Chapter 4
THEN: Freshman Year, August
Bennett
“It’s a little small, right?”
Max Koteskiy’s laugh is as booming loud and animated as the smile on his face. I can’t stop my slight flinch at the sudden sound, only settling when my dad sets a heavy hand on my shoulder.
“Of course it’s small. It’s a dorm.”
“It’s an athletics dorm, Max,” my dad snips back, but his tone stays quiet and calm. “I just feel like it’s too small.”
For me, he means, because I need the space. This is where I should say that it’s fine. “It’s only a year before we move into the house.” But it’s not really fine for me. I can’t force the words out, even to help my dad.
Rhys opens the door again, his arms full of boxes and his smile wide and identical to his father’s, dimples gleaming. I relax slightly.
Rhys Koteskiy has been my best friend since literal birth—the proof lives on my dad’s desk in a photo of him and Max holding each of us as babies in the hospital, with Anna Koteskiy in the background giving a thumbs-up and a cheery, tearful smile from her hospital bed.
Since then, we’ve been inseparable. Even through the more difficult years for me and my family, Rhys never faltered in our friendship.
Just like his dad never gave up on mine.
Our dads might’ve masterminded the origins of our friendship, but what we built beyond that was just ours. If we were always going to be a package deal, I am thankful to call the other half my best friend.
“Bennett?”
No one can help if you don’t verbalize what’s wrong.
I shake my head. “It’s—the bathroom thing. Sorry, Rhys.”
My best friend only smiles and shakes his head.
“Not a big deal, Ben. Just want you to feel comfortable.” He sets his load of cardboard onto the floor in front of him, looking toward my dad.
“They’ve got six townhouse-style dorms that are technically on campus.
So, we wouldn’t be breaking Coach’s rules.
Think you can work your ‘I’m a Reiner’ magic? ”
Dad laughs and nods, slipping his phone out of his pocket and squeezing my shoulder hard as he walks back outside the dorm, followed by Rhys’s dad.
Our new roommate stumbles in right after, blond hair sweat damp and breath heaving as he slams down what looks to be everything he owns.
My anxiety skyrockets and I want to demand he grab it and take it back outside or into the room that I know we aren’t staying in.
Matt Fredderic and I haven’t known each other long, but it’s clear mess and chaos follow wherever he goes, which would be hard enough on its own.
However, he and Rhys are already becoming fast friends.
You knew this was coming. Rhys has always been the easy friend, the one everyone wants to be or be friends with. He will outgrow you.
Rhys shakes his head at the messy left winger, but there’s a smile on his face. “Don’t get settled. We’re getting an upgrade.”
“Upgrade?” Freddy’s brow crinkles. He wanted to be called Matty, and I would’ve obliged, but Rhys called him Freddy just like the upperclassmen all summer at our training camp. And when in doubt, it’s easier to follow Rhys’s lead.
“Yeah.” Rhys slaps a hand on Freddy’s shoulder with friendly ease. “Pays to be a Koteskiy sometimes.”
And just like that, my best friend deflects the attention off me, like always.
“All good,” my dad says as he re-enters the room with Max close on his heels. They’re like two pillars of constant strength. “Ready, Ben?”
“Yeah,” I nod, grabbing my bag and two boxes—both heavy and filled with too many books—before following him out and back down the stairs, shoulders tight.
He waits until we’re in the car again before turning to me. “If it’s not okay, you have to tell me.”
People say we look alike; they always have.
Same brown hair with a few honeyed strands dancing and weaving, all soft gentle curls.
Same blue eyes, same startling height and build, same dark furrowing brows that made us a little more unapproachable when standing next to the Koteskiy men.
But besides the looks, we aren’t the same.
Even with as much as he tries, he doesn’t really understand.
He runs a hand over his mouth and slides his sunglasses back into place. I mimic the movement.
“I really fucking hate this,” he huffs. “I know you’re not far—I’m in Boston and Max and Anna are here now. I just . . . Bennett, you have to call me if you need me.”
A nod is all I can manage, because my throat feels a little tight.
“Promise me.”
“I promise.”
“And every Tuesday, five p.m., I can drive you to therapy, and we can have dinner after.”
“Okay.” He pulls into a small cul-de-sac, catty-corner to the rest of campus, facing out toward a row of older neighborhood houses that have mostly been taken over by students, rented and passed down to friends.
The townhouse is attached to the dorms, still in that same Ivy League–inspired style, red brick and beautiful, that’s part of the draw of Waterfell University.
The inside is much more spacious, with a vaulted ceiling in the living room because of the secondary common space upstairs, and non-carpeted floors on the first story.
I inspect the kitchen first—it’s clean, with a good enough stove to work on and a spacious fridge.
Rhys and his father saunter in, laughing and smiling.
Freddy follows behind, a strange, hesitant, lopsided grin on his face.
“How much more expensive is this, exactly?” Freddy asks, but Mr. Koteskiy shakes his head.
“Nothing that your scholarship won’t cover—you’re fine.”
The words settle his anxiety almost immediately. A niggle of regret tugs in my stomach for being so selfish, but I can’t figure out how to apologize or offer anything to him.
“It’s a four bedroom, so you’ll end up with another roommate.
No guarantees he’ll be from the hockey team,” my dad adds, crossing his arms. Both Max and my dad are usually in suits if we’re not at the rink together, but today they look younger, clad in shorts and T-shirts.
Rhys’s father even sports a backward baseball cap, like he’s the one moving into his college dorm.
“We’ll make it work,” Rhys interjects, settling everyone, me included. “Bottom floor? I think the right-side bedroom and bathroom are farthest from the noise.”
I follow Rhys, like I have since day one.
· · ·
First days, hell, months, in new facilities are tough—new anything is tough for me, really.
I was at Berkshire for the last four years; I adjusted there. I had my routines, my classrooms, my friends. To start over, with how much groundwork it takes me to become “adjusted,” is like watching the formation of mountains in real time.
So, between the unavoidable disruption to my routines and the embarrassing explanation that despite how state-of-the-art the facilities are, how top-of-the-line the staff is, I don’t want anyone to touch my fucking things, my anxiety has skyrocketed.
The first week, Rhys would step in for me. I didn’t have to ask; he would just stop the man who was reaching for my pads and tell him my preference with the smile that I’ve seen Rhys and his father use to soothe everyone in the room. Like a goddamn superpower.
On my own, it’s harder.
I’m last off the ice today, doing a final drill and chatting with the senior goalie.
He heads to the showers, leaving his pads and practice uniform in a heap on the floor that makes me sneer a little in disgust as I step over it and start to strip off my entire uniform, gently stacking my leg pads in a pile.
I take a minute to breathe, tilting my head down and side to side three times. I roll my shoulders, left then right then both, three times over, before—
“Oh, sorry,” a gentle voice echoes in the cavernous room. “I didn’t know anyone was in here.”
I look up, breath still a little choppy midway through my cooldown. A girl, dressed in a Waterfell University long sleeve and leggings, murky brown hair high in a swinging ponytail, stands just inside the room looking toward me a little apologetically.
Her gaze drops for a second over my body—shirtless, in nothing but my black jock pants—before coming back to my eyes as pink tinges her cheeks. Mine accidentally do the same, a flush matching hers making me feel warmer in my already overheated state.
Wonderful. Now we’re both embarrassed.
It would be easy to snap at her, my usual default setting dialed up to a thousand after being interrupted mid-routine, but I swallow the verbal assault and freeze instead.
“I’m—I just need to grab the . . .” She gestures widely to the left behind scattered clothes and goalie pads.
My brow furrows as she drags one pad in and, holding her breath, tosses the dirty laundry into the chute.
“You always do that for him?” I ask. Before she can answer, I add, “I haven’t seen you in here before.”
“Oh.” She pauses, biting down on a plump pink bottom lip. “Um, no, actually. I’m new, just started. I’m a freshman, I mean, but I’m an equipment manager—trainee, for now.”
“Me too.” I nod before realizing how ridiculous that sounds and shaking my head, skin growing warmer with the familiar heat of embarrassment. “I mean, I’m a freshman, too. Not an equipment manager.”
“Clearly.” She laughs, all low and smoky, and it makes me freeze further. “I’m Paloma.”
“Bennett.” I nod at her instead of reaching out to shake her hand.
“Nice to meet you.” She pauses, eyes wandering to my pile of pads and discarded clothing. “I can take those—”
“No,” I bite out, a little too harshly based on how quickly she shifts away from me. She almost trips over her own thick tennis shoes before nodding rapidly.
“Sorry.”
Heaving a sigh, I tuck my head into my hands. Why is everything this simple so fucking hard for me?
“No, I’m sorry. I’m just—” I cut myself off, standing and collecting all my pads like I’m protecting the sweat-wet equipment from her. Feeling as ridiculous as I look, I keep my back turned to her as I pray and hope she just leaves quietly and lets me do what I need to do.
My hands tremble as I stack them again, in the order I always do.
“Bennett?” My name rolls off her tongue, gentle and soothing against the heart-pounding anxiety growing louder and louder.
I shift, realizing she’s closer now; close enough that I could reach out and touch her, but far enough away not to crowd me. Her arms are crossed, not defiantly but more . . . self-consciously. Her hand rubs against the soft sleeve of her shirt in a rhythm my brain starts to follow.
“You like to do it yourself?”
The question is genuine, curious if anything, so I nod.
“Yes, but Coach doesn’t like it. He’d prefer I leave it. But they just . . . It’s—”
“Okay,” Paloma says, not pressing me for more. We stand side by side, surveying my neat pile of blockers and pads, my glove and stick carefully laid inside my cubby.
She’s about average height, but like most people she has to look up at me because of my height. Her skin is tanned, cheeks and nose reddened like she got a little too much sun this summer. No makeup to be seen, except black lashes that have smudged lightly under her dark brown eyes.
“What if you showed me how to do it right? Cleaning and care—exactly how you do it. And I’ll just watch you.
” She chews on her lip and looks away, like my stare is a little too intense for her to gaze directly into.
“Then you can watch me do it—make sure I do it right, and if I don’t, I won’t bother you again.
But . . . if I get it perfect, then you let me handle your equipment from now on? ”
She’s patient in the silence that follows her offer. She seems serious, no mark of teasing or innuendo. No annoyance, just acceptance. And . . . and a solution, one that has never been offered to me.
If I can watch her, see that it’s cleaned right, then maybe I can trust her to do it when I’m not watching. Maybe she’ll let me watch a few times first, just to make sure . . .
My continuous thread of anxiety and embarrassment seems to evaporate, leaving me a little empty and exhausted without something dire to focus on. So, I focus on her.
“Just you?” It slips out.
“Just me,” she swears, meeting my gaze with a bright-eyed smile that seems to glow even in the fluorescence of the room. “Deal?”
Paloma reaches her hand out, and I stare at it hard but don’t move to take it. Eventually, she lowers it. Something tugs at my chest.
“Deal.”