1. Tristan
TRISTAN
T he rink is freezing, the kind of cold that cuts deeper than skin and seeps into your bones.
I usually love it. It makes me feel alive, and it helps keep me awake.
I don’t need that today because I had the best night of sleep I’ve had in months.
Since the last time I was too exhausted to push Winter away again.
I have loved Winter LeBlanc since the very moment I saw her. She’s it for me, the only thing that will ever matter, and she deserves so much fucking more than I can ever give her. I broke her, hurt her, and she’s still the kindest, sweetest human on this planet.
Every inhale burns sharp in my lungs, nostrils stinging with the raw bite of ice.
The scrape of skates ricochets around the boards, and I’m ready to snap ankles even though the guys are just doing what they’re supposed to.
I always feel this way after spending the night next to Winter, like I could fucking kill everyone on the planet because we’re apart again.
Shouts echo from the bench, stick taps bouncing hollow off the sides, and I catch Coach Kav’s eyes.
He looks as done as I do, and I can only hope he starts threatening to cut anyone who makes any unnecessary noise.
My gear weighs on me, sweat slicking beneath the pads even though the air is frigid.
Hockey is a distraction, to give me something to do besides pester Winter.
And the fights don’t hurt either, since I’m always ready to swing on someone, anyway.
My only other hobby is following Winter everywhere she goes and watching everything she does.
She’s always safe now, and I’ll make sure she always is.
She doesn’t fight me on any of it because she knows I’m just looking out for her.
When Hayden’s girl, Madi, was being stalked, Winter didn’t argue when I said I wanted to have a tracker put in her neck.
I didn’t have to lie to her or trick her, she let me hold her while my cousin Ramsey inserted the tracker.
She did flinch though, which made me livid, so I punched him.
He was mad, and she gently told me that I can’t ask people to help me and then physically fight them. Which is where we agree to disagree.
Winter’s only request was that I get a tracker too, and I was happy to do that for her.
She knows where I am at all times, and there’s something comforting in that.
All the bullshit is behind us now, so it’s not like we’ve needed the trackers.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t check it throughout the day, and often.
It’s the first practice of senior year, and we’re doing a little practice game against St. Charles again.
Coach Kav and Coach King go way back apparently, so this is their way of teaming up against the other colleges in our division.
They care way more than we ever will, and they’re lucky that we happen to be naturally good at this sport.
Because I put zero effort into any of this, and Coach Kav still hasn’t gotten used to the fact that I will just walk off the ice if I’m not feeling it.
What is he going to do? Absolutely nothing.
I crouch low in the crease, mask down, stick angled, vision narrowed to nothing but the black disk that dares to enter my zone.
This rectangle of blue paint is mine. A fortress.
A cage. Call it whatever the fuck you want.
Nobody gets through me…unless I want them to.
A flash burns through me from last night, Winter’s small frame pressed into mine.
My face buried against her chest, her hand sliding into my hair, stroking until the tremors eased out of me.
I can still feel the steady thud of her heart under my cheek.
Shame twists with craving. I hate needing her like that.
Hate the weakness I show her and only her.
But the truth? I need her. She’s the only one who doesn’t look at me like I’m broken beyond repair.
She touches me without fear, without hesitation, and it undoes me every single time.
She looks at me like I’m still human when I know I’m not.
I truly believe in my heart that I’d die if it wasn’t for her.
I don’t know how to breathe without her anymore, and I don’t want to learn.
If it’s not Winter, I don’t fucking want it.
A crack of impact. The puck rockets off a stick, screaming toward me.
Smack. My left pad kicks it out like it’s nothing.
My body knows what to do, always has. Drop into butterfly, shoulders tight, glove up and square.
Angles perfect. Rebound cleared. Even when my head’s fucked, my body protects the net so it seems.
Hayden’s bark carries across the sheet, sharp and commanding.
I don’t know what the fuck he’s doing right now, but judging by the way Coach Kav and Coach King are waving their clipboards in the most exasperated way, tells me it’s not playing hockey.
Whatever it is, no doubt, has something to do with the blonde-haired princess he calls his wife.
They’re not married yet, but we don’t correct him because he threw a kitchen chair at Callum once for that very thing.
Lilac, Callum’s girl, resorted to a rewards system in our kitchen.
One week of no “incidents” as she calls them, and we get some kind of baked treat from Callum’s grandmother’s recipes.
This keeps Callum in line, I don’t give a shit, and Hayden’s still crashing out the same amount.
The house is undecided if this system works.
Whatever is going on with Hayden right now has to do with number twenty-seven on the Spartans team.
He’s circling him like a shark circles a bleeding surfer.
Callum’s already grinning like an asshole, chirping at the guy and flashing that cocky smile that makes people want to break his teeth.
Good. Let them focus on him. Let them hate him.
He thrives on it, and I thrive on the distraction it gives me.
My mind drifts anyway. Back to Winter. Back to the day she first walked into my house.
She was tiny, quiet, hair long and black trailing down her back.
She’d been shuffled from one shitty foster home to another, and when she stood there on our porch, something inside me clicked.
Like magnets snapping together. I’d never felt that before.
Not even with Sebastian, my twin, the other half of me who’s supposed to understand everything I am.
But she…she just fit. One look at her, and I knew I’d never let anyone take her from me. Not if they wanted to live.
The slap of stick against puck yanks me back into now.
Another shot on goal. I drop low, hips snapping down, pads slamming into the ice with a crack that I feel jolt through my bones.
The sting rushes up my legs, pain blooming hot in my knees, but it’s the kind of pain I live for.
Denying them. Denying every attempt, every challenge.
The puck ricochets off my blocker and skitters into the corner.
Hayden scoops it, drives up the ice with such a predatory glide.
Callum cuts across the blue line, jawing at the defenseman, laughing as he pulls them out of position.
Hayden skates past my crease and playfully chirps at me, “I’m about to beat someone’s ass, you’re welcome for the show you’re about to receive.”
Against my better judgment, I deadpan, “Why?” I don’t need to know who, clearly he’s marked his opponent who is currently doing everything he can to stay out of Callum and Hayden’s way.
“Number twenty-seven wants to die, so I’m giving him his wish,” Hayden lazily circles my net and waves off Coach when he screams his name and tells him to get back in the game.
“Madi has some social accounts for her business,” he tells me.
She makes hockey jerseys, hoodies, and I think Winter said she’s expanding into hair shit or something.
I don’t fucking know, I just know that every time I see her, she’s got pink fabric draped all over the house.
“You’re going to have to connect the dots, bud,” I tell him as he leans on my post, and Coach Kav is yelling time-out and Coach King is blowing that stupid fucking whistle of his.
“He thought it would be funny to comment on one of the pictures asking her if she’d model it for him,” Hayden spits out the words.
As much as it pains me to side with Hayden on literally anything because he’s a certified wackadoo, I’d kill that fucking guy too.
I don’t get to express that thought because the guy with a death wish is trying to sneak off the ice, and Hayden clocks it.
“Hey! Time-out doesn’t mean leave the ice, asshole.
Get over here so I can beat the fuck out of you! ”
Now everyone is yelling, and it’s seconds before Hayden’s got his gloves and helmet off and practically dives on the guy. Write stupid comments, win stupid prizes, I guess.
I make the executive decision to call the practice a wash at this point.
There’s no way Kav or King will be able to bring this down from whatever level of fuckery this is.
Callum is fighting my cousin Ramsey, and no one will ever know if they’re doing it for fun or if Ramsey is just tired of Callum and Hayden turning our practices into a circus sideshow.