Chapter 4
Cameron
Discipline is not a switch you flip. It is a muscle you tear, over and over again, until the scar tissue forms a suit of armor that nothing can penetrate.
I was usually good at the armor. I was the Wall. I was the unshakeable force in the crease, the guy who tracked a puck moving at ninety miles an hour through a screen of three bodies without blinking.
But today, the armor felt like tin foil.
"Vance! Where is your head?"
Coach Miller’s voice boomed across the ice, echoing off the rafters of the empty arena like a gunshot.
I was on my knees in the butterfly position, my chest heaving, sweat stinging my eyes inside the mask. Behind me, the red light of the goal lamp was still spinning—a phantom mockery of my failure.
I had missed it. A simple glove-side wrister from a freshman walk-on. It had sailed right past my ear, a whisper of rubber and air, and hit the twine with a sickening thwack.
I stood up, slamming my stick against the crossbar. The composite shaft vibrated in my hands, a jarring shock that traveled up my arms and settled in my teeth.
"Run it again," I snarled, my voice muffled by the plastic cage.
"That's enough, Cameron," Coach Miller skated over, blowing his whistle. "Practice was over ten minutes ago. Get off the ice."
"I missed it," I argued, my breath fogging the visor. "I was slow. My reaction time is lagging by point-four seconds. Run it again."
Miller stopped in front of me. He was a short man with a face like a dried apple and eyes that missed nothing. He looked at me—really looked at me—through the bars of my mask.
"You're not slow, Vance. You're distracted," Miller said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous register. "I saw you at the Gala last night. You spent a lot of time on the balcony. And you spent a lot of time glaring at Trip Halloway like you wanted to peel his skin off."
I went rigid. "I was handling a situation."
"You are the Captain," Miller said. "You don't handle situations. You prevent them. The scouts are coming on Friday, Cameron. Montreal. Chicago. The big show. They don't just look at your save percentage. They look at your head. They want to know if you can handle the pressure."
He tapped the side of his own head.
"Right now? You look like a bomb waiting for a match. Go hit the showers. Go home. Fix whatever is rattling inside that skull of yours. Because if you play like this on Friday, you can kiss the first round goodbye."
He skated away, leaving me alone in the crease.
I stood there for a long moment, listening to the hum of the compressors. I closed my eyes.
Immediately, she was there.
Camila.
Not the loud, bratty girl at the bar. But the girl on the balcony. The way her lips had parted. The way her pupils had blown wide, swallowing the green until her eyes were black pools of want. The way she had shivered when I put my jacket over her shoulders.
I could still feel the phantom heat of her skin under my hand when I touched the small of her back. It was a burn that ice couldn't soothe.
"Fuck," I whispered.
I skated to the bench, my movements jerky and aggressive. I hated this. I hated losing control. I hated that a girl—that girl—had managed to burrow under my skin in less than twenty-four hours.
I stripped off my gear in the locker room with violent efficiency. Unclip. Rip. Throw.
My phone buzzed on the wooden bench.
I froze. My heart, which had been slowing down, kicked back into high gear.
It wasn't Camila. It was the specific ringtone I had assigned to the one person capable of destroying my life faster than any girl ever could.
Mother.
I stared at the screen. The name flashed like a warning sign. Don't answer. Don't engage.
I answered.
"Hello, Mother."
"Cameron!" Her voice was shrill, breathless. I could hear the wind in the background, and the distinctive sound of traffic. She was outside. "Cameron, baby, I need... I need a favor."
My hand gripped the phone so hard the metal casing groaned. "Where are you? Are you at the facility?"
"The facility was suffocating, Cam," she said, her voice speeding up. "They were so controlling. Just like you. I left. I'm... I'm in Boston. But my wallet... someone took it. I need a transfer. Just a few thousand. To get a hotel. To get set up."
A few thousand. For a hotel. Or for a bender that would leave her in a hospital or a morgue.
I closed my eyes, leaning my forehead against the cool metal of the locker. The old shame washed over me—the smell of cat litter and stale smoke, the piles of newspapers blocking the hallway, the nights I spent guarding the door with a hockey stick because she forgot to lock it.
"Go back to the facility, Mom," I said, my voice dead. "I'll pay for the Uber. I'll pay for the readmission. But I am not sending you cash."
"You ungrateful little shit!" The switch was instant. "After everything I did for you? You think you're so better than me with your fancy school and your millions? You're just like your father. Cold. Dead inside."
"I'm hanging up now," I said.
"If you hang up, I'm coming there!" she screamed. "I'll come to Wickfield! I'll come to your game! I'll tell everyone what a—"
I ended the call.
I blocked the number. Again.
I sat on the bench, half-dressed, staring at the concrete floor. The silence of the locker room was deafening.
My chest felt tight. My hands were shaking. Not from the cold. From the chaos. It was clawing at the door, trying to get in. My mother. The draft. The pressure. And now, Camila Sterling living in my house, another unpredictable element in a life that required absolute precision.
I needed order. I needed to clean something. I needed to organize.
I grabbed my bag and stormed out.
The drive home was a blur. I didn't listen to a podcast. I didn't listen to music. I just listened to the blood rushing in my ears.
When I unlocked the door to the penthouse, I was ready for war.
If there was a single shoe in the hallway... if there was a dish in the sink... if she had moved a coaster three inches to the left... I was going to evict her. I was going to throw her and her pink trunk out into the snow and reclaim my sanctuary.
I pushed the door open.
"Camila!" I barked, stepping into the foyer.
Silence.
No music. No TV.
I walked into the living room. It was spotless. The marble island was gleaming. The pillows on the couch were chopped and fluffed exactly how I liked them.
I stopped, the adrenaline curdling in my veins with nowhere to go.
"Camila?" I called again, quieter this time.
A soft sound came from the direction of the dining table—a nook nestled by the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the grey afternoon.
I walked around the corner.
She was there.
She was wearing one of my grey hoodies. It was so big on her that her hands were completely swallowed by the sleeves. Her hair was pulled up in a messy bun, held together by sheer willpower and a pencil.
She was surrounded by a fortress of books. Heavy, thick textbooks. Art History. Museum Curatorship. European Economics.
And she was crying.
Not the loud, dramatic sobbing she had done at the bar. This was silent, painful weeping. Her shoulders were shaking. Her head was bowed over a notebook, and tears were dripping onto the page, smearing the ink.
The anger drained out of me instantly, replaced by a strange, hollow ache in my chest.
I had expected the Brat. I had expected the Party Girl.
I hadn't expected this.
I walked over to the table. My socks made no sound on the floor, but she must have sensed me. She stiffened, quickly wiping her cheeks with the oversized sleeves of my hoodie.
"I didn't hear you come in," she said, her voice thick and watery. She didn't look up. "Don't worry. I didn't touch the thermostat. And the kitchen is clean."
"I see that," I said.
I looked down at the notebook. It was a mess of diagrams and equations. Financial forecasting for non-profits.
"What is this?" I asked.
"It's nothing," she sniffed, closing the book. "Just homework."
"You're crying over homework," I stated.
She finally looked up at me. Her eyes were red-rimmed, the hazel irises swimming in tears. She looked exhausted. She looked young.
"I'm failing, okay?" she snapped, though it lacked her usual heat. "I'm failing the Museum Management module. I can do the art part. I can tell you the difference between a Monet and a Manet from fifty paces. I can write a twenty-page essay on the brushstrokes of the Renaissance. But this..."
She gestured helplessly to the stack of books.
"Budgets. Grant proposals. Endowment forecasting. It's like reading Greek. I don't get it. And if I fail this class, I lose my credits. If I lose my credits, I can't graduate. If I can't graduate, I can't get a job at a gallery. And if I can't get a job..."
Her voice broke. She took a shuddering breath.
"Then I really am just useless. Just a pretty face with a rich daddy who doesn't want her anymore."
She buried her face in her hands.
I stood there, watching her unravel.
It was a mirror. A terrifying, cracked mirror.
She was terrified of failing. She was terrified that without her external validation (money, status), she was nothing.
Just like I was terrified that without hockey, without perfection, I was just the poor kid with the junkie mom.
We were the same. We were both frauds running as fast as we could to keep the world from finding out.
I pulled out the chair next to her. The scrape of wood on concrete was loud in the quiet room.
I sat down.
"Move your hand," I said.
She peeked through her fingers. "What?"
"Move your hand. Let me see the problem."
She slowly lowered her hands. She looked confused, wary. She slid the notebook toward me.
I looked at the equation she had been wrestling with. It was an endowment yield calculation. Basic compound interest mixed with operational overhead.
"You're carrying the decimal in the wrong place," I said, pointing to the line where the ink was smeared. "And you're calculating the gross yield, not the net. You forgot to subtract the administrative costs."
She blinked. "The what?"