Chapter 36 Todd
THIRTY-SIX
TODD
By the time we pull into the rink parking lot, it’s almost full. The sharp bite of winter air hits my face as soon as I step out of the Jeep, the kind that usually wakes me up before early practice. Today, it just reminds me how late we are.
Logan jogs ahead a few steps. He throws me a look, half amusement, half challenge. “You planning to move or just stand there looking guilty?”
I huff out a laugh and follow him inside. “Pretty sure I can multitask.”
Most of the guys are already on the ice when we walk in. The slap of pucks against boards, the low rumble of laughter—it all hums together into the kind of noise I didn’t realize I missed until now.
It’s not tense. Not awkward. Just… normal.
I keep my head down as we drop our bags in the locker room, trading my clothes for gear and my sneakers for skates. Logan nudges me with his shoulder. “You good?”
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “Feels weird being back after yesterday.”
He hums in agreement, eyes flicking toward the rink. “Then let’s make it un-weird.”
The second my blades hit the ice, muscle memory takes over.
The cold rush underfoot, the clean bite of steel—it’s grounding.
I take a slow lap, nodding to a few teammates as I pass.
Nobody stares too long. A couple of them clap sticks against the boards when I skate by, easy and wordless, and something in my chest loosens.
Logan joins me halfway through my second lap, skating backward, a teasing grin tugging at his mouth. “Thought maybe you forgot how to skate after yesterday’s disaster of a practice.”
I flick a bit of ice at him with my blade. “Funny. But I’m pretty sure it was you that played like shit yesterday.”
He laughs—low, real—and the sound settles somewhere deep inside me.
Coach blows the whistle from the bench. “Shaw, Brooks—drill lines. Let’s see if you two remember what chemistry looks like.”
Logan winks at me as he grabs a puck. “Don’t embarrass me.”
I smirk back. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
We fall into sync easier than I expect. Pass, pivot, shoot—our rhythm slipping back into place like it never left. Each clean connection feels like something inside me repairing itself, one small movement at a time.
When the drill ends, I glide to a stop beside him, breathing hard. The puck slides to a lazy stop between us, just shy of the net.
Logan exhales, his breath fogging in the cold air. “Okay, not perfect,” he admits, grinning anyway. “But not a disaster either.”
I shake my head, trying not to smile. “You always set the bar that low?”
He smirks. “Only when I like the guy I’m skating with.”
That gets me—just a small laugh, but it feels good leaving my chest. “Guess that means there’s hope for us.”
“Plenty,” he says quietly, bumping my shoulder with his before glancing away.
Coach’s whistle cuts through the rink, calling for a reset. He gives us both a nod—subtle, approving—before turning back to the rest of the team.
I draw in a deep breath, the cold biting at my lungs, the sound of blades carving ice all around us.
It isn’t perfect. But it feels like we’re skating toward the same direction again.
When the next whistle blows, we line up again. Logan flashes me a look over his shoulder—half challenge, half dare.
“Try to keep up this time,” he calls.
I roll my eyes. “You miss one pass yesterday and suddenly you’re Gretzky?”
He grins. “Didn’t hear you complaining when I carried your ass through drills last semester.”
“Carried?” I fire the puck straight at his stick, hard enough that it smacks and skitters forward. “Pretty sure that’s what I’m doing now.”
He catches it, laughter spilling out as he pivots and drives toward the goal. “Ah, there he is. Captain Mouth.”
“Better than Captain Overconfidence.”
“Not according to my stats.”
The exchange draws a few chuckles from the guys nearby. Even Coach hides a smirk behind his clipboard as we run another round—sharper, smoother.
Something clicks. Our passes land cleaner, our timing tighter. The rhythm’s still rough at the edges, but the old connection is there—like muscle memory waking up after a short sleep.
When the puck finds my stick again, I take the shot without thinking. It hits the top shelf and snaps against the back.
Logan whoops, pumping his fist. “Knew you still had it!”
“Guess I just needed a decent teammate,” I chirp back.
He skates a slow circle around me, grin full of mischief. “Decent? You wound me, Shaw.”
“Good. Maybe it’ll keep you humble.”
“Unlikely.”
I bump him with my shoulder as I glide past. “Worth a shot.”
He bumps me back, light but solid. “You’re such an ass.”
“Yeah, but I’m your favorite one.”
He laughs, the sound carrying across the rink, bright and alive.
By the time Coach calls the next break, we’re both breathless and grinning, and something deep in my chest finally settles. The heaviness, the doubt, the noise—it’s all still there, but quieter now. Manageable.
Because this—him, the ice, the sound of our laughter blending with the scrape of blades—is what it’s supposed to feel like.
When Coach blows the final whistle, the rink hums with a different kind of energy. Lighter. Easier.
He doesn’t have to say anything—just gives us a nod that says, That’s the team I know.
As we skate off, the guys are all smiles and chirps, sticks tapping the boards in an unspoken rhythm that feels a lot like approval. The weight that’s been sitting on my shoulders since the break starts to lift.
Inside the locker room, the air smells like sweat, ice, and cheap soap. Everyone’s talking at once—retelling plays, razzing each other, laughing too loud. The sound fills the space in a way it didn’t after yesterday’s practice.
Daniel’s the first to shout across the room. “Hey, Shawsy, good to have your grumpy ass back!”
“Didn’t realize I’d left,” I shoot back, tossing a towel at him.
He catches it, grinning. “You were here, but your head was on another planet.”
“Yeah, well, it found its way back,” Logan says from across the room, pulling his jersey over his head. “Took some coaxing, though.”
“Coaxing?” I echo, arching a brow. “Pretty sure you were just loud enough to annoy me back into shape.”
Peter laughs from his cubby beside Daniel’s. “That tracks. Brooks never shuts up unless he’s asleep.”
“Whatever works,” Logan says, smirking.
Eli, perched on the bench unlacing his goalie pads, shakes his head. “You two back to normal, then?”
Logan and I trade a look that says more than either of us could explain.
“Something like that,” I say.
Blue, who’s been taping his stick handle in the corner, grins without looking up. “Good. You were both unbearable when you weren’t talking.”
Daniel nods solemnly. “Facts. The tension was killing team morale.”
Peter grins. “Yeah, it was like living in the world’s gayest soap opera.”
“Shut up,” I mutter, but I’m smiling as I say it.
The chirping picks up again—Eli laughing, Daniel tossing tape rolls across the room, Peter narrowly dodging one. Coach’s voice cuts through the chaos from his office doorway.
“Good practice, boys. Keep skating like that tomorrow, and maybe I won’t run you into the ground before Friday.”
“Big talk for a man who doesn’t have to do suicides,” Blue mutters.
Coach pretends not to hear, but there’s a ghost of a smile tugging at his mouth as he disappears back into the office.
I lean against the edge of my cubby, watching Logan tie his shoes, his hair still damp and curling at the edges. He catches me staring and quirks an eyebrow.
“What?”
“Nothing,” I say, trying not to smile. “Just glad we’re good again.”
He grins. “Good? You mean perfect.”
I laugh, shaking my head. “Let’s not push it.”
He winks, and Daniel groans dramatically. “Jesus, not this again.”
“Get a room,” Peter adds.
“Already did,” Blue fires back, and the whole room bursts out laughing.
I bury my face in my towel, cheeks burning, but I’m smiling too hard to care.
Because the truth is—they can feel it. The whole room can. The shift, the spark, the thing we almost lost but managed to hold onto anyway. And it feels good.
When we finish packing up, the guys are still being loud from every corner of the room. Peter’s arguing with Daniel about who missed more passes, Blue’s threatening to hide Eli’s lucky towel again, and Coach is pretending not to hear any of it.
Logan catches my eye as he slings his duffel over his shoulder. “You ready?”
I nod, biting back a grin. “Let’s get out of here before they start placing bets.”
“Too late,” Blue calls after us. “Fifty bucks says you two are making out in the parking lot before you hit the main road.”
Laughter follows us out the door, echoing down the hallway.
The cold hits as soon as we step outside. The kind that cuts straight through sweat-soaked clothes and turns every breath into fog. Logan pulls his beanie lower over his ears, glancing sideways at me.
“Pretty sure they’re really taking bets on us,” I say, voice puffing white in the air.
He grins. “Then we better give them something to talk about.”
“Logan—”
Before I can finish, he hooks a hand around my wrist and tugs me toward his Jeep. My back hits the cold metal, a startled sound slipping out before I can stop it.
He’s smiling—that soft, crooked smile that always undoes me—and his breath comes out warm against my cheek.
“We both smell like a locker room,” I say, trying to sound annoyed and failing miserably.
“Guess you’ll just have to deal with it,” he murmurs.
Then his mouth finds mine.
The kiss starts easy, unhurried, like we have all the time in the world. But when his fingers slide to the back of my neck, everything tilts. The cold disappears. The noise fades. It’s just the heat of him, the taste of winter air and sweat and something that feels a lot like love.
By the time we break apart, I’m breathless, the smile tugging at his lips mirrored on mine.
“Still think we should’ve stayed for showers?” he teases.
“Not if it means I miss that,” I say, voice low. “Besides, I have plans for our shower.”
His brows lift, that lazy grin spreading slowly across his face. “Plans, huh?”
I nod, swiping my tongue over my lower lip. “Big ones.”
Logan’s laugh catches between us, soft and disbelieving, and then he leans in again. The kiss he gives me isn’t careful this time—it’s grinning and messy, his nose brushing mine as we both start to laugh into it.
When he finally pulls back, his forehead rests against mine, his breath fogging the air between us. “You keep talking like that and I’m not gonna make it out of this parking lot.”
“Maybe that’s the plan,” I murmur.
He chuckles, the sound low and warm, before giving me one last quick kiss that leaves me dizzy. “Get in the car, Captain. You’re distracting as hell.”
I smirk, tugging open the passenger door. “Good. Would hate to lose my touch.”
“Yeah, well,” he says, sliding behind the wheel and shooting me a sidelong grin, “keep it up, and I’ll be finding out exactly what those big plans are as soon as we get home.”
Home. Fuck, yeah, that’s what his apartment is starting to feel like.
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
The engine hums to life, the heater roaring as snow starts to fall in lazy flakes against the windshield. He reaches over, his gloved hand brushing my thigh, grounding me in the quiet way he always does.
I grin, watching him out of the corner of my eye as we pull onto the road, heading back to his place.