Chapter Seventeen
Frankie
Frankie Callahan had agreed to be someone Cooper Vale was seeing.
This was a sentence with consequences.
Not legal consequences.
Probably.
But operational consequences.
She had said it near the trophy case with coffee in her hand and his mouth still too close to hers.
I’m seeing someone too.
He suspects.
Ridiculous.
She should have walked it back.
Clarified.
Made it smaller.
Instead, she had walked away and left the words behind like a live puck in the slot.
Now, three days before the showcase, those words had become an entire problem.
Because seeing someone apparently meant thinking about them when she should be watching film.
Seeing someone meant noticing whether he had eaten actual food.
Seeing someone meant her phone lighting up with his name and her body reacting before her brain approved.
Seeing someone meant Birdie had started using the phrase “weather event” with devastating restraint, which somehow made it worse.
Seeing someone meant Frankie Callahan, goalie, wall, keeper of private superstitions and black coffee, had a date.
Maybe.
Not called that.
Not officially.
But Coop had texted after his evening class:
VALE - PROBABLY EARLY: Walk tonight? No agenda. No pastries. Possible weather.
And Frankie had answered:
FRANKIE: Six-fifty.
Which was basically a date in their shared, damaged language.
She stared at the message thread in the locker room while Birdie sat beside her pretending not to look.
Badly.
“Your neck is stretched,” Frankie said.
Birdie snapped upright. “I was checking the floor.”
“For what?”
“Floor issues.”
“Be less fake.”
“I can’t. I’m under emotional duress.”
Frankie locked her phone. “Your duress is self-inflicted.”
“Most meaningful duress is.”
Across the room, Wren looked up from her tablet. “That is not true.”
Birdie pointed at her. “You don’t know my journey.”
“I know too much about it.”
Dani, curled on the bench with her laptop, said, “The student-section reservations just hit eighty-one percent of target.”
Reese’s head lifted immediately. “Confirmed?”
“Confirmed scans and reservation forms. Wren’s noon post did a lot.”
Wren nodded once. “Back the Fire outperformed The Read Stops the Rush by twelve percent, but The Read Stops the Rush had stronger comments.”
Birdie leaned back dramatically. “My line has depth.”
Frankie looked at her. “You are unbearable.”
“Creatively.”
“Globally.”
Reese smiled into her binder.
Frankie tried to ignore the warmth in the locker room.
Not temperature.
Feeling.
The team was nervous. Everyone was. The showcase was close enough now that the building felt like it had a pulse. Donors were confirmed. The board committee would attend. Westbridge’s delegation had been finalized. Student turnout was rising.
The proposal had momentum.
The kind that could turn into future.
Or the kind that made the crash louder if it failed.
Frankie preferred not to think in those terms.
She thought in angles.
Pressure.
Passing lanes.
What to let in.
What to turn away.
Her phone buzzed again.
She did not check.
Strong.
Birdie’s eyes darted to it.
“Don’t,” Frankie said.
“I didn’t.”
“You breathed.”
“I have to do that.”
“Quietly.”
Reese closed her binder. “Frankie.”
Bad.
Captain voice.
Frankie looked up.
Reese’s expression was not teasing.
Worse.
Kind.
“After practice, can we talk?”
Frankie immediately stood. “No.”
Birdie whispered, “Healthy.”
Reese’s mouth curved faintly. “About the station presentation.”
Frankie narrowed her eyes. “Is that true?”
“Mostly.”
“Halloran.”
“Some of it is about Coop.”
“There it is.”
Birdie made a strangled noise and buried her face in a towel.
Wren, without looking up, said, “At least we’re direct now.”
Frankie grabbed her water bottle. “I hate team culture.”
“No, you don’t,” Dani said softly.
Frankie pointed at her. “Don’t use meadow voice at me.”
Dani smiled and returned to her laptop.
Practice saved her from further emotional ambush.
For ninety minutes, there was only ice.
Mostly.
Frankie tracked the puck cleaner than she had all week.
Her movements felt good. Controlled. Sharp.
Not perfect, because perfect was a trap, but good.
Sutter ran second-chance drills and pressure sequences.
Reese pushed pace. Birdie chirped less and hit harder, which probably meant Asher had texted something irritating.
Dani’s passes were crisp.
Wren’s shot finally obeyed and beat Frankie high glove once.
Wren threw both arms up in triumph.
Frankie pointed her stick at her. “Do not celebrate too much.”
Wren lowered one arm. “Respectfully, no.”
Frankie almost smiled.
The final sequence was Read the Ice rehearsal with the full station team.
Tanner.
Hayes.
Coop.
Nolan at the boards under Wren supervision and therefore only forty percent dangerous.
Dani with the sight-line notes.
Reese watching the flow.
Claire and Brenda in the stands.
Doyle in the back row, arms folded, wearing what Wren had privately called his “concern quarter-zip.”
Frankie hated rehearsing in front of people.
She hated the empty spaces where donors would stand.
She hated the way the station made invisible work visible, because visibility still felt like standing without pads.
Even while wearing pads.
But she did it.
She stood beside the crease with the microphone Claire wanted her to use at the showcase and delivered the station intro.
“A save is not just the moment the puck stops.”
Her voice sounded strange over the rink speakers.
Too public.
Too hers.
She kept going.
“Most people watch the puck. A goalie watches the danger.”
Coop stood near the boards with the two-on-one puck, helmet on, stick in hand, listening like every word mattered.
No weird face.
Almost.
His face still had warmth.
But controlled.
She let it stay.
The first sequence ran clean.
The second sequence ran cleaner.
The third sequence came to Coop.
He carried wide.
Hayes cut as the passing option.
Frankie set.
Read shoulders.
Read stick.
Read eyes.
Coop lied well.
Too well.
He showed pass, then shot low blocker.
She stopped it and sent the rebound exactly where she wanted.
Corner.
Safe.
That landed.
The rink made a small sound.
Not applause.
Recognition.
Frankie did not look at Coop.
That would be unprofessional.
She looked at the puck.
Which was rude.
Stopped.
Excellent.
Claire called from the stands, “That works.”
Doyle nodded.
Brenda looked relieved enough to sit down.
Sutter, from the bench, said, “Again.”
Of course.
They ran it again.
This time Coop passed.
Hayes shot.
Frankie missed.
Not badly.
Not soft.
Just missed.
The puck slid inside the post.
The small rehearsal crowd went silent.
Frankie’s body reacted before thought.
Tight chest.
Heat in neck.
Old pen click in her head.
Westbridge will be different.
She skated to retrieve the puck.
Coop did not say anything.
Good.
Hayes did not say anything.
Better.
Sutter did.
“Again.”
Frankie reset.
Same sequence.
Coop carried.
Hayes cut.
Pass.
Shot.
Frankie pushed.
Glove.
Save.
Clean.
“Good,” Sutter said.
Frankie breathed.
The missed one still existed.
But it did not own the drill.
That was new.
Or newer.
They ran the station two more times.
By the end, the timing held.
The station worked.
The pitch worked.
Doyle said, “That should land well,” which from him was probably a parade.
Claire smiled like a person who had seen donor wallets loosen in her imagination.
Sutter gave no praise beyond “Good,” which was plenty.
As the session broke, Coop skated past Frankie and slowed just enough to say, “Second one was better because of the first.”
She looked at him.
No fixing.
No reassurance.
Just the read.
She nodded once.
“Accurate.”
His eyes warmed.
Then he skated on.
Professional.
Useful.
Annoying.
After practice, Frankie tried to escape.
Reese stopped her at the tunnel.
Captain reflex.
“Walk with me,” Reese said.
“No.”
Reese started walking.
Frankie followed because her body betrayed her before her principles arrived.
They moved down the hallway toward the trophy case, away from the locker room noise.
Frankie held her helmet under one arm and her water bottle in the other.
Reese carried her binder.
Always the binder.
At the display, Reese stopped.
The Fire We Built looked finished now.
Final graphics.
Timeline.
Stats.
Small glove-save photo.
Read the Ice station panel.
Team proof.
All of it.
Frankie looked at it because looking at Reese felt dangerous.
Reese did not start with Coop.
Smart.
“The station is ready,” Reese said.
“Yes.”
“You’re ready.”
“Debatable.”
“No.”
Frankie glanced at her.
Reese’s expression was calm.
Captain fact.
Not pep talk.
Frankie accepted it by not arguing.
Growth.
Awful.
Reese shifted the binder against her chest. “Now about Coop.”
Frankie closed her eyes.
“No.”
“I’m not here to pry.”
“Then leave.”
“I’m here because I love you.”
Frankie opened her eyes.
Unfair.
Unfair.
Captain interference.
Reese looked at the display instead of directly at her, which helped.
A little.
“Book One taught me something,” Reese said.
Frankie’s brow furrowed.
“Do not say Book One like that.”
“Sorry. Last semester taught me something.”
“Better.”
Reese’s mouth curved. “When Hayes and I started becoming… Hayes and me, I thought the danger was him. The distraction. The optics. The team seeing me differently. People using it against us.”
“All valid.”
“Yes,” Reese said. “But the bigger danger was me deciding I had to choose between being captain and being a person.”
Frankie swallowed.
“Halloran.”
“I know.”
“No violins.”
“No violins.”
They stood side by side in front of the trophy case.
After a moment, Reese said, “You are allowed to have something that is yours and still be team-first.”
Frankie hated that the words landed.
She looked at her small photo in the case.
Not centered.
Still there.
“That sounds like a slogan,” she said.
“It’s lived experience.”
“Worse.”