CHAPTER 11
Kane
"—AND THAT'S WHY I'm never letting you near audio equipment unsupervised again," I say into the microphone, and Becker's laugh is genuine enough that I feel something warm settle in my chest.
"Fair," he concedes. "Though in my defense, who expects a PA system to be connected to everything? That's just poor infrastructure planning, if you asked me."
We’re on the easy part now. Addressing my father’s drama was neat, concise, and took exactly seven and a half minutes—yes, I timed it—which is about twice as long as I was willing to talk about it.
"No one asked you. Also, most people check before broadcasting their inner monologue to the entire facility."
"Most people are boring." Becker leans back in his chair—my chair, technically, since we're recording at my desk because his side of the cabin looks like a tornado hit a sporting goods store. "But you know what? I'm glad it happened."
I raise an eyebrow at him. "You're glad you accidentally humiliated me in front everybody?"
"Well, when you put it like that, I sound like an asshole." He grins. "But yeah. Because otherwise we wouldn't be here, doing this, and you'd still be giving press conferences that make tax preparation look exciting."
"I don't sound like—" I catch myself, remembering we're recording. "You know what? I'm not taking the bait."
"Character growth. I'm so proud." He glances at his laptop screen, checking the time.
"Alright, folks, that's our time. Thanks for sticking with us through this absolute shitshow of a week.
Kane and I are going to try not to kill each other for the remaining days of training camp, and if we succeed, we'll be back with more content that's hopefully less disaster-adjacent. "
"No promises," I add.
"No promises," Becker agrees. "This is Ice Hot Takes, reminding you that even hockey players are just people who occasionally fuck up spectacularly and have to apologize on the internet about it." He reaches for his laptop. "We're out. Peace."
The recording light blinks off.
Becker immediately moves to save the file, his fingers flying over the keyboard. "Okay, so I'll just edit out that one part where you sneezed directly into the mic—"
"We're not editing it."
His hands freeze. "What?"
"You heard me." I stand up, stretching my back. We've been sitting here for forty-five minutes, and my spine is protesting. "No editing. We post it as is."
"Kane." He swivels in the chair to face me. "You sneezed. Loudly. It sounded like a baby elephant dying."
"Then people will know I'm human." I cross my arms. "Isn't that the whole point? Being authentic?"
"Authentic doesn't mean we can't make you sound like you don't have tuberculosis." But he's fighting a smile.
"Post it. Now. Before I change my mind."
"You're not even going to listen to it first?" He looks scandalized. "Kane. Jayden. You always listen back. You made me repeat that seventeen times yesterday."
"That was different." I lean against the desk, looking down at him. "This was just us talking. Either it works or it doesn't."
He studies my face like he's trying to figure out if I've been possessed. "Who are you and what have you done with the Hockey Robot?"
"I'm trying to be less robotic. Isn't that what you wanted?"
"I—yeah, but—" He shakes his head, laughing. "Fine. Fuck it. The worst has already happened, right? What's one more disaster?"
"That's the spirit."
He pulls up the upload screen, his cursor hovering over the publish button. "Last chance to back out."
"Do it."
"Your funeral." He clicks.
The progress bar fills agonizingly slowly—the wifi out here is shit, which is probably intentional on Cap's part—and we both just stand there, watching it like it's a bomb countdown.
76%... 82%... 91%...
"What if everyone hates it?" I ask, and I'm not sure why I'm asking him, of all people.
"Then we'll hate it together." He glances up at me. "But they won't. We were good."
98%...
"We were, weren't we?"
100%. Upload complete.
"Fuck," we say in unison.
Becker refreshes the page. Zero views. He refreshes again. Twelve views.
"Your mom's on it," I observe, spotting the first comment.
"Both my parents, probably. And my sister. She made, like, four accounts to boost my numbers when I first started." He keeps refreshing compulsively. Forty-three views. Eighty-nine. Two hundred and six.
My phone buzzes. Then his. Then mine again.
"It's happening," Becker says, and he sounds somewhere between terrified and exhilarated. "Oh god, it's happening."
I pull up my phone. The team group chat is already exploding.
Cody: Not great. Not terrible.
Petrov: Is very good! You sound like real people!
Ace: Kane, your elephant sneeze is already a meme
Wall: I'm almost impressed
Petrov: Almost?
Wall: Don't want to inflate their egos
Ace: Too late, Beck's ego is already the size of the rink
Becker: Can confirm
Becker: Wait, there's a MEME?
Ace: [image attached: my face mid-sneeze with the caption "When you try to be authentic but your sinuses have other plans"]
I look at the image. It's horrifying. I'm showing approximately fourteen teeth and both my eyes are closed.
"I hate everything," I announce.
"Welcome to internet fame." Becker's refreshing the view count again. Twenty thousand. "Holy shit. Holy shit, Kane."
My phone buzzes with a text outside the group chat.
Dad: We need to talk. In person.
The warm feeling in my chest evaporates instantly. I show Becker the screen.
He reads it, his expression shifting. "Are you going to respond?"
"Not yet." I pocket my phone. "Let him sit with it."
"Bold strategy."
"Learned from the best." I look at him. "The best at avoiding things, that is."
His mouth drops open in mock outrage. "Hey! I take offense to that accurate assessment of my character."
"If it helps, you're also really good at creating problems for yourself."
"It doesn't help, but I appreciate the consistency." He checks his laptop again. "Fifty thousand views. Jesus Christ."
"Is that good?"
"Good? My average episode gets maybe ten thousand if I'm lucky. This is—" He runs his hands through his hair, making it stick up in seventeen directions. "This is bananas."
"Check the comments."
He pulls up the comments section, scrolling rapidly. His eyes go wide. "Oh."
"What?"
"They're... nice?" He sounds confused.
I lean over his shoulder to read.
This is mature and honest. Good for both of you.
Kane seems like a genuinely good guy. Hope his dad backs off.
Becker taking accountability is refreshing. More athletes should do this.
#HockeyDadsAreTheWorst but Kane handled it really well.
And then:
These two have great chemistry. Not gonna lie, I'm shipping it.
"Shipping it?" I ask.
"Don't worry about it." He scrolls faster, his ears going red. "Internet weirdness. Occupational hazard."
My phone buzzes again. ESPN notification: "Wolves Players Address Family Drama with Maturity and Humor."
"We made ESPN," I say, slightly dazed.
"We made—" Becker pulls up his own phone, reading the article.
The view count hits one hundred thousand.
"I need to sit down," Becker says.
"You're already sitting."
"I need to sit down more." But he's grinning, this huge, uncontrolled grin that transforms his entire face. "We did it. We actually did it."
"We did."
He looks up at me, and there's something…unusual in his expression. "You did it. You stood up to your father. Publicly."
"We'll see if it actually changes anything."
"It will." He says it with such certainty that I almost believe him.
The view count hits two hundred thousand.
My phone won't stop buzzing.
***
Becker
THE ENERGY DURING dinner is completely different from the last night. People are actually smiling. Laughing. Not walking on eggshells around Kane and me like we're unexploded ordnance.
We grab food—some kind of chicken situation that's probably healthy but tastes like cardboard, plus vegetables that I'm legally required to eat as a professional athlete—and head for a table where Wall, Petrov, and Ace are already sitting.
"The heroes return," Wall says as we sit down. "How's it feel to be internet famous?"
"Terrifying," Kane says. "My mentions are a nightmare."
"Is because you sneezed like dying moose," Petrov offers helpfully. "Very memorable."
Kane puts his head in his hands. "I'm never sneezing again."
"Good luck with that," Ace says. "Devon showed me the memes. There are at least forty variations already."
"Forty," Kane repeats, his voice muffled by his palms.
"My personal favorite is the one where they edited it into the 'Jurassic Park' T-Rex roar scene," Wall adds. "Really captures the raw power."
I'm trying not to laugh—I am! I swear!—but it's a losing battle. Kane looks up just in a fighting mode.
"You think this is funny."
"I think it's hilarious."
"Traitor."
"You're the one who said no editing!" I protest. "I told you we should cut the sneeze!"
"You two might actually survive the rest of camp without killing each other," Wall observes, cutting into his chicken with surgical precision. "I'm shocked."
"Does this mean we have to pay up on the bet?" Petrov asks Ace.
Ace shakes his head. "Nope. Bet was about them hooking up, not about them becoming friends."
I choke on my water. Kane goes very still beside me.
"We can hear you," I manage once I stop coughing.
Kane's face is doing something complicated—red creeping up his neck, jaw tight. "Do you ever stop talking about our personal lives?"
"Absolutely not," Wall says. "It's the best entertainment we have."
Groover and Mateo appear at our table, trays in hand. "Mind if we join the circus?"
"Please," I say. "Maybe you can talk some sense into these degenerates."
"Unlikely," Mateo says cheerfully, sitting down. "I've been trying for months. It doesn't take."
"Welcome to being a Wolves couple," Groover tells Kane. "Even when you're not actually a couple. They had a betting pool about us too."
"Three betting pools," Mateo corrects. "One for if we'd get together, one for when, and one for how."
"How?" Kane looks horrified.
"Don't ask," Groover advises. "The answer will only upset you."
"I won two of the three," Wall says smugly.
"That's because you cheated," Ace argues. "You asked Mateo directly."
"That's not cheating. That's research."
Petrov leans toward Kane conspiratorially. "Is okay. They also bet on everything else. Last week, there was bet about whether Cap could eat entire pizza in one sitting."
"Well…could he?" I ask, because I need to know.
"Seventeen minutes," Petrov says reverently. "Made a hundred."
The conversation dissolves into chaos—arguments about pizza-eating records, someone's terrible taste in music, whether Ace's goal last season was actually offsides (it was, but don't tell him that). Kane's shoulders gradually relax, and by the time we're clearing our trays, he's actually smiling.
We walk back to Cabin 12 under a sky full of stars that you'd never see in Chicago. The mountain air is cold enough that I can see my breath, and the only sounds are our footsteps and some distant bird that's apparently nocturnal and possibly having an existential crisis based on its shrieking.
"Today was good," I say, because someone needs to acknowledge it.
"Yeah." He’s looking up at the stars, his profile sharp against the darkness. "It was."
"Think your dad will back off now?"
He's quiet for a long moment. "Honestly? No. But at least I stood up to him publicly. That's something."
"For what it's worth?" I glance at him. "I'm proud of you."
He stops walking, turning to face me with an expression I can't quite read. "Thanks."
The moment stretches. We're standing in the middle of the path, close enough that I can see the rise and fall of his chest, the way his breath mists in the cold air.
"We should—" I gesture toward the cabin.
"Right. Yeah."
We reach Cabin 12, and both of us hesitate outside the door like we're afraid that going inside will break whatever weird spell the day has cast.
"So we're good?" I ask. "Actually good?"
"We're good."
"Cool. Because I'm running out of top bunk jokes."
His mouth quirks. "Don't worry. I have plenty of annoying podcaster jokes left."
"I look forward to hating all of them."
Inside, the cabin feels different. Less like a battleground, more like... just a room. Where two people happen to be living. Without wanting to murder each other.
Progress.
I'm halfway through changing into sleep clothes—because I sleep in clothes now, apparently, since the night I woke up to find Kane staring at the ceiling with the kind of expression that suggested he was contemplating either murder or a mental breakdown—when Kane says my name.
"Riley?"
"Yeah?"
He's sitting on the edge of his bunk, hands clasped between his knees. "Yesterday. In the equipment room. When we were arguing."
I swallow. "What about it?"
He looks up, meets my eyes. Opens his mouth. Closes it.
"Nothing," he says finally. "Never mind."
But I know exactly what he was going to say.
Because I've been thinking about it too.