Chapter 10
ELIDA
The team arrives for the coaching session which Calloway runs while I stand at the boards and watch.
Before he starts, he mentions the away game next Saturday.
“Ridgewood, Saturday. Away. And I’m told there’ll be some scouts in the building.”
I glance at Russo. Something moves across his face - there and gone in less than a second.
I can almost feel what he’s experiencing.
I know his best friend got scouted not too long ago - but not him. And I also know this is his last year in college. His last year as captain.
The rink door opens.
Skelly comes through it with that easy, unhurried walk, and Calloway raises a hand in acknowledgment and says something to the group about a quick meeting.
“Elida - can you take over for fifteen?”
“Of course.”
Skelly catches my eye from across the rink and smiles.
I smile back then step onto the ice.
“Edge progressions,” I say. “Full rink. Both directions. You know the drill.”
They push off. It’s a good session - they’re sharp this morning.
Except Russo.
He’s running the drills but he’s somewhere else. The crossover sequence that’s been improving week on week is off today, the weight dropping back, the old habit creeping in. I say his name once and he corrects it but five minutes later it’s back.
I leave it.
I know why he’s off and pointing at it won’t help.
Calloway comes back after fifteen minutes and watches for a moment.
“Russo, stay behind with Eriksson again today.”
He nods tightly, and I can see he hates being singled out again.
Calloway takes the session back seamlessly and I step off the ice. Skelly is already making his way up into the stands and tilts his head in an invitation. I follow him up.
We sit a few rows back. Below us the session continues - Calloway is introducing a cross-ice drill - three by three.
Russo is up first but I see him glance up at us. I turn my attention back to Skelly.
“It looks to be going well,” Skelly says.
“They’re improving,” I say.
“Because of you.”
I smile at him. “Partly.”
He chats to me, but I’m still aware, with a part of my brain that I’m not proud of right now, exactly where Russo is on the ice below. I see him glance up again and as he does, someone steals the puck. He curses and chases it.
I laugh at something Jake says - tilting toward him slightly - and I know that it’s too much, that I’m performing it. It’s not fair to Jake.
He turns toward me and says how nice I look. I’m already leaning in when he presses a quick kiss to my lips, warm and brief, and I let it happen.
I don’t look at the ice.
I don’t have to.
MATEO
Calloway sets up the cross-ice drill - three by three, quick transitions, the kind of drill that requires you to be present or you become a liability to the two guys running it with you.
I’m paired with Chen and Ward.
I focus on being present but I’m still thinking about the news of the scouts at the away game.
She laughs.
I don’t look up. I push into the next transition, make the read, and the pass to Chen connects cleanly. I loop back into position.
I glance up at the stands. She’s leaning toward him and they’re laughing together.
“Russo.” Chen’s voice.
I snap back.
The puck is already past me.
Ward retrieves it without comment, but I feel the half second I wasn’t there. It’s the exact kind of lapse that loses you games. The kind of thing that scouts will always notice.
I reset.
I run the drill.
I don’t look at the stands, which is when I catch it in my peripheral vision.
Skelly leaning in.
The kiss. They pull apart, and there’s a small smile on her lips.
She doesn’t look at the ice.
But I know she knows I’m watching.
I push into the next rep harder than the drill requires, and Barrett, rotating in beside me, takes one look at my face and says nothing.
Calloway calls time.
I pull up at the boards and grab my water.
She’s still up there.
I’m wound so tight I can feel it in my breathing.
“Hey,” says Chen. “Your transitions were off.”
“I know.”
“First time in a while.”
“Chen.”
“Just saying.” He picks up his water. “Scouts on Saturday.”
“I actually hate you.”
“No, you don’t, but you know I’ll tell you when you have to pull it together.” He skates away.
ELIDA
Finally, the group session ends and the rink empties. Time for the individual session.
Calloway’s footsteps fade down the corridor and then it’s only Russo at the far blue line, not looking at me, stick in hand even though I haven’t said he can keep it yet.
“No sticks.”
He sets it down.
I push off toward the center and he follows and we start with the edge progression, the same sequence we’ve been building on, and for the first few minutes it’s work, albeit I can tell he’s distracted.
Then he says, very casually, “So did you manage to pass on our training notes to Skelly? While you were catching up.”
I stop.
He keeps skating. He loops back and stops in front of me.
“Just curious.”
“Are we really doing this again?”
“I’m just asking.”
“You’re really not.”
“Maybe this is a bad idea. The private sessions. I can find someone else to run this work with you. One of the other coaches could-”
“No.” He says it immediately. His voice is quieter. “No. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up. But… I need the help. Please.”
That please costs him something. I can hear it.
“Okay. Then let’s work.”
We go back to it. And it’s better - he’s more present and the difference is immediate. I move around him and give corrections. He accepts them and works to fix what I suggest.
After twenty minutes I ask, “how are you feeling about the game on Saturday?”
“Fine,” he says.
“Russo.”
“Honestly, I’m fine.”
“You went white when Calloway mentioned scouts this morning.”
He stops skating. “It’s my last shot,” he says. Flat. Like he’s said it in his head so many times. “Scouts came last season. They may come again. But it’s my last year and the window doesn’t stay open.”
“Your friend Zane?” I prompt carefully.
“Yeah, he got signed last fall.”
“Tara mentioned it. That must have been hard.”
“Yeah, well.” He pushes off slowly. “Good for him.”
There’s nothing bitter in it. He saw his friend get the thing you both wanted and was glad for them but still gutted anyway.
I understand that more than he knows.
“For what it’s worth, your skating is better than it was four weeks ago. Measurably. The scouts will see that. And you have that thing that can’t be taught.”
He glances at me. “Thank you.”
We skate in silence for a moment.
“Can I ask you something?” he says.
“Go for it.”
“Why did you stop competing?”
There’s no malice in the question this time. He’s genuinely curious and careful - nothing like the last time he asked it.
I keep skating. “It’s complicated.”
“You don’t have to-”
“There was someone. In Sweden. Someone I trusted. It didn’t end well.”
He doesn’t push or ask for more details. He nods once, and I’m grateful enough for that restraint that I almost say more - Erik, the training sessions that became something else - the way trust and ambition got tangled up. And, of course, the way it ended so publicly and so completely-
“Anyway.”
We skate another loop in silence.
“You make it look easy. The skating. All of it. Like it just… came to you.”
“Nothing about it came easy.”
“Doesn’t look that way from here. You’re here telling me what I’m doing wrong, and you’ve never…”
“Never what?”
“You’ve never had to fight for it,” he says. “Not the way we fight for it. You’re a natural. It shows. You have no idea what it’s like to grind for something that might never happen.”
My voice comes out cooler than I intend. “And do you know what it’s like to have everything taken from you? To have to go somewhere you didn’t plan to be because the thing you built your whole life around got destroyed and you had no other-” I stop.
It’s too much.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know,” I say. And I do. “Let’s just skate.”
We skate a bit in silence.
“Show me the transition again. The weight shift into the turn.”
“Sure.”
I position myself and demonstrate it slowly, talking through it, and he watches with the focused attention he has when he’s stopped performing and is actually learning. Then he tries it, and it’s close but not quite, and I move beside him.
“Here,” I say. I put my hand on his hip.
He adjusts, and I leave my hand where it is for longer than necessary, and we’re both very still and very aware.
“Better.”
“Like this?” he asks.
He turns toward me and puts his hand on my hip. His other hand finds my waist. Slow and deliberate. Like he’s making sure I have time to step back if I want to.
I don’t step back.
He starts to move backwards, slowly, drawing me with him across the ice, and it’s the strangest thing, this slow glide, controlled and deliberate, both of us moving together.
I’ve skated with plenty of skating partners before - none of them hockey players, none of them were this solid. None of them felt like this.
“Russo,” I say.
“Eriksson,” he says back, the same tone, the same weight.
“This isn’t-”
“I know. I know it isn’t.”
His eyes are on mine, and suddenly my back meets the boards.
He’s close. Both hands on my waist. And he looks at me for one long moment in which everything that’s been unsaid between us since I arrived is completely audible.
Then he kisses me.
Not like outside the bar. Not brief and questioning. This is slower but more certain - his hands on my waist and the rink empty around us. I kiss him back because I have no defenses left and I’m not sure I want any.
I feel the cold of the boards seeping through my jacket, but it doesn’t matter because his mouth is on mine and everything else has gone quiet. The hum of the rink lights, the distant creak of the old building, my own heartbeat - all of it fades into the space where he’s touching me.