Chapter 9 - Nicole
Nicole
I sat on the end of the players’ bench with my feet tucked back so no one clipped my ankles, palms pressed to the cold edge beneath the padding, trying to absorb everything at once without looking like I might combust. Steam lifted off shoulders and helmets.
Blades carved lazy arcs as the guys peeled away from another drill, some of them circling back for pucks they didn’t need, others drifting toward the bench for water and towels.
This was not where fans sat. This was not where anyone like me ever sat.
“Water, then we go again,” Coach McAvoy barked from the red line, arms crossed. His eyes slid my way and held for the umpteenth time since training started.
He hadn’t asked me to leave, but it was clear he would’ve preferred to not have me there.
I straightened without thinking, spine snapping tall, like posture alone could justify my presence. He looked away without saying a word, which somehow felt worse and better at the same time.
Landon coasted in last, helmet under his arm, gloves dangling from one hand as he reached the boards. He hopped the short distance to the bench and dropped down beside me, hair damp at his temples. His knee bumped mine and stayed there.
“Your girlfriend stealing my seat now?” Shawn called from the ice, stick tapping the boards twice as punctuation.
Landon twisted the cap on his water bottle and took a swig. “You’re late to practice every day. It was never your seat.”
“I’m filing a complaint,” Shawn replied. “This is a closed skate.”
“Then close your eyes,” Mason shot back as he glided past, blade scraping to a stop in front of us. He pointed his stick at me. “She’s the president of Surge Nation. Hardly a spy, so what’s the problem?”
“The problem,” Grayson said from further out, voice carrying clean across the rink, “is some of us had to earn our distractions.”
Landon finally looked at me then, a sideways glance with that infuriating ease he carried like a birthright. “Ignore them.”
I nodded, even though ignoring a group of my favorite hockey stars chirping about me from ten feet away was a tall order. My pulse thudded in my ears.
This was their bench I was sitting on. Their actual bench, in their actual home arena. There were scuff marks on the floor from years of skates, tape residue stuck to the edge.
“You sure you’re not gonna get in trouble for this?”
He hid his amusement behind another sip of water. “There’s an upside to being the favorite.”
Tucker coasted in on cue, helmet crooked, grin wide. “Hey, Coach. Just checking. We cool with spectators now?”
Coach McAvoy didn’t answer. He just stared until Tucker’s grin faded and he pushed off toward the blue line.
Hunter skated past the crease and lifted his mask, sweat running down his neck. “If she’s staying, then I want Holly in here next week.”
The others jumped in on it, each giving their dream guest they wanted to bring to the next practice. Landon leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, voice pitched low enough that it stayed between us. “They’ll get bored. Eventually.”
“Doubtful,” I murmured.
His mouth tipped at one corner. “Still worth it, though, right?”
“If there’s even the slightest chance my holy grail is somewhere in this arena, then yes. Totally worth it.”
On the ice, sticks clacked as the guys gathered pucks and funneled toward the far end.
The mood had shifted since the Winter Classic.
I’d felt it in the stands that day, the way the crowd got behind them, choosing to believe instead of brace for the worst. Whatever they’d dragged back from Dallas had followed them home.
“Hey, Coach,” Grayson called. “Is Cross sitting out this round or what?”
Landon didn’t even turn. “Focus on your faceoffs, Captain.”
That earned a chorus of groans and one very specific insult I chose to pretend I hadn’t heard.
I tucked my hands under my thighs to keep from fidgeting.
My gaze bounced everywhere at once. The anniversary banners hanging from the rafters.
The way the place bore scars up close, puck marks and chipped paint layered on top of each other.
The sound of skates against ice from this angle, deeper and more physical than it ever was from the stands.
Someone fired a puck wide and it smacked the glass behind the bench, vibration rattling through the frame. I flinched and then laughed at myself, earning a glance from Landon that felt pleased and entirely unhelpful.
“This going in your next newsletter?” Mason asked, stopping in front of us again as Landon was getting ready to join the fray.
“Is it that obvious?”
He didn’t know my fan club was exactly one member in total, and I didn’t mind keeping it that way.
“You’re gripping the bench like it might disappear.”
“I waited tables through nursing school,” I said. “This is still better.”
Mason laughed and pushed off, calling over his shoulder, “She’s got jokes, man. Careful.”
They ran through the final set of drills until sweat dripped off them.
I wasn’t aware of time passing, just that I kept pinching myself every few seconds to make sure this was all real.
Then Coach blew his whistle, and pointed toward the locker room.
Helmets came off. Gloves got tossed onto the bench in a scatter that forced me to pull my legs back again.
Landon stood, towering in front of me for a beat, blocking my view of the ice entirely. “You good?”
I looked past him at the emptying rink, at the scrape of the Zamboni door opening, at the last puck rolling to a stop near center.
“I’m more than good,” I said. “I’m never shutting up about this.”
He huffed a laugh and held a hand out without ceremony. I took it, and let him pull me to my feet as the bench cleared and the rink finally exhaled.
The hallway outside the locker room stayed busy even after practice cleared.
Equipment carts rattled past, a trainer ducked into the room with a laundry bin the size of my kitchen.
I stood near the wall where the concrete changed color, counting breaths and pretending I wasn’t crawling out of my skin with excitement.
The door swung open and Landon stepped out, hair still damp but from a shower this time, so he smelled like spring rain. His t-shirt clung across the muscular expanse of his shoulders, followed by a stifling billow of steam that made him look even more ethereal.
I swallowed back the stupid lump in my throat and forced a casual smile. Or at least, I hoped it looked casual. The answer was no, and I had to be fine with that.
“Ready for a treasure hunt?” he asked, hiking his gym bag higher on his shoulder.
“You have no idea.”
He started down the hallway and I fell in step beside him, my stride adjusting to his without thinking about it. The place felt different now that the noise from the rink had faded. Every sound echoed.
“You mentioned a helmet,” he said, turning down a narrower hall. “One that seemingly vanished into thin air.”
My heart kicked. “That about covers it, yeah.”
“Well, it got me thinking about a place I know where things vanish around here.”
He stopped beside an unmarked door wedged between an office—the nameplate read Bob Trent— and a storage cage stacked with sticks. The placard on the mystery door had been peeled off at some point, adhesive still clinging in strips.
“This,” he said, pushing it open, “is where gear and everything else like it goes to think about what it’s done.”
The door needed some force from his shoulder before it gave, and the room fought back immediately. Heat trapped under decades of neglect. Fabric that had never forgiven sweat. I laughed and covered my nose with my sleeve as he flicked on the light.
Racks crowded the walls. Broken sticks, old pads slumped together, a pile of helmets sat in milk crates, visors scratched opaque. The door shut behind us with a click that felt louder than it should have.
“Careful,” he said. “Any move you make is a risk you take to cause an avalanche.”
I shifted sideways and my elbow caught his ribs. He hissed and grabbed my arm to steady himself, fingers warm around my sleeve.
“Sorry,” I said.
“No, that one’s on me.”
We ended up facing the same crate, the space forcing us close. I crouched and started lifting helmets one by one, turning them so I could see the decals.
“I should say something,” I blurted.
He paused, helmet in hand. “Okay.”
“About before. Asking you out.” I kept my eyes on the crate, although I could’ve passed over my holy grail three times over without noticing with the way my heart hammered in my throat. “I get why you said no, and I just wanted to say… no hard feelings. You have a cup run to focus on.”
“That part’s true,” he said.
“I just didn’t want it to be weird.”
“Okay,” he said again, and started digging through a different box.
I risked a glance at the same time he did, and quickly snapped my gaze back to the crate. “Good. Then we’re fine?”
“We’re fine.”
He turned back to the shelves, reaching past me for another crate. His forearm grazed my shoulder as he shifted, unavoidable in the tight space. I tried not to think about it.
“You’re hunting for a white base, the lightning bolt was smaller back then, and only on the left. There’s a crack over the right ear, and his autograph is just above that,” I said.
He gave a small laugh. “I keep forgetting you’re like a Surge encyclopedia.”
“I must be losing my touch,” I said, smiling at nothing in particular. “Usually my obsession is constant and unmistakable.”
He held up a battered helmet, turning it in his hands as he inspected it. “Does your archive include my most humiliating game?”
The question got me to stop what I was doing and look at him. I thought for a moment, then said, “You’ve had a rough game here and there, but you don’t strike me as the type to get embarrassed over it.”
He shook his head slowly, swapping out the helmet for another.
“My first game. We were in Vancouver. A guy up front had been heckling me all game. The usual stupid shit, but he was creative about it. He waited until I’d scored.
My first goal, huge deal. Then when I skated by the glass, he held up a huge poster of my high school yearbook picture.
Dumbass haircut, and a fucking zit on the tip of my nose that was suddenly the size of Connecticut, staring back at me. ”
Laughter rippled out of me. “Oh, my God, I remember that! Brutal.”
“I lost an edge. Took the boards wrong, and my stick went one way, helmet the other.”
“You recovered fine. Scored again at the top of the third,” I said, nudging him with my shoulder. “I’d call that a suitable ‘suck it’ to that guy.”
“Maybe.”
“Don’t argue with me, Cross. I know what I’m talking about.” Our eyes met, and the stale air around us pulled tight. “Your game was all anyone could talk about after, not that stupid picture.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Fuck that guy.” It was clear he’d been holding onto that this whole time, and the relief of finally releasing it bled through his response.
“Playoffs, five years ago,” I said, segueing like a pro as I dug through the crate.
“I waited four hours for warmups because I was convinced if I was close enough and asked nicely, Hunter would toss me a puck. He was the substitute back then, and I figured he was more accessible than the rest of the stars.”
“Did you get it?”
“I got a half-full water bottle with the cap off, tangled in a sweaty towel,” I said, shaking with laughter. “And he told me to hit the merch stand after the game.”
“And he acts like he’s the ultimate nice guy.”
“He winked, which I guess softened the blow. But I was soaked. An usher offered me a poncho.”
His laughter bounced off the mountainous pile boxing us in. “Let me guess— You kept the bottle, towel, and poncho for your collection.”
“Tossed the bottle, framed the towel, and the poncho’s folded away in a cedar chest at the foot of my bed.”
“You’re insane.”
“I prefer passionate, thanks.”
We were both laughing now, forgetting the smell, forgetting the cramped space. I turned toward him mid-sentence and stopped short. He was closer than I expected. Close enough that I could see the faint scar along his jaw.
My fingers brushed the length of it before I knew what I was doing. “Surge vs Flames last year. You caught an elbow from their winger in a hit on the blue line.”
The laughter thinned. His hand lifted, hovering near my waist without quite landing, and I tilted my face as he dipped his. My lips parted with a breath of restrained anticipation, right before a loud scraping sound ripped through the tension.
Landon and I jumped apart, as far apart as the tight squeeze allowed, and we turned to find Holly standing in the doorway.
“Hey, this dump is mine now,” she said, triumph written all over her face. “You lovebirds have to canoodle in another room that smells like death.”
“Oh, we’re not—”
“Who even says canoodle?” Landon shoved his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants, the picture of cool.