Chapter Fifteen Rhys
With our first preseason team practice and meeting under my belt, I feel somewhat light as I stroll into our second practice.
The first day I’d woken up late on purpose so Bennett wouldn’t try to drive us all together, even if I only waited until he turned off our street to head out.
I needed the time in the quiet space of my own car to calm myself.
I wore an all-black ensemble, hoping it might hide the anxious sweat nearly dripping from me—at least until dressing out.
I nearly called Dad, letting my finger hover over his contact for a solid three minutes before tossing my phone to the floorboards of the passenger side and driving in silence.
Somehow, nothing cracked—not my phone or my mind—even through the semi-easy first skate together. I spent time getting to know the new freshmen, apologizing for being the absentee captain over summer intensive camps, and thanking Holden, a defenseman who’d taken up as my alternate after the injury.
Coach had asked Bennett to be captain more times than I could count, but he refused each time.
I’m not sweating as much now, at least not from anxiety—more from the hard pace as I round the rink, working the puck on my stick on the sharp turns before hitting a quick stop as Freddy takes off, our relay team quicker, smoother than the others.
Practice is officially over, but that only means it’s my time for team-building drills before the conditioning stretches.
Leaning against the boards, I lift my chin toward Bennett where he sits with his cage off, spraying water into his mouth.
“They look good.”
Bennett nods. “Better than this summer. That Sinclair kid’s quick as fuck.”
“Yeah?” I smirk at his clearly displeased face. “Got a wicked backhand too.”
Bennett shakes his head again, left shoulder twitching up to his ear, even if it only shifts his pads a hair. “You caught that, yeah? Had to get used to the zigzag he runs for it, but he’s only gotten a few past me. He’s killing Mercy.”
That makes me smile a little, flicking a glance at Bennett’s tandem, Connor Mercer. He looks exhausted and soaked, having already emptied his water bottle over his head.
“Mercy needed a little knocking down.”
“Coach wants to start him more this season, and trade off more games.”
That does make me pause, but instead of offering a reaction—because I know Ben—I only flick up an eyebrow.
He shrugs. “Doesn’t bother me.”
“Scouts?”
“They’ll see me. They saw me last year too.” He takes another swig of his water. “Besides, we’re supposed to be a tandem and I played twenty-six out of thirty-four games last year in regular season.”
“Because you’re near perfect.”
He shrugs.
Freddy skates up, heaving breaths through a smirk as he pulls his own cage off. “What are we talking about, ladies?”
“Bennett’s not talking to you after that stupid shit you were pulling in the shootout drills.”
My tone is filled with unreleased laughter, but Ben looks like he might be ready to snap Freddy’s stick, if not his spine.
“C’mon, Reiner, you can’t be mad at me for keeping you on your toes.”
“I was in butterfly for so long I thought I pulled something, you blockhead.”
Freddy raises his hands in surrender. “Not my fault the freshies want to be just like me.”
“You had your entire team of fucking wingers dangling all over my zone.”
“You did?” I ask, smiling despite Bennett’s seething tone. “They all just did what you said?”
“Just call me Daddy.” Freddy’s smirk grows teeth and gleams like the sheet of ice we’re standing on. Holden gags, only catching that last golden nugget of our conversation.
As the rest of the team finishes up the race, offense beating defense by a smidge, I call a quick huddle and plan a team cookout at our house for Wednesday. First day of school, but not the first weekend, so that the freshmen don’t get the wrong idea of what this event is—bonding, not boozing.
The locker room is buzzing lightly after practice, and I feel the desire to participate and joke around, but each time someone tries to engage with me, there’s only exhaustion. A bone-deep numbness.
It’s something I recognize easily now, from all the expensive therapy my parents have paid for: masking . Dr. Bard calls it a negative coping mechanism and says it’s a symptom of PTSD, which I definitely don’t have and she will not convince me otherwise.
I took a hit playing a sport—I wasn’t in a goddamn war.
It’s easier this way: to pretend to be who I was before that game, to be the same team player and leader who earned the C on my jersey sophomore year. It’s who I am, who I should be—just lost beneath the dark cloud insistent on following me everywhere.
After stepping into the warm sun outside the athletics complex, I pause to wait for Bennett—who is most likely stacking his pads in the exact order he prefers them.
My phone lights up again, a text from my dad.
Lunch?
Above it sits a trail of long paragraphs and ridiculous uplifting quotes that read like the inside of a self-help journal, along with quick one-word responses from my end.
I hesitate in my reply, waiting for an excuse.
It’s not that I don’t want to spend time with him. My dad is my hero, always will be. It’s just confusing and complicated now. And I can’t get the echo of his voice out of my head.
My son .
Bennett steps through the door, hair perfect, decked in slacks and a dark green polo that looks a little out of place considering we should be headed home to gorge on food and rest. His phone is pressed to his ear, and he uses his free hand to slide his Ray-Bans over his eyes against the sunlight.
“I said I was going to be late,” he mutters, jaw tight in a way that quickly tells me exactly who it is he’s talking to. “I told you last time that this week was the first week of practices, so I needed to push lunch back.”
He’s close enough now that I can make out the gruff, identical tone of the other caller.
“It’s fine, Bennett, I can wait.”
Adam Reiner: former NHL prospect, current cutthroat corporate lawyer.
Bennett comes from more money than he’d ever know what to do with—the kind that ensures generations could choose not to work and be fine with it.
His father was a silver-spoon baby with a trust fund larger than a full roster of NFL contracts, which makes it somewhat surprising that he became best friends with the Russian transplant who’d been living in a dingy apartment after turning eighteen in a boys’ home and learning to speak English from an elderly college professor who lived above him.
The rich-kid center whose future wasn’t dependent on anything, and the poor, scrappy defenseman whose future was entirely dependent on that rookie year—and yet, they’d never stopped that friendship.
I have no problems with Bennett’s father, never have—but after the divorce, Bennett could barely stand to be in the same room with him.
So his father missed more games than he attended, stopping altogether during our time at Berkshire. Now, I know that once a month Bennett meets his father at Bar Mezzana in South End.
Besides the extravagant gifts that often bless our home or garage—most recently the undriven new Bronco sitting with a tarp still tucked over it—Bennett and his father do not have a relationship.
“Don’t bother,” he snaps back. “Go back to work. I’m not driving into the city for twenty minutes of staring at each other over stupidly expensive food.”
He hangs up without a second thought.
“Missing another lunch?” I ask, realizing after that I wouldn’t know either way.
Bennett shakes his head, rearranging his hair and glasses again with trembling hands.
“I went to the last one, but it was the first time I’d seen him all summer.”
“Still bad?”
“I’m just… My mom’s happy, finally. Her and Paul are gone for the next two weeks to Europe. I don’t want the reminder.”
“I get it.”
I don’t, actually. Bennett’s parents’ divorce has always been a strange topic for me.
My parents are sick in love, and always have been. To the world, there’s nothing Maximillian Koteskiy loves more than hockey. But anyone who truly knows him knows he’d give up every Stanley Cup win and his entire career if it meant he’d hold on to my mother.
“Headed back to the house?” Bennett asks, holding the button on the side of his phone to turn it completely off.
“I think so—”
“Pool party at Zeta,” Holden announces, walking out shoulder to shoulder with Freddy. Both are haphazardly put together in a way that almost makes them look like twins, but where Freddy is all playboy smirk, Holden is boyish innocence.
“I’m good,” I say. I have other plans in mind, namely attempting to sneak another hour of a certain punky figure skater’s time.
“I’ll come,” Bennett says surprisingly. At my look, he shrugs. “Need something to do.”
“Fair enough. I’ll see you guys back at the house later.”
With a final few chin lifts and waves on my way to the car, I tuck in and shoot a quick, Can’t today text to my father.
I grasp the handle before I curse, realizing I’ve left my keys in my locker.
Thankfully, everything is empty now, making it easier to run in, grab my keys out of the cubby, and get out without the need to stop and talk with anyone.
Coach’s office is the only room with lights still on, the door half open. I pay no mind to it at first, but the conversation inside is loud enough it makes me pause against the wall before crossing the doorway.
“You swore that it wasn’t on the schedule,” a deep voice growls. “You said it was a home game.”
“It was.” Coach sighs. “Look, if you really aren’t going to play—”
“What’s the consequence of not playing?”
My brows dip. A player then, but I don’t recognize the voice. It isn’t that surprising though, considering how absent I’ve been.
A slam like a hand to the desk, and then, “I won’t be in that damn arena with even the possibility that she—”
“Listen—”