Chapter 4
PEYTON
I was, fortunately, not the only new member of this team. After I’d warmed up my legs, I skated over to Brandon Laramie, who’d been acquired to back up the starting netminder.
As I approached, he pushed up his mask. “Hey, man.” He gave my arm a little smack with his blocker. “How’s Pittsburgh treating you?”
I tapped one of his pads with my stick. “Haven’t really had time to explore, but so far, so good. You?”
He shrugged. “Same.” He looked around the ice, brow pinching beneath the shadow of his mask. Voice low, he murmured, “Is it just me, or…?”
“The vibe in here?”
He nodded slowly.
“No, it’s not you.” I glanced around before meeting his gaze again. “Can you blame them?”
“Not at all. I don’t think I’d have even made it to the ice.”
I grunted in agreement. “Something tells me it’s going to be a rough ride for a while. Best thing we can probably do is encourage everyone else to step up.”
“The new guys and prospects?”
I nodded. “Whoever makes the roster is going to have a hell of a lot on their shoulders this season, but I don’t know what else to do.”
He studied me for a moment, then cracked a small smile. “You sound like a captain.”
“I don’t think I’d go that far.” I swept my gaze around the ice again. “Somebody’s gotta keep everyone going while they pick up the pieces, you know?”
The smile faded and he nodded solemnly.
Shortly after that, Coach Tabakov blew the whistle, and everyone skated toward the whiteboard on the glass beside the bench.
We’d all been divided into three groups—black, gray, and gold jerseys.
I wore a black jersey, as did Laramie. The gold team went to the other rink for their first session, and the gray team would arrive in another hour to join one of us for some drills and a scrimmage.
As I took a knee with everyone else, I gave my group a glance.
It wasn’t hard to pick out the returning Whiskey Rebels; the somber faces gave them away.
The coaching staff wore similar expressions.
Some of the other new guys looked at each other uncertainly, as if they had no idea what to do with this uncomfortable vibe.
Did anyone really know how to interact with people who were grieving?
Add that to the demands of hockey, and… yeah, this was going to be tough as hell.
At the whiteboard, Coach took a deep breath.
“Gentlemen, I know this is going to be a challenging season for everyone. No one is expecting it to be easy, especially for those of us who knew Early.” He rolled his shoulders, and he seemed to struggle a little to hold on to his composure.
“There’s a big piece of this team missing, and it’s missing in a way none of us are used to. It’s just… going to take time.”
My gaze landed on Caldwell. There was a little more life in his eyes now. Some more determination. Maybe he’d just needed a moment to process things in the locker room before he came out here, and now that he was on the ice, he was pulling himself together.
You’re a stronger man than I am, Caldwell.
Or maybe I’d do the same in his skates. Maybe I’d find that reserve of strength or stubbornness or whatever the hell it took to push through.
All I could do now was hope I never had to find out.
Coach finished his pep talk and shifted gears to discuss the drills he wanted us to run through.
Last season’s offensive lines had some obvious holes in them thanks to a trade, a couple of free agents, and…
well. One very conspicuously missing center.
Coach had deliberately put his top six candidates in the black group, and the bottom six candidates would be duking it out on the grey and gold teams. We’d no doubt get shuffled around and even moved to different teams until he had the four lines he wanted for the opening roster.
Gary, the general manager, had specifically come looking for me to take the center position on the second line. Given that, I suspected Coach would be trying me out with different wingers until we solidified that second line.
So I wouldn’t lie—I was a little surprised when the right winger assigned to me from the start was none other than Avery Caldwell.
Oh, shit. He’d been on the top line since halfway through his first season; now he was getting bumped down to the second? I mean, I supposed that made sense. If I were him, I didn’t think I’d be able to handle that kind of pressure right now.
But then Coach sent a left winger our way.
Cody Davis.
Who’d been on the top line with Erlandsson and Caldwell.
Wait… instead of bumping Caldwell down to the second…
Was Coach putting me on the top line?
Putting me into the position that had suddenly and tragically been left unfilled?
Oh. Fuck.
But Coach had spoken, so off we went.
Our first few drills were reasonably easy.
Though Davis would be our left winger, Coach rotated a few other players through—mostly prospects.
That was normal at training camp. Even an offensive line or defensive pair that would be together on the final roster were often assigned other players as part of their development and to see how they gelled with the team’s systems.
When we were in the midst of a drill, the only thing I could focus on was hockey. Following the instructions of the drill, passing to my linemates, getting around the defense—there was no time to pay attention to anything else.
In between, though, while other lines took their turns and we caught our breath, I surreptitiously watched Caldwell.
There was more life in his eyes now than there’d been in the locker room.
Maybe it helped to be away from his friend’s empty locker stall.
Maybe he just needed something to concentrate on, and God knew hockey was good for that.
He was playing well, too—the drills were fairly simple at this stage of camp, but they weren’t exactly pee-wee level drills.
He had to protect the puck, navigate around the defense, know where his linemates were, and get the puck to the right person, all while skating at nearly full speed.
He scored twice during one of the drills, and Ziggy—Dimitriy Sigayev—was not an easy goalie to score against. Not even during practice.
Every time there was a lull—usually while we were waiting our turn for a drill—I tried to talk myself into approaching Caldwell.
Just making some small talk. Break the ice, so to speak.
I wanted to connect with him as a teammate, especially since it looked like we might also be linemates for the foreseeable future.
But I also couldn’t deny that there was a very not-hockey-related reason why I’d been so excited to come to Pittsburgh.
I could name at least a dozen players in the League who’d I’d have dropped trou with in a heartbeat, but I’d have forgotten them all entirely if Avery Caldwell ever gave me so much as a suggestive grin.
I hadn’t really known what I would do with that information once I got here.
Yes, he was openly queer, but that didn’t mean he got involved with teammates or that he was interested in me.
So I’d hoped to just play on the same team, maybe make friends with him like I usually did with teammates, and if chemistry happened—great!
Now that I was here, I was afraid to approach any of them, especially Caldwell, because they were all in an understandably awful headspace.
We had to connect—that was the only way teams functioned together—but making those connections right now felt risky.
Like I was skating on eggshells because I didn’t know these men well enough to gauge them.
So naturally the one I most needed to connect with was the one whose grief was the most palpable. How did I do this? What if I approached him when he was in the middle of giving himself a moment to compose himself?
Right now, as we caught our breath after another run through the drill, he still seemed more or less focused on hockey. He was watching a line of prospects going through the drill, his brow furrowed and his focus sharp.
I hesitated because I was afraid I’d say something stupid, but nothing ventured…
Pretending I wasn’t as nervous as a high school sophomore trying to ask a senior to prom, I skated up beside him.
Caldwell tensed a little, and when he glanced at me, something flickered across his face. Something like fear? What the hell?
I pretended not to notice. “So, um… do you think Coach is going to keep us on the same line?” Smooth, Hall. Real smooth.
Caldwell recovered from that weird, momentary shock, and he shifted his attention to the players currently running the drill. “He told me we’re going to be the top line.”
Oh. Shit. So this wasn’t just a trial run.
I swallowed. “So… you, me, and Davis?”
Caldwell nodded. His eyes tracked the players, and then when the whistle blew and the next line started, he faced me again. “I’m not surprised. You’re one of the best in the League on the faceoff dot.”
The little rush of giddiness that went through me almost had me groaning with embarrassment.
Come on, Peyton. Can we not fanboy Avery Caldwell right to his face?
“Oh. Uh.” I laughed self-consciously. “Does, um…” I nodded toward our coach. “Does Coach Tabakov have wingers practice faceoffs too? Like, regularly?”
Caldwell nodded. To my surprise, a faint blush darkened his already flushed cheeks. “I’m, um… I’m not very good at them. So, you know, try not to get kicked out of the circle?”
I chuckled. “We can practice them, if you want.”
He met my gaze again, and oh God, those hazel eyes were gorgeous. I’d always known they were—not that I’d ogled him in magazines or social media posts or anything—but up close? Wow.
Fortunately, my brain stopped short-circuiting in time to catch him ask, “Really?”
“Why not?” I smirked. “I do get kicked out of them sometimes, so…”
The way he laughed did things to my head that I did not want to think about right then.
“I mean, I won’t say no,” he said. “Maybe after camp. When we settle into practice a bit more.”
I nodded. “Deal.”
A moment later, it was our turn to run through the drill again, so that was the end of the conversation. Still, it had gone better than I’d anticipated, so I couldn’t complain.
I also couldn’t quite work up the courage to strike up another one. Even when we were standing together in between drills, I wasn’t sure what to say. He wasn’t standoffish or giving off any signals that I shouldn’t talk to him, but he didn’t try to initiate anything either.
Fine. It was the first day of training camp. Between practicing, traveling, eating, playing, and staying in hotels, we’d have plenty of opportunity to get to know each other over the next season.
At least he still seemed to be in a better mood now.
The more we practiced, the more he seemed to come to life.
He clearly still had that dark cloud hanging over him—who could blame him?
—but he smiled a little more as the day went on.
He talked a lot with the prospects, helping them and giving them pointers.
He sometimes chatted with some of the guys he’d been playing with for the past few seasons.
A handful of times, though, I caught him staring at nothing, his expression as distant as it had been in the locker room. More than once, I saw him shake himself and clearly try to remember what was going on or what he was supposed to be doing, as if he’d truly zoned out for a minute or two.
I could guess where his mind was going.
This had to be so damn hard, trying to play through that kind of grief. I’d been a mess for the first half of the season after my grandma died. Early had been here. In Pittsburgh. On this ice. On this team. Avery was surrounded by constant, inescapable reminders of the reason he was grieving.
I wondered which would be worse for him—if the club left Erlandsson’s nameplate up in the locker room, or when they ultimately took it down.
Avery had been by far the closest to Erlandsson, but the other guys had been hit hard too.
Though they tried to be stoic, they all let the masks slip now and then.
Baddy had spaced out a little during a drill earlier.
I’d caught Willie gazing at something on the stick rack with a far-off look on his face.
As I’d swung by the bench for a swig of water, Eriks and Ollie had been having what sounded like a somber conversation in their native language.
I didn’t know the intricacies of Swedish, but their expressions hadn’t left much to the imagination.
Their teammate had only been gone for a handful of weeks now. It was a fresh loss, and grief was not a fast process. On top of that, I’d heard that several of them, including Caldwell, had been at the hospital when the doctors broke the grim news. That had to be traumatic.
Returning to hockey without him probably pulled at the healing wounds and set them back.
It was probably also what kept everyone who knew Erlandsson going.
Hockey players were notorious for not being able to sit still anyway, and the way these guys threw themselves into hockey during camp was conspicuous.
I didn’t know if that was healthy. Honestly, what was healthy after something like that? Therapy was great and all, but for better or worse, the grief still had to happen.
I scanned the ice for some of the players who, like me, were new to the Whiskey Rebels.
Laramie. Dave Kemper. Lance Trewin. Emil Lavoie.
It was still a little early to make predictions, but if I had to guess, those four would most likely be on the roster.
Trewin was a rookie fresh out of college, and he’d been practically joined at the hip with Matias Astala, one of the veteran defensemen.
Kemper and Lavoie looked like a solid match with Nate Johnson for the third line.
Aside from Trewin, I knew them from around the League and—in the cases of Lavoie and Laramie—major juniors.
They were standup guys. Great assets to a locker room.
Between us, maybe we could carry the team while the rest of the guys found their bearings after Erlandsson.