Chapter 12 Crew
The ice fixes things.
Not permanently, or the way people mean when they say sports are an escape.
When I'm playing hockey, it's simpler than that. The ice reduces the number of variables.
Off the ice, Remi Silver is in a hospital because her body had nothing left to give. On the ice, the only pressure is on the left wing.
I've been on the ice a lot.
The conditioning set runs for ninety minutes.
Vonn is having a rough week, and Steele gets on him twice about his gap control.
Coach says something about our breakout structure that's technically accurate but delivered in a way that guarantees nobody retains it, and by the end of the session I'm sweating through the collar of my pads, hoping I've burned most of the noise clean.
Most of it.
Steele comes off beside me, pulls off his helmet, and says, "Marilyn."
I look up.
She's at the boards with the same expression as weeks ago. One of composed patience, her professional default. Today there's something underneath it that I read the way I read an opponent's defensive posture on a power play. Because she's not angry… which is almost worse.
She's disappointed.
We skate over.
"Nice practice." Not a compliment.
"Marilyn." Steele smiles. "What brings you down to—"
"Sloane called me," she says.
The smile doesn't fall, it just stops working.
"She was lovely," I say.
"She was." Marilyn looks at me. "She was also confused, and then upset, and now she's looking for another pack, and I've had to have a conversation I didn't particularly enjoy. So." She folds her hands. "I would like an explanation."
"We weren't compatible," Steele says.
Marilyn breathes through her nose.
"She's a perfectly compatible omega by every biological and medical standard," she says. "That's why I selected her."
"We weren't compatible," he says again. I hear the weight he puts on the 'we' and I know she hears it too.
The team moves past us in the background, cleats and chatter and the collective relief of practice being over.
"We have another omega in mind," I say.
Marilyn looks at me.
I let the sentence sit there and do what it needs to do.
She looks at Steele. Back at me as a thought assembles itself behind her eyes.
"Come to my office when you're ready," she finally says. "Don't be long."
She turns and walks toward the corridor, and her heels make no apology for what they're doing on a rubber floor, and she's gone.
Steele and I stand at the boards in our skates.
"We do have an omega in mind," he says.
"We do," I say.
The locker room smells of wet gear and deodorant and the collective relief of a team that's done for the day.
"But River said no," Steele says, sitting beside me on the bench.
"River said no in a hospital waiting room," I say. "He's waiting for the same information the rest of us are waiting on. That changes things."
"Not for River."
"It did for Beck."
Steele is quiet for a moment, tying his sneakers with more attention than they require.
"Nikki," I say.
He looks up.
I replay the hospital waiting room. The way Nikki sat down and pressed her hands flat on her thighs and said, "I should have done something like that for Remi. Maybe she wouldn't be in a hospital bed right now."
It came from someone who decided they're responsible and now looking for a way to transform that into action.
Nikki, who is Marilyn's sister.
Nikki, who is Remi's trainer and the person who knows better than anyone what Remi's body has been running on and what it's been missing.
"She already wants to fix it," I say. "We could give her a way."
Steele has his phone out before I've finished the sentence. He's faster on the social elements, the same way he's faster on a breakaway, and I'm faster on back-check positioning. We work with what we have.
He calls Nikki.
She answers on the second ring.
Steele puts it on speaker and sets the phone on the bench between us, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. "It's Steele and Crew. We need you to make a call to your sister."
A pause. "What kind of call?"
"The kind where you suggest that Remi Silver's recovery would benefit from being around two alphas."
Longer pause.
"You two," Nikki says.
"Us," Steele says.
The pause that follows has a texture.
"She'd have to agree," Nikki says. "Remi would have to agree. I won't arrange something for her without her knowing."
"Wouldn't have it any other way," I say.
"And River—"
"Beck is on board," Steele says. "River is River. He'll get there."
"Will he?"
"He loves his sister more than he loves being right," I say. "Give him time."
"She's in a coma," Nikki says quietly. "In a coma because her body had nothing left."
"Yeah." Steele sighs. "And we want her never to go through that again."
"Okay," Nikki says. "I'll call Marilyn. But I need you to understand something. If Remi wakes up and says no, that's the end. I won't push her."
"Neither will we," I say.
She hangs up.
Steele takes his phone and turns it in his hand. Remi waking up and saying no is a possibility we need to hold.
"Give it an hour," I say.
He nods. We get changed.
Marilyn's office has the croissants again. I don't know if this is strategic or if she just genuinely runs on pastry and institutional authority. Steele eyes them but doesn't take one, which means he's taking the meeting seriously.
She's behind the desk. We're in the chairs.
"Nikki called me," Marilyn says.
"We know," Steele says.
"She made a very good suggestion."
"We know."
Marilyn looks at us both with the patient attention she brings to everything. Then she puts her pen on the desk and leans back.
"I'm still disappointed about Sloane," she says. "I want that on the record. She was a good match, and you gave her a bad experience, and I had to fix it."
"Noted," I say.
"So explain to me," Marilyn says, "why is Remi Silver different?
Because from where I'm sitting, there are several reasons she's a significantly more complicated answer than Sloane.
And the number one reason is she's your former teammate's sister.
Two, she's currently in a medically induced coma recovering from an omega drop.
And she's not yet aware that this conversation is happening.
" She tilts her head slightly. "Why is she different? "
Steele looks at me.
I look at him.
It's not a complicated exchange. We've been having this version of it since the day we met her.
"Because she's ours," Steele says.
Marilyn's expression doesn't shift, but something behind it does. She looks hopeful.
"We just have to convince her brother," I say.
"River Silver," Marilyn says.
"He'll come around," Steele says.
"Will he?"
"He will," I say. "When he understands that it's not about us, it's about her. What she needs. What her body needs." I pause. "Beck already sees it. River will get there."
Marilyn picks up her pen. Sets it down again.
"Here is what I'm willing to agree to," she finally says. "When Remi is discharged, I will support an arrangement where she recovers in your apartment. With two conditions."
We wait.
"First. Only she agrees. Not her uncle, not her brother, not Nikki, not me.
Remi Silver says yes. That is the only yes that counts.
" Her gaze is very direct and requires us to nod in agreement.
"Second is that River Silver doesn't actively fight it.
I'm not asking you to get his blessing. I'm asking you not to make it a war. "
"Agreed," Steele says.
Marilyn nods. She picks up her pen and turns back to her desk.
"For what it's worth," she says, not looking up, "if I were in Remi Silver's position, I would say yes."
Steele grabs a croissant as we leave. Marilyn laughs.
Steele and I walk to the elevator without speaking, the doors close, but between floors something settles and we stare at each other.
We know this is the right thing to do.
We just have to convince her brother.
Oh, and Remi has to wake up first.