11. Cole
Cole
Senior Night feels different before we even hit the ice.
The arena sold out three weeks ago. Flowers line the boards, navy and white with silver ribbons catching the light, and our numbers are stenciled in silver across the blue lines.
The program hasn't sent a class to the Frozen Four in twelve years.
Four NHL teams have scouts in the building tonight.
I counted their jackets when we walked past the stands.
Gio holds his phone up in front of my face. My freshman photo fills the screen, and I stare at the kid looking back at me. He is skinnier, his hair is doing something unfortunate, and he is grinning like he has no idea what college hockey is going to do to him. Gio lowers the phone, still laughing.
The locker room is loud before the ceremony, all gear hitting benches, tape ripping, and someone blasting music off a phone speaker that cannot handle the bass.
Guys get dressed while talking too much and laughing too loud, their voices bouncing off the lockers until the room feels too small for all of us.
Dante sits beside me. His stall looks like a locker room diagram, gear hung straight, tape rolls stacked, skates already laced. He's been ready for twenty minutes, hands still on his knees like the order around him is keeping everything in place.
"Your family coming?" I ask.
"Marco said he'd try."
I nod. "My dad's here. Suzanne too. They drove up this morning." Dante's head dips once. "They'll want to see you after," I say. "You know that."
"I know."
"Suzanne's going to hug you."
"She always does."
"She's going to ask if you're eating enough."
"She always asks if I'm eating enough."
"Because you never are."
The corner of his mouth twitches.
Addison walks in, and the room quiets fast. Tape stops ripping. Laughter cuts short. He stops in the middle of the locker room and looks around, one senior at a time, holding each look long enough that it presses behind the sternum.
Adrian gets the nod, captain to coach, four years of trust compressed into one dip of Addison's chin.
Gio gets Addison's hand on his shoulder, a quick squeeze that says more than Addison ever will out loud.
When he lands on me, the corner of his mouth moves, which is the closest the man gets to a grin in front of witnesses.
When Addison reaches Declan, he stays there.
Longer than the others. That's the goalie he built from a raw freshman into the best in the conference, four years of ice time and postgame film and bruises nobody else counted.
Now Declan is also his daughter's boyfriend, and the line between coach and something else blurs beneath that look.
Declan holds the look back, steady as a blade. Addison nods once.
Then he looks at Dante.
Another beat passes. Dante does not move. His shoulders stay square. His hands stay still. Only the muscle in his jaw ticks once. Addison catches it and holds there for half a beat.
"Play your game," Addison says. "That's it."
For half a second, the room stays still. Then someone slams a stick against the wall, and noise explodes through the locker room. Addison turns and walks out before the sound peaks.
We file out for the ceremony one by one, name and number rolling through the PA while the sound echoes off the steel rafters.
A spotlight sweeps the ice, finding each player as we step through the tunnel.
The families rotate onto the strip of silver carpet at center ice, the fabric glinting under the arena lights.
The crowd is already on its feet before the first name is called. The student section is painted in navy. Cold air moves across the ice and cuts sharp into my lungs.
Declan Reid. Number thirteen.
The building shakes. Dec skates out with that loose stride of his, and the silver carpet waits at center.
Talia stands there, posture steady, with Addison beside her.
The head coach on the carpet, standing where a father would stand.
Declan reaches them and hugs Talia first, her hand pressing into the back of his neck.
She lets him go, and he turns to Addison and offers his hand.
Addison ignores it and pulls him into a hug.
The arena falls quiet for half a beat. Then it explodes.
Adrian Hale. Number seventeen. Captain.
The ovation rolls down from the stands in waves. Clara stands at center ice with the bouquet, and when Adrian reaches her, his shoulders drop like the whole season slides off him for thirty seconds. Her hand moves to the back of his head, and the crowd noise softens into a hum around them.
Gio. Number twenty-two.
The music swells again as he skates out.
His blade edges bite the ice as he slows near center.
Zoe stands there alone on the silver carpet.
No parents behind her. No family flanking the flowers.
Just Zoe in a dress and thigh-high boots that belong nowhere near an ice arena, holding a bouquet for a man whose family lives an hour away and chose tonight to prove the distance.
I count the empty spaces behind her. One person standing where three should be.
The cold air lifts a strand of her hair across her cheek.
Gio reaches her. She hands him the flowers, and he takes them, but for one second he just stands there with the bouquet hanging in one hand and his gaze fixed on her face.
His other hand finds her waist. The kiss takes its time.
His hand slides from her waist to her face, and his thumb traces her cheekbone.
Her fingers curl into the front of his jersey, pulling him closer.
When he pulls back, his forehead rests against hers and his mouth moves. Words just for her. Her eyes close, and whatever the crowd thinks it is watching has nothing to do with what is happening between them.
From thirty feet away, it looks like the realest thing in the building.
My name. Number twenty-six.
The spotlight lands on me. The noise in the arena flattens to a wall of sound as I skate out, cold air slicing across my face.
At center ice, my dad stands in the Briarcliff scarf I bought him freshman year, the edges fraying now, his hands clasped in front of him.
He has the posture of a man who manages the room by standing still in it.
I get that from him. The reading. The patience. The quiet certainty that information gathered is more valuable than information announced.
Suzanne stands beside him with her hands clasped tight at her waist. Maya stands between them in a navy coat, her hair loose over her shoulders, and the sight of her there hits me harder than the noise.
I skate to them.
Dad grabs me first, his arms heavy around my shoulders. His coat smells like his car and the cologne he's worn since I was a kid. His hand presses into the back of my head.
"Proud of you, kid."
His voice comes out rough.
Suzanne hugs me next, smaller and tighter, her cheek cold against mine. "Last one on home ice," she says, and her voice catches.
Then Maya steps forward and wraps her arms around my neck.
Her face presses into my chest through the jersey, and the crowd noise dulls behind the blood rushing in my ears.
I hold her the way I've held her since we were thirteen, but my grip stays too tight now, my breath too shallow.
Her hair smells like lavender. Her warmth reaches me through the pads.
My hand presses between her shoulders, and her ribs expand beneath my palm with every breath.
"Don't you dare make me cry in this arena, Cole Maddox," she says into my chest.
My hand tightens against her back.
To everyone watching, this is the step-sibling embrace on the silver carpet, sweet enough for the postgame photo package and harmless enough under six thousand witnesses.
My fingers stay locked against her back anyway, and I keep breathing her in while her warmth bleeds through the front of my jersey.
"No promises."
She pulls back. Her eyes shine under the lights, but the tears stay where they are. She smooths the front of my jersey where her face creased it.
"I'm optimizing your postgame photo angles," she says. "You're welcome."
I laugh, and my chest loosens for one clean second. She smiles, wide and real, then rises on her toes to kiss my cheek. My skate slips half an inch on the carpet. She misses.
Her mouth lands on the corner of mine.
Half cheek. Half mouth. One second of contact, and her lips are warm against the edge of my mouth while lavender fills my lungs, my breath locks, and my fingers dig into her back under six thousand eyes.
We both inhale at the same time, sharp enough to hear. Her hand grips my jersey at the shoulder. My fingers press hard into her back before I can make them let go. She pulls away fast, wide-eyed for a fraction of a second before she smooths it out.
"Sorry," she says. "Aim was off."
"Yeah," I say. My voice sounds wrong. "The ice."
"The ice."
Neither of us believes the ice.
Dante is last. Number eighty-eight.
His name rolls through the speakers, and he skates out alone, blades cutting clean lines across the ice. The crowd cheers. He moves the way he always moves, smooth and balanced, each edge clean enough to make the ice look negotiated.
The family space on the carpet looks full with only two people waiting.
A woman stands at center ice in a navy coat with her hair swept back and her hands clasped at her waist. The arena dwarfs her.
Five-four, maybe five-five. She stands with her shoulders back, and somehow every eye near the carpet finds her.
She's smiling, and the smile is enormous, the warmest thing in a building cooled to eighteen degrees.
Serena Voss.