in desperation. The puck thuds against it and deflects harmlessly to the corner, but as I coast back to the bench, Coach Pearson’s stare burns through my jersey.
“ALTMAN!” His face has gone past red into something purple and dangerous. “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?”
Twenty-two players on the bench suddenly find their skate laces fascinating.
“YOU GIFT-WRAPPED THAT CHANCE LIKE IT WAS CHRISTMAS MORNING! WHERE’S YOUR HEAD?”
I’ve played for screamers before. Hell, our last coach could strip paint with his voice. But Pearson’s different. He’s usually calm, so when his anger comes, it’s from somewhere deeper.
“ARE YOU PLANNING TO PLAY DEFENSE TODAY, OR SHOULD I FIND SOMEONE WHO REMEMBERS HOW?”
Maine shifts beside me, muttering “Jesus Christ” under his breath.
“Sorry, Coach.” The words come out raw from breathing hard. “Lost an edge.”
Then something shifts in his face. The purple drains away. He closes his eyes, and when they open again, I’m looking at a different man entirely, the same guy who was excited by my prospects this year and has thanked me over and over.
“No, I’m sorry,” he says, loud enough for the bench to hear. “That was… I let something else bleed into this. That’s on me, not you.”
“It’s fine, Coach.”
“But Mike?” He taps his temple with two fingers. “Whatever’s going on in there? Sort it out. Because we need our captain present. And there are people watching.”
“Yes, Coach.”
He turns back to the game, but I catch the way his jaw works, molars grinding. The overreaction sits in my stomach like spoiled milk, because it’s not his usual style.
Did he find out about me and Sophie?
“Dude.” Maine’s elbow finds my ribs. “You look like you’re solving calculus without a calculator. What gives?”
The truth spills out before I can stop it. “I’m just nervous about tonight, that’s all.”
“Tonight?” His eyebrows climb. “Oh, the poetry thing. Mike. Tell me you’re going alone.”
“No.”
“Who’s going wi—” He stops mid-word. His mouth falls open. “No. Tell me you’re not.”
“Sophie’s coming with me.”
The name hangs between us like a live wire.
“Sophie.” He tastes the word. “Sophie Pearson. Coach’s daughter Sophie.”
“It’s not a date.” The lie tastes worse than the one about defensive strategies.
“Does she know that?”
“She’s the one who said it wasn’t a date.”
Maine stares at me with genuine concern. “Mike. Listen to me. Are you actively trying to destroy your season?”
“We’re just friends going to a poetry reading.”
“Friends.” He actually laughs, but it’s hollow, and then he glances toward Coach, who’s gesturing at Williams with sharp, angry movements. “Coach just lost his mind over one bobbled puck, so what happens when he finds out about you and his daughter?”
“There’s nothing to find out.”
Except I can still taste her. Still feel the way she trembled when I ? —
“You can’t stop talking about her.”
“I mentioned her once!”
“At karaoke, you stared at her the entire night.”
“Altman! You’re up!”
Once again thankful for the reprieve from the relentless questioning, I grab my stick with enough force to test its flex rating. But Maine catches my jersey as I turn, and his face has gone serious.
“Look, I get it. She’s gorgeous, she’s smart, but man…” Another glance at Coach. “This is career suicide. You know that, right?”
“Noted,” I mutter, yanking free.
But as I hit the ice, Maine’s warning echoes in my skull. He’s right. Getting involved with Sophie—even as “just friends”—is playing with fire. One wrong move and everything I’ve worked to rebuild goes up in flames.
The scouts, the draft, the chance to prove last year was a fluke.
The problem is, I’ve already pulled the trigger. Have been pulling it since the moment she smiled and agreed to come tonight, that little crease appearing at the corner of her eyes.
And despite every logical reason to stop, despite the scouts in section 104 and the very real possibility of Coach literally murdering me with his bare hands, I can’t seem to point the gun anywhere else.
The puck drops. My ankle holds. The game goes on.
But all I can think about is eight o’clock and seeing her.
I’m so fucked.