Chapter 13 Close Quarters
CLOSE QUARTERS
GRANT
Iwoke up to the sound of Hartley breathing. The room was dark except for the thin line of light bleeding under the door from the hallway, and I lay there on the floor with my back aching and my neck stiff, listening to him breathe like it was the only sound in the world.
This was a mistake. The whole fucking situation was a mistake.
I should've pushed back harder at the front desk.
Should've demanded they find another solution, pull strings, call in favors, do whatever it took to avoid ending up in a room with Hartley for an entire night.
But I hadn't, because pushing too hard would've raised questions I couldn't afford to answer.
So instead, I'd spent the night on the floor three feet away from him, hyperaware of every shift of the mattress above me, every small sound he made, the warmth of his body close enough to feel even through the distance.
I sat up slowly, quietly, trying not to wake him. My back protested immediately—sleeping on hotel carpet was apparently my limit. I rolled my shoulders, felt the knots there, and stood as silently as possible.
The bathroom light was harsh and unforgiving when I flipped it on, closing the door most of the way so it wouldn't wake him. I looked like shit. Dark circles under my eyes. Hair sticking up in about six different directions. The permanent crease between my eyebrows deeper than usual.
Get it together, Sutherland. One night. You survived one night.
Barely.
I splashed cold water on my face, brushed my teeth, tried to wash away the exhaustion and the awareness and the want that had been sitting in my chest since the moment we'd walked into this room last night.
The want that had been sitting there since long before that, if I was being honest. Since probably the first time I'd watched him skate and realized he was brilliant and broken in equal measure.
Stop.
I couldn't afford to think like that. Couldn't afford to want him the way I did. This ended badly no matter how I looked at it. The math was simple. The cost was too high.
So I'd do what I always did when something threatened to spiral: lock it down. Create distance. Re-establish boundaries. Burn it all down if I had to, salt the fucking earth, make everyone miserable enough that they wouldn't look too closely at why I was being such a bastard.
I could do that. I was good at being a bastard when I needed to be.
When I came out of the bathroom, Hartley was awake.
He was still in bed, propped up on one elbow, hair an absolute mess and eyes half-lidded with sleep. His t-shirt had ridden up slightly, exposing a strip of his stomach.
I looked at him for exactly one second, then turned away.
“Get up,” I said, voice flat and cold. “Morning skate's at ten. I want everyone on the ice in an hour. That includes you.”
“Jesus, Coach, it's barely six—”
“Did I ask for commentary?”
I moved to my bag and started pulling out clothes, keeping my back to him. Behind me, I heard him sit up, heard the rustle of sheets as he moved.
“You want coffee?” His voice was careful, testing.
“No.”
“There's pods on the desk—”
“I said no.” I turned to face him, and I made sure my expression was blank. Cold. “And you need to eat something before the skate. Real food, not whatever garbage Callahan's peddling. Your timing was shit yesterday. Nutrition affects performance.”
His jaw tightened. “My timing was fine.”
“If it was fine, we wouldn't have spent fifteen minutes fixing your positioning in the second period.”
“That wasn't—”
“I don't care what you think it was. Get your shit together, Hartley. You're supposed to be a professional.”
I saw the flash of hurt cross his face before he locked it down, and something in my chest twisted. But I didn't take it back. Didn't soften it.
Distance. That's what we needed.
I grabbed my gear and headed for the door. “Thirty minutes. Don't be late.”
I left without looking back.
The team filtered onto the ice slowly, still loose from last night's win, chirping each other and laughing. Callahan was doing something stupid near center ice. Mercer was half-asleep. Hallowell was checking his hair in the glass reflection like we were at a photo shoot instead of practice.
I blew the whistle hard. Once. The sound cut through the noise like a blade.
“Line up. Now.”
The laughter died immediately. They looked at each other, confused, then skated into formation.
I stood behind the bench with my arms crossed and let the silence stretch out until it got uncomfortable. Until they started shifting on their skates, uncertain.
“That was the ugliest win I've seen in fifteen years of coaching,” I said finally, voice flat and cold.
“You got lucky. Seattle should've buried you in the third.
They outshot us, outplayed us, and the only reason we won is because their goalie let in a soft one and Sato stood on his head. That's not a system. That's luck.”
I saw several guys exchange glances. Rook's jaw tightened.
“So today, we're going to fix every mistake you made last night.
And we're going to keep doing it until you get it right.
Breakout drills. Full speed. No half-assing, no coasting, no excuses.
If I see lazy positioning, you're doing sprints.
If I see a missed assignment, you're doing sprints.
If I see anything that looks like you're not taking this seriously, you're doing sprints until you puke.”
The ice was dead silent.
“First unit—Hartley, Rook, Cho. Let's go.”
They skated into position, and I started the drill.
For the first ten minutes, I was relentless. Every pass that was a fraction slow got called out. Every positioning error got corrected with my voice cutting across the ice. Every small mistake was amplified until the tension in the rink was thick enough to choke on.
“Hartley—your feet are too slow. You're three steps behind the play.”
“Cho—that pass was garbage. Do it again.”
“Rook—if you're going to be captain, act like it. Your line's a mess.”
I rotated units and kept the pressure on. Volkov took a hit in the corner and I called him out for not protecting the puck better. Callahan made a joke and I benched him for two rotations. Hallowell tried to argue about a positioning call and I shut him down so fast his mouth snapped closed.
By the thirty-minute mark, the entire team was skating like they were being chased.
Good.
Halfway through the skate, Hartley got tangled up with one of the D-men coming around the net. He went down hard, and I saw the flash of frustration cross his face when he got up.
“Hartley. Bench.”
His head snapped toward me. “What?”
“You heard me. Bench. Now.”
“Coach, I just—”
“Bench, or you're sitting the next game. Your choice.”
The entire team went quiet. Benching someone during practice was one thing. Threatening to bench them for a game was another.
He skated over slowly, and I could see the anger building in every line of his body.
“What the fuck, Coach?”
“Your attitude is shit. Your focus is shit. Sit down and figure it out.”
“I didn't do anything—”
“You're arguing with me. That's enough. Sit.”
His jaw clenched so hard I thought he might crack a tooth. But he sat.
I turned back to the ice without another word.
Five minutes later, I pulled Callahan.
“Bench.”
“What? Why?”
“Because I said so. Move.”
Another five minutes, and I pulled Mercer for a pass that was maybe an inch off target.
The pattern continued. I rotated players on and off the bench for increasingly minor infractions, riding everyone hard enough that the confusion started turning into resentment.
By the end of the skate, half the team looked like they wanted to put me through the glass. The other half looked too exhausted to care.
“Sprints,” I said flatly. “Everyone. Goal line to blue line and back. Ten reps. Go.”
A few groans. I ignored them.
They skated sprints, and I stood there with my arms crossed, counting each one, calling out anyone who wasn't pushing hard enough.
When they finally finished, they were all breathing hard, faces flushed, legs shaking.
“That's what happens when you play like garbage,” I said. “You get treated like garbage. Tomorrow we do it again. Dismissed.”
They skated off slowly, and I waited to see if anyone had questions before leaving.
I made it three steps before I heard Rook's voice behind me.
“Coach.”
I stopped but didn't turn around. “What.”
“That was bullshit.” His voice was hard now. “You rode everyone for nothing. Half those bench calls were garbage and you know it.”
I turned to face him. “You have a problem with how I run my practices, Rook?”
“Yeah, actually, I do. When you're benching guys for bullshit reasons and running them into the ground after a road win.” He stepped closer, and I saw the anger there, barely contained. “What's going on with you?”
“Nothing is going on with me. I'm coaching.”
“You're being an asshole.”
“Then maybe you should focus on your own game instead of questioning mine.”
His eyes narrowed. “This isn't about the team.”
My stomach dropped, but I kept my expression neutral. “I don't know what you're talking about.”
“Sure you don't.” He glanced back at the ice, where the team was still filtering off. When he looked back at me, his voice dropped. “Whatever's eating you, Coach, figure it out. Because that—” he gestured toward the ice “—isn't leadership. It's just cruel.”
He skated off before I could respond.
I stood there alone, feeling the weight of his words settle into my chest.
Cruel.
Yeah. It was.
By the time I got back to the room that afternoon, I was wound so tight I thought I might snap.
The skate had gone exactly how I'd planned—everyone was too angry or exhausted to look too closely at why I'd been such a bastard. Mission accomplished.
I opened the door to find him sprawled across his bed with his phone, still in the t-shirt and sweats he'd changed into after the skate. He didn't look up when I walked in. Didn't acknowledge me at all.