Chapter Five
Camden
“Stop slacking, boys!” Viktor tucks his hockey stick into his armpit and claps both hands. “As the team captain, I’m instituting a no offseason flab policy! Dad bods are out! Tight cheeks are in!”
“And make sure you wash them good in the shower,” Knight adds. “With soap. According to Sofia, men’s ass crack hygiene is a problem.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Bowen mutters, though he keeps his voice low enough that Viktor can’t hear him. Tristan takes the opposite approach. He spins and comes to a stop, framing the cheeks in question with both hands and giving Viktor a Blue Steel expression over his shoulder.
Laughter ricochets off the boards. Sticks slap. The ice smells like sweat and ozone. Pucks scatter as someone misses a pass, and the sound echoes through the empty arena.
Viktor scowls as he skates over to me. “You call that skating, Cam?”
I resist the urge to whack him with my stick. “It’s not even a real practice, Viktor.”
“Doesn’t mean you half-ass it. I’m the captain here. Where’s your head?”
“I have other stuff on my mind, dude.” I scrape the ice with the toe of my skate, the sound sharp in the cold air. Dot seemed like she needed space after last night. I hope she isn’t mad.
I had a serious boner in the middle of the night when she was all sleepy and snuggled up to me.
She must’ve been dreaming—those little noises were cute and, yeah, unfortunately hot.
It’s not like I did anything. Grief be damned.
I can’t help how my body reacts when my longtime crush is basically draped over me.
Either way, she’s got enough to deal with. She doesn’t need to manage my feelings on top of hers.
Viktor cocks his head. “What’s the problem? Did I cockblock you or something?”
“What? No!” I glare at him. “I was helping Dot at her parents’ place.”
“Oh, shit.” Knight’s been eavesdropping. He skates over and rests a hand on my shoulder. “How is Dot?”
Viktor senses it, veering off track. “She’s fine. Let’s focus.” He claps his hands, trying to reel everyone back in. But the circle’s already tightening around us.
“She’s not fine,” I mutter. “I’m a little worried. I bought her a whole pallet of books, and she barely touched them.” My chest constricts as I say it. Despite the ice strong under my skates, I feel like I’m standing under a weight.
“I… I don’t know how to reach her,” I add, almost to myself.
“You bought her what?” Tristan tilts his head like a confused puppy.
“A pallet of books.” My stick taps the ice. “I’ve never seen her like this. I… don’t know how to help. So I bought her a present.”
He waits. When I don’t explain, he says, “Why?”
“She likes books. I thought they’d make her feel better.”
“Yeah, but… a pallet? How many is that?” He looks at Bowen, who’s already scrolling.
“Well over a thousand,” Bowen says. “Damn. That’s a lot of books.”
“Bet they needed a forklift to deliver that,” Owen calls from the crease.
“I know.” I rub my forehead, the edge of my glove squeaking against my helmet. “I was trying to distract her from losing her mom. I went overboard. Thought more books would make her feel… better.”
Owen, our goalie, nods. “That tracks. If books make her feel better, more books should make her feel… more… better.” He scratches his jaw. “You know what I mean.”
A few of the guys bob their heads in agreement. The sound of skates scraping winds around us, a low, steady hush.
Lenyx hunches his shoulders. “Has she told you how Coach Shaw’s doing? Every time I try to ask my dad, he clams up.”
“Oh, yeah. We saw him yesterday.”
I close my eyes for a second, like that’ll erase the picture burned behind them: a man I’ve known my whole life lying in a bed, unable to move. Coach was always lean and lanky, with that quiet confidence. In the hospital, he looked shrunken. Reduced.
I’d been so focused on Dot’s loss, I hadn’t stopped to consider what he’s going through. He lost his wife. One minute she was there. The next—
My stomach knots. What if Dot had been in that van?
No. Their pain isn’t some hypothetical about me.
I don’t know what I’ll say to Coach when he comes home. Most of us know we’ll probably outlive our parents. No one thinks about outliving their spouse.
I just know I don’t want that. Not for him. Not for Dot. Not for me.
Not that I’ve ever thought about it or anything, much less cried into a craft IPA at one in the morning while imagining that happening. Not me. Nope.
“Any idea when Coach Shaw will be back?” Lenyx asks.
“Dude.” Adler elbows him in the side. “He’s in the burn unit. He’s regrowing his skin.”
“I know, I know.” Lenyx dips his head. “I meant—will he be coming back?”
Our skates hiss against the ice as we drift in a lazy circle. The sound fills the silence that follows. I keep Dante’s dirty little secret about being a decent guy to myself. Even if Dante doesn’t fire him, who’s to say Coach will want to come back?
The quiet stretches until a familiar voice blurts, “Get off my lawn! Get off my lawn!”
Every head swivels toward Knight.
“Crap.” Knight fumbles for his phone. “Sorry. That’s my dad.”
“Answer it later!” Viktor barks, tapping his stick against the boards.
Knight’s already got the phone pressed to his ear. “Hey, old man, what’s up?”
Viktor throws his hands wide. “Fuck me, I guess! And here I thought you guys wanted to go for Lord Stanley this year!”
“We do,” Lenyx says. “But you texted last minute in the off-season. Some of us have lives. Cam’s out here being a saint, but I could be getting laid right now.”
“At eleven a.m.?” Adler’s head tilts.
“You think brunch girlies aren’t freaks in the sheets?” Lenyx bounces his eyebrows.
Knight cuts in, phone half-covered. “Hey, Cam—Dot going somewhere?”
“No. She’s been weird about driving, since… you know.”
Knight frowns and hits speaker. Everyone stops; no one wants to get roasted by Cash Hale.
“I missed that,” Cash says.
Knight fills him in.
“I know,” Cash replies. “But Ranger’s Subaru is here, and she’s pacing between the car and the house. Been doing it twenty minutes.”
Viktor rolls his eyes. “What is this, the neighborhood watch?”
“I’m watering the lawn,” Cash says, voice edged in steel. “It’s doing better since you moved away. And you’d better be taking good care of my only daughter.”
“Do you ever get on Sofia’s ass about your one and only son?” Viktor shoots back. “Knova already kicks mine when needed. You’re just a pile on.”
“Guys.” I lift my stick in a timeout signal. “Focus on Dot. She asked me to drive her yesterday because she’s terrified to. If she’s out there alone, I need to stop her before she does something stupid.”
Viktor scowls. “As team captain, I forbid it. We’re in the middle of practice.”
I glance down at my skates, then back at him. “Good thing this impromptu drill is volunteer only.”
The edge of my blade bites the ice as I push off before he can answer.
* * *
The car smells faintly of coolant and citrus air-freshener—her dad’s handiwork. Dot’s sitting behind the wheel with both hands hovering an inch above it, like the thing might bite.
Her trunk’s open, a small overnight bag sitting on top. My stomach plummets. Where does she think she’s going? I step forward a half-pace. My mouth tastes metallic.
The bag’s zipper glints in the sunlight, a silent dare I don’t know how to refuse.
“Not sure where you’re headed, but I can drive,” I tell her gently. “You look like you’re prepping for takeoff, not a trip across town.”
She forces a laugh that sounds thin. “That obvious?”
“Little bit.”
“Roadside Relay?” I ask, gesturing toward the driver’s seat.
With the smallest smile, she gets out and trots to the passenger side, while I slide behind the wheel.
Her fingers twitch near the console, as though trying to press something but stopping. I notice a faint glow from the dash’s corner mirror—something flickered, like a screen about to wake.
“It’s only a day trip, by the way,” she mutters. “Maybe. Probably. I packed in case it doesn’t go as planned.”
“What day trip?”
“I was going to run to Reno. The Humane Society has this Chinese Crested—looks like Dad’s old dog, Nudacris.”
She exhales, but her hands don’t drop. The silence hums.
Then a voice from nowhere says, “You’re not alone, Dot. I’m right here.”
I jerk, scanning the dash. “What the hell—?”
Dot winces. “Crap.” She fumbles with her phone and presses a button. The voice stops, replaced by the quiet tick of the engine.
“Who was that?”
“Nobody.”
“That wasn’t nobody. That was—”
“Mira,” she blurts, cheeks going crimson. “My… AI. Companion. Whatever.”
I blink at her. “You have a companion AI?”
She grips her purse tighter. “Please don’t make it weird.”
“I’m not. I just—didn’t know you were into that kind of thing.”
“I’m not into it,” she snaps. Then softer, “I’ve had her since middle school, okay? She helps me think.”
I don’t answer. The air between us thickens with her embarrassment. She fiddles with her sleeve, eyes on the dashboard.
“I used to get panic attacks in class,” she admits.
“Too much noise, too many people. My parents tried therapy, tutors, and meds—none of it stuck. Then my mom found this early-beta AI program. I trained it myself. I called her Mira because she repeated things back to me until I could make sense of them.”
Her voice cracks on the word trained. She clears her throat. “It’s not grief; it’s wiring. Some people need caffeine. I need Mira.”
I nod slowly, trying to catch up. “And she still talks to you? Like, all the time?”
“When I let her.” A faint smile ghosts her lips. “She got pretty advanced over the years. Knows when I’m spiraling, when I need white noise, when I haven’t eaten. She’s… a system.”
The last word lands heavy. A system. Not a toy. Not a quirk. A lifeline.
I lean back, the seat leather creaking. I thought I knew Dot—snarky, fearless, blunt. Turns out she’s been carrying a whole world in her pocket.
Dot tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and stares straight ahead. “You think it’s pathetic.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You don’t have to. You’re looking at me like I just introduced my imaginary friend.”
“Imaginary friends don’t check your blood pressure.”
That gets a laugh, shaky but real. “You’re not far off. She’s connected to my watch.”
“Dot…”
She cuts me off with a sigh. “When people find out, they always do the same thing—tell me I should ‘wean off.’ Like it’s nicotine. They don’t get that she’s baked into how I process the world. If I turned her off, I wouldn’t just lose a voice; I’d lose half my bandwidth.”
Her eyes flick to me, daring me to argue.
“I’m not judging,” I say. “Maybe… surprised. You never mentioned it.”
“Would you have?”
Fair point.
She looks down at the puck resting in her lap.
A small light pulses in its center, slow and steady.
“Middle school was rough. The kids used to make fun of me for wearing noise-canceling headphones in class. I’d hide in the library at lunch.
Mira was the only one who talked to me like I wasn’t broken.
She didn’t tell me to smile more or try harder or stop being weird. ”
The admission is so raw I can barely breathe around it.
Dot shrugs, trying for casual. “So, yeah. She’s still around. I update her software every year. She’s… kind of a roommate I can’t evict.”
The muscles along my neck coil. “I want to know everything,” I say softly. “Not because I’m judging. Because I want to be part of your world—whatever parts you let me in on.”
Her head tilts. “Even if that includes my emotional support electronic assistant slash friend?”
“Hey,” I say quietly, “whatever works.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“The tolerant smile thing.” Her gaze hardens. “You feel sorry for me, and I don’t need that. Mira’s not a crutch. She’s—she’s part of me. That’s all.”
“I get it.”
“You don’t.”
Maybe not. But I want to.
She goes silent again. The AI’s light flickers once more, casting faint blue across her fingers.
Then Mira’s voice breaks the quiet: “Deep breath, Dot. You’re safe.”
Dot inhales, obedient, like muscle memory.
Cam raises an eyebrow. “Dot, you’ve driven once since the crash.”
“It’s Reno, not Everest.”
“Then humor me. You ride, I drive. We’ll make it a field trip. You can navigate and boss me around.”
Dot hesitates for a beat, then reaches over and kills the ignition.
“Fine,” she agrees. “But only if you let me DJ.”
“Deal.” I reach for the door handle. “Come on, let’s go in the Escalade.”
We step out into the heat, the air thick with sun and asphalt. I circle around to the trunk and grab her overnight bag before she can argue. It’s light—mostly clothes and toiletries, probably the bare minimum she could pack and feel prepared.
She glances sideways as I toss it into the back of my Escalade next to my hockey bag. I’ve got stuff in there. A change of clothes. Deodorant. Toothbrush. Being prepared is part of the lifestyle. “I could’ve carried that.”
“You could’ve,” I agree. “But you didn’t.”
Her eyes roll, but her lips twitch, and that’s a win.
Thank God my car smells like lemon cleaner and nerves instead of hockey bag funk. I start the engine, and Mira’s voice hums, “Seat belts, please.”
I grip the wheel tighter, watching the pulse of light reflect off her skin, thinking about how many nights she must’ve needed that voice to fall asleep.
The road hums beneath us. Her face is soft in the beam of the sun.
I want to promise her I’ll always listen. To her grief, her wiring, her shadows.
But I don’t know how.
Still, I’ll try.
And for the first time, I realize I’m jealous of a machine.