CHAPTER 29
Becker
THE DOOR TO Wall and Petrov's cabin might actually splinter under my knuckles if I keep pounding like this, but it's the middle of the night and my give-a-fuck meter broke somewhere between Kane's "I don't think we should do this" and me spending a Sunday walking aimlessly through Colorado woods.
stumbling out of our cabin with half my shit crammed into a duffel bag.
My fist connects with the wood again. And again. And—
"Jesus fucking Christ, I'm coming!" Wall's muffled voice carries through the door. "If someone's not actively dying, they're about to be."
The door swings open to reveal Wall in boxers and a faded Wolves t-shirt, one eye squinted shut like he can't commit to being fully awake.
He takes one look at me—duffle bag slung over my shoulder, eyes probably red-rimmed from definitely not crying, expression probably screaming emotional damage—and his face shifts from annoyed to concerned faster than a line change.
"Can I crash here for a while." It's not even a question. More like a desperate announcement. Before Wall can respond, I add, "I'll sleep on the floor."
Without waiting for permission, I shoulder past him into the cabin like I'm being chased by my feelings. Which, honestly, I am.
The cabin is dark except for a small lamp by Petrov's bunk, where he’s propped up on one elbow, blinking at me with sleep-heavy eyes.
"Are you okay?" Wall asks, shutting the door behind me.
"Yep. Fine. Dandy. Never better." I drop my duffel with a thud that probably wakes up half the camp. "Just peachy."
Petrov leans toward Wall, not bothering to lower his voice. "I don't think he's okay."
"I can hear you, you know?"
"What happened?" Wall asks, crossing to the mini-fridge and pulling out a bottle of water, which he tosses at me.
I catch it one-handed. "Nothing. Just temporarily unhoused." I twist the cap off and chug half the bottle in one go, like it might wash away the image of Kane's face when he said I was a complication.
Wall's eyes narrow. "Wait. Did Kane throw you out?"
Petrov sits up fully now, leaning toward Wall and stage-whispering loud enough for the entire state of Colorado to hear: "I think they broke up."
"I can still hear you!" I throw my hands up, sloshing water over the rim of the bottle. "And we didn't break up because we weren't…anything."
Except we were. We fucking were, and Kane knows it, and I know it, and my heart feels like it's been put through a hockey skate sharpener.
I collapse into the only chair in the room, a rickety wooden thing that creaks ominously under my weight. My head's already pounding like I've been on a three-day bender, which would honestly be preferable to whatever emotional clusterfuck this is.
Wall and Petrov position themselves directly in front of me, folding their arms across their chests in perfect unison and tilting their heads like they share a single brain cell between them. It would be funny if I wasn't busy having an existential crisis.
"Something like that," I admit, rolling my eyes. "But I don't want to talk about it." Wall opens his mouth, and I raise a finger. "We're not talking about it."
"Fine," Wall says, in a tone that suggests he has absolutely zero intention of respecting my boundaries.
He pulls out his phone and starts typing, thumbs flying across the screen. Five seconds later, my phone buzzes in my pocket.
New group chat created: Crisis.
The chat already has eight members—Wall, Petrov, Groover, Mateo, Ace, Washington, Coach, and me.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" I look up at Wall, who has the audacity to look pleased with himself. "This is a shitty thing to do."
"Don't worry," he says, still typing. "We'll do another one with Kane and without you."
"That's worse!" I throw a pillow at his head, which he dodges with goalie reflexes. "That's literally worse in every possible way!"
"You're welcome," Wall says, dropping onto his bunk. "Now, are you going to tell us what happened, or are we going to have to drag it out of Kane tomorrow?"
My stomach twists at the thought of Kane explaining to everyone why I wasn't worth the trouble. Why I was an inconvenience for his precious hockey legacy.
"We had a thing. Now we don't. The end." I unzip my bag and pull out a t-shirt that might work as pajamas. "Now I'd like to go to sleep and pretend this day never happened."
Petrov and Wall exchange a look that says they're not buying my bullshit for a second.
"Fine," Wall says. "But this conversation isn't over."
"It absolutely is," I mutter, arranging my duffel as a makeshift pillow on the floor.
Wall tosses me a spare blanket. "We'll talk in the morning."
"Or never. Never works too."
I curl up on the hard floor, pulling the blanket over my head like it might shield me from the disaster that is my love life. My phone buzzes again.
Wall: Attention. This is an emergency. Operation Fix Becker's Broken Heart now is progress.
Groover: What happened?
Mateo: Are you okay? Is Kane okay?
Washington: Everyone calm down. Becker, do you need anything?
Jesus Christ. It's like being emotionally eviscerated with an audience.
Becker: I NEED EVERYONE TO FUCK OFF AND LET ME SLEEP
I silence my phone and shove it under my makeshift pillow, closing my eyes against the burn of tears I refuse to acknowledge.
Kane's voice echoes in my head: "My career. Without complications."
Fuck him. Fuck his perfect hockey lineage and his robot brain and his abs.
And fuck me for believing, even for a minute, that I was something more than a complication.
***
THE CABIN DOOR slams with the finality of a coffin lid the next morning, Wall's parting "Don't mope yourself to death" still hanging in the air like a bad smell. I flip off the empty room because it makes me feel marginally better, then collapse back onto the bottom bunk that isn't mine.
Fuck breakfast. Fuck the dining hall. Fuck seeing Kane's stupid perfect face across the room pretending I don't exist.
Except now, I have nothing to do with myself.
"Well, this is pathetic," I announce to nobody.
Content. That’s what I can do. Content.
I grab whatever recording setup I managed to stuff into my hastily-packed duffel.
"Ice Cold Takes, broadcasting at you from rock bottom," I mutter, setting up my microphone on Wall's desk. "Today's topic: How to Tell If Your Heart's Been Ripped Out By Someone Who Can't Even Express Normal Human Emotions. Spoiler alert: it fucking hurts."
I take a deep breath. Turn on the mic. Force a smile because listeners can hear that shit even if they can't see it.
"What's up, hockey degenerates? It's your boy Becker, back with another episode of Ice Cold Takes!"
My voice sounds wrong. Too high, too forced. Like I'm doing a bad impression of myself.
"Today we're talking about—" About what? Kane? How he fucked me and then fucked me over? How I still don't understand what happened? How I'm hiding in my teammates' cabin because I can't bear to look at him?
"—about the importance of defensive positioning in the neutral zone."
Jesus Christ. Even I'm boring myself.
I try again. "Actually, let's talk about something more interesting. Like how Gatorade's new flavor 'Frost Glacier Cherry' is just watered-down cough syrup with food coloring. Big Sports Drink thinks we won't notice, but we do. We see you, Gatorade. We see you."
My Gatorade conspiracy theories usually kill. Wall once laughed so hard he shot protein shake out his nose. But today the words fall flat, like I'm reading someone else's script.
"Moving on to team news," I continue mechanically. "Training camp's winding down, last team scrimmage approaching. Should be a good test for our systems, see if all this conditioning pays off or if Coach Martin's just been torturing us for fun."
I pause, subconsciously waiting for Kane to jump in with some stats about our preseason record against Boston over the last five years, or a comment about Coach's sadistic training methods.
But there's just silence.
Because Kane's not here.
Because Kane dumped me.
Because Kane's an emotionally constipated asshole who'd rather listen to his controlling daddy issues than admit he has actual human feelings.
"Fuck," I mutter, forgetting the mic is still on. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
I hit pause, drag my hands down my face, and contemplate throwing my entire setup out the window. Instead, I take another deep breath and hit record again.
"Sorry about that, folks. Technical difficulties. By which I mean my brain is technically having difficulties functioning today."
I laugh, and it sounds hollow even to my own ears.
"So, uh, training camp's been... interesting. Lots of team building. Svetlana the figure skating demon nearly killed half the roster. Wall's still traumatized. Petrov's got a bruise on his face from Wall's elbow. Good times."
I'm rambling. I know I'm rambling. But I can't seem to stop.
"Anyway, Coach says our defensive pairings are looking solid. Me and K—" I catch myself. "Me and my defensive partner have been working on our chemistry. Had some ups and downs."
Understatement of the fucking century.
"Down to the final week now. Roster should be set by Friday, though there's not much suspense there. Maybe one or two changes might sneak in, but the core's pretty locked."
I trail off, staring at the wall. There's a greasy stain that kind of looks like a dick if you squint.
"You know what?" I say suddenly. "I'm gonna keep this one short. Got a lot going on today. Make sure you like and subscribe, and I'll be back with more... whatever this is... soon. Peace out."
I hit stop and immediately drop my head onto the desk with a bang that will probably leave a bruise.
That was the most pathetic podcast episode in the history of audio content. I should delete it and try again when I'm not actively wanting to die. Or at least record something where I don't sound like I'm being held at gunpoint.
I hit play and listen back, cringing through all 12 minutes and 37 seconds of pure auditory torture.
I should definitely not post this. It's a sad, lifeless husk of what my podcast usually is. Without Kane to play off of, without his deadpan humor and surprising insights, it's just me talking to myself. And apparently, I'm really boring when I'm heartbroken.
I hit upload anyway.
Because I'm a professional. Or something.
While it processes, I flop back onto Wall's bed, staring at the underside of Petrov's bunk. There's a sock stuck to the frame. I don't want to know how it got there.
My phone pings with the notification that the upload is complete. I pull it up, expecting maybe a handful of early views from my most dedicated listeners.
Instead, I see 1,547 people already watching.
Comments start flooding in:
Where's Kane?
That was... different. You okay, man?
Where's Kane?
I miss the robot teaching segments
did something happen?
This feels like when my parents got divorced and tried to pretend everything was fine
Where's Kane?
The numbers keep climbing.
Two months ago, I would've lost my shit over this kind of engagement. I would've been texting screenshots to the team group chat, bragging about how my little podcast was finally taking off. I would've been planning merchandise, sponsorship pitches, maybe even a live show.
Now I'm just staring at the numbers climbing higher and higher, feeling absolutely nothing.
No, that's not right. I'm feeling something, and that something is the crushing realization that I don't actually give a shit about how many people listen to me talk about hockey.
I never did. What I cared about was having fun with Kane, making him laugh, watching him slowly let his personality peek through that perfect, professional facade.
I cared about him. Just him.
And now he's gone, and I'm left with a successful podcast I can't even enjoy.
My phone buzzes with a private text:
Groover: That was the saddest thing I've ever heard, and I once watched Petrov try to explain American holidays to his grandmother.
I sigh.
Me: Thanks for the support, asshole.