CHAPTER TWO TWO CAPTAINS, ONE LOFT
Tyler spent the morning after the kiss proving that avoidance could be an elite athletic discipline.
He arrived before sunrise. He dressed while the locker room was nearly empty, stretched in the far corner of the training floor, and kept three teammates between himself and Brock whenever Coach Keller gathered the roster.
If anyone noticed the faint scrape beside Tyler’s mouth, they had the survival instinct not to mention it.
Brock arrived six minutes late wearing a black knit cap and the same expression he used before blocking a shot.
His lower lip was split.
Tyler looked away so quickly that the young center beside him followed his gaze, apparently expecting something interesting on the opposite wall.
“Today is the Captain’s Gauntlet,” Keller announced.
“Seven events. Hockey intelligence, conditioning, communication, leadership, pressure decisions, community knowledge, and one final on-ice test. This is not a popularity contest. It is not a beauty pageant.” His eyes found Tyler.
“And despite what certain people appear to believe, it is not foreplay.”
Laughter moved through the room.
Tyler folded his arms. Across the circle, Brock’s mouth twitched once.
The first event was film analysis. Tyler identified a weak-side passing lane before the clip stopped. Brock recognized the defensive rotation that created it. Their answers landed at the same instant.
The second was a conditioning relay. Tyler built a lead through the turns; Brock erased it by dragging the weighted sled as if personally offended by gravity. They finished shoulder to shoulder.
In the communication test, each man had to guide a blindfolded rookie through an obstacle course. Tyler used precise instructions and ruthless efficiency. Brock spoke less, but every word calmed the nervous defenseman under his care. Both rookies crossed without touching a barrier.
By noon, the scoreboard read HAYES 18, LAWSON 18.
“This feels familiar,” Brock said when they met at the water station.
It was the first thing he had said directly to Tyler all day.
Tyler kept his attention on the bottle in his hand. “You mean you’re falling behind and pretending it’s a tie?”
“I mean your mouth keeps creating situations your body has to survive.”
The memory of lockers against Tyler’s back arrived with dangerous clarity. He drank too quickly and nearly choked.
Brock took the bottle from Tyler’s hand, finished the remaining water, and set it down.
His gaze stayed on Tyler’s face the entire time.
The afternoon turned worse.
They tied on the pressure interview after Tyler redirected a hostile question with polished charm and Brock silenced another with an answer so honest the media consultant forgot to follow up.
They tied the community test because Brock knew every neighborhood rink in Milwaukee while Tyler had memorized the charity portfolio overnight.
In the leadership drill, each captained a group of prospects through a deliberately impossible practice.
Tyler made his players faster. Brock made his believe they could endure anything.
Keller awarded both men full points.
The final event took place beneath dimmed arena lights. One puck. One defender. One chance to score, followed by one chance to prevent the other man from doing the same.
Tyler went first.
Brock waited at the blue line in full gear, broad and motionless. Tyler circled at center ice, gathered speed, and attacked. He sold the outside route. Brock shifted with him. Tyler pulled the puck behind one skate and cut toward the middle.
Brock’s shoulder met his chest.
The impact knocked Tyler sideways, but he kept his edge. He reached around Brock with one hand and released a blind backhand shot while falling.
The puck slid inside the far post.
Tyler landed hard and looked up from the ice.
Brock stood over him.
For one fevered second, the previous night existed between them again: the pin, the demand, the kiss neither had been able to stop.
Then Brock extended his glove.
Tyler accepted it.
On Brock’s attempt, Tyler defended with speed instead of force.
Brock carried the puck wide, protected it against the boards, and leaned into Tyler until the pressure became nearly unbearable.
Tyler tried to lift his stick. Brock rolled away at the final moment and snapped the puck beneath the goaltender’s blocker.
Goal.
The final score remained tied.
Keller stared at the tablet as if considering whether he could legally trade both of them before opening night.
“Fine,” he said at last. “You want to be inseparable? Congratulations. The Milwaukee Frost has two captains.”
The room erupted.
Teammates hammered sticks against the boards. A photographer ran onto the bench. An equipment manager appeared with two black jerseys, each bearing a white C above the wolf crest.
Tyler accepted his while Brock accepted the other.
Pride struck deeper than Tyler expected.
He had worn an alternate’s letter in Boston, stood beside captains in playoff rooms, and learned how much responsibility could fit inside one small piece of stitched fabric.
This was different. Milwaukee had chosen him before the franchise had played a game.
He looked at Brock.
The older man ran one rough thumb over the letter. His face had gone unusually still.
Tyler understood. For Brock, the C did not represent a new city or a second chance. It represented home.
Their eyes met.
The rivalry did not disappear. Something more inconvenient joined it.
Respect.
“Don’t make me regret this,” Keller told them.
“Which one of us?” Tyler asked.
“Yes.”
The housing surprise arrived twenty minutes later.
Mara Singh, the Frost’s director of player services, intercepted them outside the locker room with two sets of keys and the pleasant determination of someone accustomed to solving problems for men twice her size.
“The club secured temporary residences for players still relocating,” she explained. “The sponsor properties weren’t completed on schedule, so we consolidated. You two have the captain’s unit.”
Tyler examined the brass key fob. FROST HOUSE had been engraved beneath the team logo.
“Unit?”
“Converted brewery loft. Historic Third Ward. Two bedroom suites, private gym, secure garage, rooftop access.”
“Two suites,” Tyler repeated.
“And one shared kitchen, one living space, one film room, and one recovery area.”
Brock’s shoulder brushed Tyler’s. “Sounds cozy.”
Tyler handed the key back. “Find me a hotel.”
Mara did not take it. “Every executive hotel downtown is full for the medical technology convention. The team needs both captains accessible during launch week. Security has already been arranged. The lease is for six months.”
“Six months?”
“You may request reassignment after thirty days.”
Brock hooked his key around one finger. “I can behave for thirty days.”
Tyler looked at the split in Brock’s lip.
“History suggests otherwise.”
“History suggests you like that.”
Mara’s professional smile did not change. “The moving service arrives at four.”
The loft occupied the top floor of a nineteenth-century brewery warehouse three blocks from the river.
Cream City brick surrounded enormous industrial windows.
Timber beams crossed a ceiling high enough for a church, and copper brewing pipes had been preserved along one wall like sculpture.
The furniture was new, expensive, and chosen in shades of charcoal, leather, and steel that made the place resemble a luxury advertisement directed exclusively at men who owned axes.
Tyler entered carrying one garment bag and stopped beneath a restored grain chute.
“Subtle,” he said.
Brock came in behind him with two duffels and a cardboard box marked KITCHEN. “You expected lace?”
“I expected walls.”
The bedrooms stood at opposite ends of the main floor, each enclosed by brick and smoked glass.
Between them stretched an open kitchen, sunken living room, and a gym surrounded by clear glass panels.
Beyond the gym was a recovery suite with a cedar sauna and an enormous shower large enough for an entire forward line.
Tyler looked at the shower, then at Brock.
Brock was already watching him.
Neither mentioned the locker room.
A steel staircase led from the living room to the roof.
Tyler climbed it while the movers argued downstairs about the safest way to carry Brock’s tool chest. Evening had lowered over the Third Ward, turning the brick warehouses copper and the river black.
Restaurant lights glowed beneath striped awnings.
Farther east, Lake Michigan erased the horizon.
Tyler braced both hands on the railing.
Boston had never looked like this. Neither had any of the cities where hockey had briefly made him valuable.
He knew hotel skylines, service entrances, private dining rooms, and the anonymous ceilings above rented beds.
He knew how to arrive with three suitcases and leave with two hours’ notice.
He had spent his adult life calling wherever he played home because admitting otherwise felt ungrateful.
The roof door opened behind him.
Brock stepped outside carrying two bottles of water. He offered one without speaking.
Tyler accepted it. “You always follow people onto roofs?”
“Only when they look like they’re pricing the drop.”
“I was admiring the view.”
Brock rested his forearms on the railing. “That’s the Hoan Bridge. Summerfest grounds beyond it. My dad’s machine shop used to be six blocks west, before the condos came. First place I learned to skate was a flooded lot near Mitchell Street.”
“You really are offensively local.”
“You really aren’t.”
The answer should have sounded like an insult. It did not.
Tyler turned the unopened bottle between his palms. “I go where I’m under contract.”
“That why you haven’t unpacked?”
“I unpacked.”
“You arranged things so they’re easy to repack.”
Tyler glanced at him. Brock continued watching the river, offering the observation without demanding an explanation.