Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Silas
Do you think about that when you're alone in the dark?
Yes. That's all I think about these days.
I shake my head and refocus. It's game day. I shouldn't have stayed up texting Scout last night. But I would've missed that conversation… and damn, was it ever worth it.
I'm tired today, but I'm not sorry.
"Huxley!"
I jerk up from my thoughts as I huddle on the bench in the locker room. Coach Ryan's giving me an intense look that's just short of anger.
"Pay attention." He points and snaps at Coach Cross, who's been talking for a while now. The older, dark haired man arches a brow.
"Can I go on, Silas? No running stats or doing Sudoku while I finish."
He knows me too well. Usually, those are my go-tos for when I’m bored. Now I’m too busy imagining a naked Scout. God, I can’t think about that right now. I refuse to get hard in the locker room like I’m a fucking teenager.
"Sorry," I mumble. "I'm paying attention."
Coach Cross sends me a heated look, but he turns to the rest of the locker room. "As I was saying. Tonight, no dumb penalties against Chicago. Stay out of the box. Play your lane."
He taps the board once with his marker and looks right at me. I nod. I mean it when I nod.
The locker room hums around me while I go through my rituals.
I tape my sticks the exact same way I always do.
Heel to toe. No gaps in the spiral. Laces pulled tight until my fingers ache.
Finger tape snug but not cutting off circulation.
My right shoulder aches under the pad, a steady pulse that asks for attention and gets none.
The Chicago Flames come in loud during warmups. They always do. Their captain glides past our line with a grin that shows too many missing teeth. One of their wingers drifts close and taps my shin pad with his stick.
"Old school, Huxley. All meat, no mind."
“Fuck off,” I growl.
His chirps are just noise. I refuse to make room in my already crowded brain for that bit of static.
I skate my lines and keep my eyes on the ice instead of giving him the satisfaction of a response.
I count the turns from the half wall to the blue line.
Ten in rhythm. My lungs feel clean. The ice feels good under my blades.
For just a second, I think tonight might actually go our way.
Then the puck drops and hope dies fast.
Our first touch dies on a Flames stick. They cycle clean through our zone like we're standing still.
Hunter tries to jam the puck loose with a hit that makes the glass pop and shake.
The puck squirts to the weak side. Our winger's late by a full step.
I take the passing lane, stick in it, body square, shoulder burning in protest. Our team clears it.
The play's ugly but effective. Now, the chirping starts in earnest.
The Flames bench becomes a chorus of cheap praise and cheaper shots. I let it run off me like water. I remember the number in my head.
Zero retaliations. That's the goal. That's what Coach asked for.
Jett’s in the goal and I do my best to stick to him like glue.
Five minutes into the first period, their center runs a lazy screen in front of Jett and clips my skate with his stick.
He makes it look like an accident. He turns with wide eyes and an innocent shrug when I glare at him.
I see red for one heartbeat before I swallow it down.
Then I shove him once to clear the crease.
Legal. Clean. Within the rules. He winks at me like we're sharing a joke. I have the urge to bash his face in.
Next shift, he clips me again. Blade to my ankle bone. Pain shoots up my leg, sharp and bright. Without thinking, I snap my stick down on top of his with a crack that's louder than I meant it to be.
Whistle.
Slashing. God damn it.
My feet are already moving toward the penalty box before the call fully sinks in. I sit. I stare at the clock and count to one hundred in sets of four. The Flames score and the crowd groans around me. My jaw goes tight enough to make my teeth ache.
Coach Cross doesn't look at me when I come back to the bench. He looks past me. That's worse than yelling. It’s so much worse.
I tell myself it's fine. I build a wall inside my chest and lean on it. Next shift I keep everything simple. Glass and out. Body first. No extra shove. No retaliation.
They want discipline? I can be disciplined. I've done it my entire life.
The Flames make it hard, though.
They finish every hit with an extra push. They whisper in my ear during scrums like they're reading lines off a script written specifically to fit every sore spot I have.
"You're just a machine, Huxley."
"Too slow, Ice Man."
"He’s too fucking dumb to keep his line."
One late puck after the whistle slides near my skate. I sweep it back to the ref with more force than necessary. He points at me. Warning. I nod and skate away, focusing on the only things I can control.
We get a scoring chance in the slot and whiff it completely. The puck bounces over our forward's stick. Momentum goes, thin as paper. On the next rush, I flatten their winger at the blue line just as the puck leaves his stick.
The hit's perfect. Textbook. The crowd roars its approval.
Legal. Beautiful. I feel steady for one breath.
Then the Flames grinder skates behind me late and barks, "There he is. The Ice Man finally showed up."
I turn with my stick too wide. My hip clips him. Not hard. I barely make contact.
Whistle.
Interference. Two more minutes. God DAMN it.
My mind blanks for half a second. I shouldn't have given the ref the angle to make that call. I sit in the box again and watch the Flames score again. Two goals on my penalties in one period. Fuck. I stare at the ice through the scratched plexiglass and taste metal.
Between shifts, Jett tries to spark energy in the room.
Beck bangs the boards and yells about the next shift being ours.
Hunter paces and mutters threats under his breath.
Decker stands near the bench talking to the rookies, trying to keep their heads in it.
Coach Cross is ice at the whiteboard, drawing plays with sharp, angry strokes.
The third period's a long, slow tilt toward the wrong end of the scoreboard. We chase. The Flames keep the puck between the dots and get under our team's skin with their constant chirping. Hunter tries to drag us back with a fight that the ref kills before it begins.
The clock bleeds away. Fuck, fuck, double triple fuck. We push hard and get nothing for it.
The final horn sounds like a door slamming shut.
The locker room after is a meat locker. No one speaks. Gear drops into piles on the floor. Showers hiss in the background.
Coach Cross stands in the doorway and looks at each of us like he's counting heads after a fire. He doesn't say a word. He doesn't have to.
We all heard him before the game. And then we all ignored him in a dozen small ways. Fuck, that loss smarts.
I strip out of my gear fast and get out before the media can swarm. The tunnel's cooler and quieter, just the echo of my footsteps against concrete.
Scout's at an equipment cart outside the exit. Headset around her neck, media packets in her hands. Her curly hair is in that same braid that's always coming loose. She's wearing black leggings that make her ass look amazing. I force my eyes up before I get caught staring.
I already know I'm too volatile to stop.
She looks down, her eyes on the floor until she senses me coming. Only then does she glance up.
Her eyes, normally a peaceful green, widen when she sees me. Fuck, I love the way her eyes take in my chest, my arms, my height.
"You can't take that bait," she says quietly. She's not quite looking at me, like she's talking more to herself than to me. "They set the trap every time and you keep walking into it."
The words slide under my skin sideways. It sounds so simple when she says it. It’s as though I chose to feed the machine that's eating our season alive. Like I wanted to cost us the game.
The heat in my chest flashes bright and angry. I grab at the only defense I have left. "Stay in your lane, Scout."
The words come out sharper than I mean them to. Colder. I watch her flinch like I just slapped her. Her eyes go wide for a second before she blinks hard and looks away.
"Right," she says. Her voice is flat, careful. "Sorry."
She gathers her packets and walks past me without another word.
“Shit. Sorry. Scout…” I don’t make any move to follow, though. She’s not my girl. If she were, I would let her down, again and again.
Besides, hockey comes first. It has to. It’s the only real thing that I have.
When I get there, the press corral outside the locker room is a feeding frenzy. Microphones push toward me like a tide trying to drown me.
"Are you too slow for this league now, Silas?"
"Two penalties that changed the game. Do you regret them?"
"Is the Havoc locker room lost?"
My answers come out terse. "No. We play as a unit. I take responsibility for my minutes on the ice. We'll fix it for next game."
And on and on. Juliet does her best to deflect questions where she can, but I deserve hard questions after that shit show I just put on out there. That was trash.
The thing is, I'm only twenty-six. The youngest Huxley brother. I should have at least four more years on the ice, maybe more. But Jett and Hunter don't have my shoulder injury. Or my groin injury. Or my knee injury that keeps coming back, season after season, slightly more painful every year.
That's why focus matters. I can't waste time on distractions. I spend every available calorie either playing my heart out, practicing to play hard, or resting. No time for anything in between, no matter how pretty or sunny my latest distraction might be.