21. February 21, Monday
Chapter twenty-one
Ilya
The first thing Ilya saw was the duffle bag.
Same old beat-up black canvas slung over a broad shoulder, same faded Catamount patch stitched onto the side.
For a half second, standing in the players’ entrance with his travel mug in hand, it was ten years ago and he was walking into The Gut, not Baystate Center.
Then the man attached to the bag laughed, and the present slammed back into place.
Mitch was at the far end of the concrete hallway, talking with one of the equipment guys, head tipped back, grin wide. Easy posture, easy charm. Like he hadn’t been on another team’s roster for the last few years. Like he hadn’t detonated his marriage and left Zoey in the blast radius.
“Serge!” The shout boomed down the corridor.
The staffer peeled off with a nod, and Mitch strode toward him, cologne hitting a second before his arms did.
“My fucking rock,” Mitch declared, dragging him into a back-slapping hug that knocked the air from his lungs. “You really did it, huh?”
Ilya’s arms moved on autopilot, returning the squeeze. “What, successfully escape you and then invite you back to ruin my life a second time? Nah. We needed a lazy winger.” His voice sounded mostly normal, thank God.
Mitch laughed into his shoulder. “Yeah, that. You pulled strings, man. Knew you would.” He stepped back, eyes bright and trusting.
Something twisted under Ilya’s sternum.
He forced a shrug. “We needed someone to make my plus/minus look good.”
“Blow me,” Mitch said cheerfully. He clapped a hand to the back of Ilya’s neck, squeezing. “God, it’s good to see you.”
In a different universe, Ilya would say the same back without qualification. Mitch had always been bigger than life to him; social, loud, free. It had been easy to get pulled into that orbit.
Even now, with his guts in knots, some part of him was genuinely glad his friend was here.
They walked side by side toward the locker room, Mitch rambling about the flight, the guy next to him who’d snored like a chainsaw, his neighbors in San Jose who cried when he left. Then, in classic Mitch fashion, he pivoted without warning.
“So? You find Fido yet? Ty said he tried bribing security for more cameras in the garage.” He skirted around a cart loaded with laundry bags. “And Zoey…she hasn’t been returning my texts. She doing okay? Or still plotting my murder?”
On the surface, it was nothing they hadn’t done a hundred times. Underneath, every step felt like Ilya was walking deeper into a minefield he’d buried himself.
“Fido’s being Fido,” he said evenly. “Ghost dog. We’re working on it.”
“And Zoey?” Mitch pressed lightly.
“She’s busy,” Ilya evaded, which was true and also nowhere near the tip of it. “New job. Group home events. Making Nina jealous again.”
“Yeah.” Mitch huffed a near-laugh. “That sounds like her.”
By the time they hit the locker room, most of the guys were already there. Conversations bent subtly as the newcomers crossed the threshold; habit, not malice. Ilya, backpack strap digging into his palm. Mitch, all swagger and smiles.
“Look who crawled out of California,” Ian called, peeling tape off his stick. “You realize it snows here, right?”
“Oh, Ian always has something to say,” Mitch drawled, dumping his bag into the empty stall with his number already bolted above it. “You weren’t chirping so loud with my fist in your mouth a couple weeks ago.”
A couple of guys snorted. Jason rolled his eyes in his corner, but the muscle ticking in his jaw eased by a millimeter.
The room’s energy rose, familiar and loud. It should have calmed Ilya. Instead, his heart sat high, pulsing against his collarbone.
He kept his head down, focused on the gear in front of him. No one mentioned Zoey. Even the dumbest rookie figured out that was a live wire; the guys knew better than to swing it around the room and risk that explosion.
Later, when Mitch propped one skate on the bench, he said it himself, casual as weather.
“Man, it’s wild we’re all together again.
Whole damn universe is small.” He didn’t look up from his laces.
“It was weird seeing her name on the wall outside PR. ‘Zoey Williams’ still throws me a little.” His mouth hitched, rueful, almost self-aware.
“Guess it would’ve been weirder if she’d kept Collins. ”
“Right,” Ilya said.
He yanked his shirt over his head and pretended his skin didn’t feel three sizes too small.
He’d seen that door, too. ZOEY WILLIAMS, neat and professional in brushed silver. The first time, his breath had snagged. He’d traced it with his eyes like a promise. Her name, on her own, no man’s tacked onto the end.
Still…hearing Mitch say, “it threw him,” made something dark and possessive flare low in Ilya’s gut, but as always, he stuffed it down.
On the ice, the world narrowed to drills and patterns.
It was muscle memory to run give-and-goes with Mitch, to look for him slipping into seams, to feel where he’d be on the power play without having to see him. The puck hopped across their sticks like it remembered their rhythm.
“Feels like old times, Serge!” Mitch yelled after a crisp entry that ended in his wrister pinging off the bar. He whooped in exaggerated despair and circled back, tapping Ilya’s shin pads with his stick. “You sure those are regulation nets? Seems a bit small to me.”
“I’ll ask equipment to measure them immediately,” Ilya deadpanned, lining up for the next rep.
He could do this. He could be Captain Sergechev, the man who made the team work, who folded new pieces into the system, who didn’t let personal shit bleed onto the ice. He’d been that man for years.
But every time Mitch grinned at him, the picture of Zoey in the dark garage flickered in his mind. Her pressed to the car, fingers fisted in his hoodie, lips parted as she whispered his name like a secret.
If it had just been need, he could have filed it under biology and moved on. But need hadn’t been the only thing in her eyes. There had been trust there too. Belief. A soft, dangerous kind of hope.
He skated harder, chasing the burn in his legs until the noise in his head dulled to a manageable hum.