Chapter 24
Mason
The hallway smelled like oil and old rubber.
Cass sometimes carried the scent on her, and I thought about how the hell I was going to survive these halls after what I was about to do.
My skates clinked with each step, hooked over one shoulder.
The sound of distant drills echoed from the practice rink.
Playoffs tonight. Game one against Vancouver, and the guys were practically jumping out of their skin with excitement.
And me? Instead of being locked in and totally focused, I was walking next to Cass, nervous as hell.
She had her hair tied back, little wisps fraying around her cheeks. She wasn’t supposed to be working today, but here she was.
“So, are you going to tell me why you asked to see me?” Cass kept her voice even, but I didn’t miss the tension strung tight underneath.
“I needed to talk. Before tonight,” I said, tearing my gaze from her face. That on its own was a special kind of torture.
“Then talk.”
We turned a corner into a quieter stretch, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. I stopped near the caged storage where spare helmets and pads were stacked like a wall between two lives I was trying to live at once.
“This isn’t easy for me,” I said.
She crossed her arms, the movement pressing her tool bag tighter against her side. “It must be easier than whatever this is. Avoiding me for days, then asking me to secretly meet you in the bowels of this place. What’s going on?”
“Cass, I—” I dropped my skates to the ground, the clatter startling in the silence. “We have to end things. Us. Whatever we’ve been doing. It can’t keep going.”
Only when the rush of words was over, could I breathe again. A sharp inhale that sent a stab through my chest. At least, that’s what I told myself caused it.
Cass didn’t move, and didn’t say anything. Not for at least a full minute. She just looked at me as if I’d grown a second head or a third eye.
“You think we should stop,” she repeated, her tone flat.
“I know it’s not what you want to hear and trust me, I’d—”
“Trust you?” She scoffed, shaking her head in disbelief. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
“Please, if you just let me explain.”
“No, you don’t get to do this.” She stepped forward, her shoulders squared. “You don’t get to pretend like you’re doing the noble thing by ghosting me and then deciding we’re over. Especially after I defended you to my dad.”
I swallowed hard. “You don’t get it.”
“I think I get all of it just fine, thanks.” The hurt trembling in her voice made me want to hurl myself off a tall building. “My dad threatened you and instead of standing up to him—for us—you folded.”
Her words cut so sharp they might as well have been a tight fist to my jaw.
“This isn’t folding,” I said quietly. “It’s surviving.”
She laughed under her breath, not too stunned to be bitter. “Wow. That’s rich. You tell me I mean something to you, that you want to be with me, and now what? You’re scared it’s all too real?”
“I’m scared of losing everything I’ve worked for,” I shot back, shaking with my desperation for her to not make this harder than it already was.
“You think this is easy for me? I’ve busted my ass for years to get here, Cass.
Every practice, every rejection, every time someone told me I wasn’t good enough…
I proved them wrong. And now, one wrong step and it’s all gone. ”
“Being together doesn’t mean you lose your career,” she said. No pleaded. “What about Grayson and Josie? I don’t see him having to hang up his skates.”
“He’s one of the lucky ones,” I argued. “I know how this plays out. The team needs me. My total focus. Coach— Your dad won’t trust me to lead until I prove that I’m all the way in this. I can’t afford distractions.”
Her face twisted as if I’d slapped her. “Is that what I am to you? A distraction?”
Things were slipping from my grasp and there was nothing I could do about it. The acrid taste of bile rose up in my throat, and I forced it back down.
“If you only knew… You’re the one thing that isn’t distracting.” I pressed my hands to my head, pacing a few steps to work out the frustration burning inside me. “That’s the problem. Don’t you see? I’m too early in my game to push it into second place, and I’d do that with you. In a heartbeat.”
Cass stood still, but her chest rose and fell as her breathing picked up. “So, what? That’s it? We’re done?”
My heart joined my skates on the ground, and I gave a stilted nod. “I don’t see another way.”
She gave a sharp shake of her head and turned, walking a few steps away from me like she couldn’t bear to share the same air for one second more.
“I thought you were different,” she said, facing the opposite wall. “I thought maybe… this time, I wouldn’t have to come in second to the game. That someone might choose me for once.”
“Cass—”
“You’re not the only one risking something.” Her voice was thick with emotion. Guilt wrapped heavy around me, like a wet wool coat. “I’m scared too. But I stood there while my dad looked me in the eye and told me to be careful. That I’d always lose. I stood there, and I still chose you.”
I didn’t have any defense. Just the silence as an undercurrent to the mess I was in. I was coming apart from the inside out.
“You said this isn’t folding,” she said with more sadness than anger. “But it looks exactly like that from where I’m standing.”
My throat was tight. I looked at her, how hard she was trying not to cry. How tired she was of all of it. How much I wanted to close the distance between us and take back everything I’d just said.
Instead, I took a step back.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But hockey’s all I’ve got. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
Her head turned and for a second, I thought she might walk toward me and take a swing. But she didn’t.
She just nodded once, slowly, and said, “Right. So that’s the answer. Hockey’s all you want.”
“No, Cass, that’s not—” But she was already storming off.
I didn’t know how to explain it. That it wasn’t about choosing one over the other. It was about how I didn’t know how to have both. I couldn’t say that without sounding like a fucking coward.
Her boots echoed in the hallway until all I could hear was the distant sound of the rink, and the quiet hum of the lights.
“Where’s Calder?” I heard Grayson’s voice from down the hall. The guys must’ve been filing into the locker room, getting ready for the game.
I grabbed my skates and started moving. Game one. And I’d never felt less prepared for anything in my life.
The arena was on fire when we stepped onto the ice. The crowd going crazy, lights slicing through fog, the anthem still echoing in the rafters like a battle cry. My name had been called during the starting lineup and the roof almost blew off. But I barely registered it.
My skates touched down on the cold, slick surface and everything in my head went quiet.
No Cass. No breakup in the hallway.
Just the puck, the net, and stubborn pride building in my chest like pressure in a sealed pipe.
“This is why we play,” Grayson said as we skated into position for the opening face-off. He clapped a glove on my shoulder. “You focused?”
I nodded once.
He knew the look on my face. We all had it. That wired silence that meant something was boiling underneath. I was top line tonight, finishing power plays, but not even that call could get me amped.
Drop.
The puck slammed onto the ice and I exploded forward like something unspooled. I didn’t think, didn’t breathe. Just skated.
The Vancouver Canucks came in hard. They were chippy and aggressive, with something to prove. Those teams were always the toughest to subdue. Tough, but not impossible.
Their winger clipped my shoulder first shift in, and I got a warning for it. Second shift, I returned the favor with a puck strip so clean it made the boards rattle.
I carried it up ice, cutting between two defenders. My stick moved on instinct. One-two-deke. The goalie moved right, and I waited a beat longer before roofing it left.
Goal.
Chaos erupted at the arena. Sirens, horns, and a storm of camera flashes.
“Take a bow, you beautiful thing,” Tucker called out. He gestured for me to take a lap close to the row of news cameras focused on the game, and I did as I was told.
Back on the bench, fists thudded against my back and helmet. Coach didn’t so much as look my way, though. There was something so engrossing on his clipboard that he couldn’t. That was how I knew he was impressed.
Grayson leaned in. “You gonna pass any of those tonight, Calder, or do it all yourself?”
I almost smiled. Almost.
And when I made it back on the ice, I didn’t pass. The puck was the last of my anchors, tethered to me for dear life.
Second period, we were up 2–1 when they sent in their bruiser line. Cheap hits, and late slashes were the name of the game. One of their guys jabbed me in my ribs after the whistle.
My vision tunneled. I shoved him back so hard his helmet twisted sideways.
“You wanna dance, little girl?” A rabid snarl curled his lips.
“Fuck off,” I growled back at him. I wasn’t going to rise to the bait. Not tonight.
I stripped the puck from him in the next play, slid it to Grayson, circled back like a phantom, then caught the return just inside the slot.
One second. Two. Wrist shot. The puck hit the net.
3–1, Surge.
The boards shook. I turned away before my teammates could reach me.
I didn’t let up in the third period. I killed penalties like a pro, pushing through the burn in my lungs right up to the final horn. Surge win, 4-2.
The way the guys carried on in the locker room after the game, it was like we’d won the Stanley Cup.
They were slapping towels, and spraying water bottles like champagne.
I tried to let them infect me, to lift me out of the relentless dark cloud I was in.
But it didn’t work. There was no high, no rush, and it was like nothing I’d imagined it would be.
“Votes are in,” Hunter called everyone’s attention. He’d jumped up on a bench, cocky and shirtless. “Calder for Player’s Player. You killed it out there tonight.”
More cheers. Someone thumped a glove on my shoulder, and even Coach managed an approving nod when he walked by. Bob stuck his head in and signaled that they were ready. Another camera, another post-game quote to blast over social media.
I waved in vague acknowledgment, then leaned forward with my elbows on my knees. It was as if things ramped up a thousand degrees overnight, but I hadn’t yet caught up.
“This belongs to you.” Tucker shoved the game puck into my hand, and jogged off to shower.
I turned it over. Black rubber, a little scuffed. In the grand scheme of things… just a puck.
I stared at it, searching for something. Anything. But nothing came. There was no sense of pride bursting out of me, or adrenaline, or even just plain old excitement.
I played my heart out tonight, but there was no heart in it.
All I felt was a whole lot of nothing.