Fresh Cut, No Mercy
Bennett
Hockey teams will tell you it’s about systems. About drills and discipline and doing the same thing the same way every time. That’s only half the truth. The other half is about what happens when a room full of men decides they trust each other enough to stop bracing for impact.
Playlist: “Lose Yourself” by Eminem
The locker room goes quiet the second I walk through the door.
Not the respectful quiet I’ve earned over three years of leading this team through every kind of adversity.
Not the focused quiet before a big game.
This is the quiet that precedes an ambush—the held breath before the hit.
I should’ve seen this coming. Should’ve known that showing up with a professional haircut and a shaped beard would be blood in the water.
Not the haircut. Her. That’s what they’re circling.
Shep sees me first.
His eyes go wide, tracking from my face to my hair to my beard and back again. For a full three seconds, nobody moves.
Then his face splits into the biggest grin I’ve ever seen on a human being. I’m in trouble.
“Ladies and gentlemen.” He stands up from the bench, spreading his arms in a wide arc. “The captain has returned from his spa day looking like a whole new man.”
The room explodes.
“Holy shit, is that what Foster’s face looks like under all the scowling?” Heath tilts his head to the side.
“Who are you and what have you done with our captain?” Holden says, lips turning upward.
“Is that... is that product in your hair?” Gage asks.
I keep my face neutral, move to my locker as if nothing’s different. “We have practice in twenty. I’d suggest focusing on that instead of my appearance.”
The suggestion lands with all the authority of a wet napkin.
“Appearance.” Shep clutches his chest. “He’s calling it his appearance now. Like it’s casual. Like he didn’t clearly walk into Glamboozled and let Gisele LaRue put her hands all over him.”
Heath wolf-whistles from across the room. “ Get it, Cap. Get all of it. We support your journey.”
“Nothing to get.” I pull my gear bag open with more force than necessary. “I needed a haircut. She owns a salon. Basic transaction.”
“Basic transaction.” Shep turns to Boone, who’s been watching this whole thing with the quietly amused expression of someone who knows exactly how much I’m suffering.
“Your brother wants us to believe he had a basic transaction with the woman who dragged him off the street two days ago and has apparently been showing up at his house before dawn.”
“How do you know about—” I stop myself. Small town. Of course he knows. “It’s not what you think.”
Even as I say it, I’m not sure what I think it is. Which makes defending it considerably harder.
“What do I think?” Shep slides closer, that predatory gleam in his eye. “Please, Captain. Enlighten me about what I think.”
“You think there’s something going on between us.”
“Is there?”
“No.”
“Then why—” He pauses, pulls out his phone, scrolls for a second. “Then why did you pick ‘hug’ as your morning greeting option today?”
The room goes absolutely nuclear. This is what losing control looks like. Not the street. This.
“GREETING OPTION?”
“What the hell is a greeting option?”
“There are OPTIONS?”
I’m going to kill her. I’m going to walk into that salon and wring her neck with one of her own styling capes. “Who told you that?”
Except I won’t. Because tomorrow morning I’m going to show up early again, probably with coffee, definitely choosing “hug,” and she knows it.
Everyone knows it. And the worst part? I don’t shut it down fast enough.
“Gisele texted the update to your mom, who told Joely, who told Lynsie, who told—well, everyone.” Shep’s grin is unbearable. “Apparently you have a whole system now. Post-it notes. Bingo cards. Greeting choices. It’s like emotional kindergarten, and you picked HUG.”
“It’s not—” I run my hand through my hair—my newly cut, professionally styled hair—and realize that’s only making this worse. “It’s a therapeutic exercise.”
“Therapeutic.” Holden makes air quotes. “Is that what we’re calling it?”
“It’s not about—”
“I have questions.” Shep holds up a finger. “First: was the hug good? Second: how long did it last? Third: did you smell her hair? Fourth: when’s the bang fest?”
I clench my eyelids closed. Because I did. Not on purpose. She was close and it happened and I’m not admitting that to anyone, ever.
“There’s no bang fest. There’s no anything. It’s professional.”
“But there was hair-smelling?”
“Sawyer, I swear to God—”
“Fifth question: did she teach you how to feel your feelings, or did you just cry into her shoulder while she stroked your beautiful new hair?”
The chirping keeps coming, wave after relentless wave.
Every attempt I make to shut it down gets twisted into more ammunition.
When I say it’s professional, they howl about professionalism.
When I say it’s between friends, they shriek about friendship benefits.
When I flat-out tell them to drop it, they chant “hug” like it’s a fight song.
Three years of building authority, and a single greeting choice has reduced me to a joke. No. Not a joke. Something worse.
“Practice.” I raise my voice loud enough to cut through the noise. “Ten minutes. Full gear. Anyone not on the ice gets bag skates until they puke.”
That quiets them—mostly. Shep grins as he reaches for his pads, but he moves at normal speed, which is what matters.
Boone appears at my elbow as I’m lacing up. “You okay?”
“Fine.”
“You look different.” His voice is carefully neutral. “Not bad different. Just... different.”
“It’s a haircut.”
“Mmm.” He’s quiet for a second. “Mom said Gisele’s been working on you. That she has some kind of plan.”
“Mom needs to stop talking to people.”
“She owns a bar. Talking to people is literally her job.” He nudges my shoulder. “I’m just saying—whatever this is, whatever you’re doing with Gisele—you seem less like you’re about to shatter at any moment. That’s good.”
“I wasn’t about to shatter.”
Boone just looks at me. Doesn’t argue. Doesn’t need to.
Because we both know I was.
I don’t know how to respond to that, so I don’t.
Just finish lacing up and head for the ice, trying to ignore the way his words settle uncomfortably in my chest. Practice starts messy, which is normal after getting roasted.
The guys are still buzzing, and it shows in the first few drills—sloppy passes, lazy skating.
I blow the whistle. “Reset. Again.”
It doesn’t improve. They’re not watching the puck—they’re watching me, waiting for me to snap.
I push them harder. Full speed. Rapid transitions. Instead of tightening up, they adjust. Passes connect. Positioning improves. They’re playing better than they have in weeks.
“You’re thinking too loud.” Shep materializes beside me, water bottle in hand. “I can hear your brain overheating from here.”
“They’re not supposed to be this relaxed.”
“Why not?”
“Because—” I stop, realize I don’t have a good answer. “Because practice is work. Focus requires tension.”
“Does it?” Shep takes a swig of water. “Or is that just what you’ve always believed because it’s what you know?”
“Don’t psychoanalyze me.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it. That’s Gisele’s job now.” He grins at my expression. “I’m just saying—look at them. Actually look.”
I look. Heath and Holden are running through a passing sequence on their own, no prompting, just because they want to. Boone’s helping one of the younger guys adjust his stick grip. The whole bench has an energy that’s different from anything I’ve seen this season.
“They’re not afraid of you right now,” Shep says quietly. “Usually they are. Usually you come in wound so tight that everyone else tenses up just being near you. Today you walked in looking like a person who actually sleeps occasionally, and they responded.”
The observation hits harder than any check I’ve ever taken. Because it’s true. I’ve been making them afraid and calling it leadership.
“You’re saying this is because of a haircut?”
“I’m saying this is because whatever Gisele’s doing is working.” He meets my eyes, and for once, there’s no joke underneath. “You came in lighter. They felt that. They played to it.”
“I don’t feel lighter.” But I don’t feel like I’m suffocating either.
“Maybe not.” He shrugs. “But you look it. You act it. And for a team that’s been walking on eggshells around their captain for three months, that matters.”
“Get out of here.”
He grabs his stick, gives two obscene hip thrusts, mouths bang fest in his nature documentary voice, then throws both arms up and yells, “WOOOOO!”
Brogan appears at my shoulder. “Do you think when Sawyer’s hooking up, he screams WOOOOOO! after he comes?”
I close my eyes for a second.
I count to ten. Then to ten again.
He skates away before I can respond, leaving me standing at the boards with my stick in my hands and my entire understanding of leadership rearranging itself. I don’t like it. But I can’t unsee it now.
The rest of practice continues in the same vein.
I try to tighten things up—call for harder drills, sharper execution—but the tension I’m used to generating doesn’t materialize.
They push themselves, work hard, give their best effort, but they do it without the brittle edge that’s characterized our practices all season.
And they keep playing well.
Not perfect. We’re not magically transformed into a championship team because I got a professional haircut and learned to pick greeting options. But the improvement is undeniable. Passes connect more often. Positioning holds better. Communication flows instead of stutters.
By the time I call it, I’m more confused than I’ve been since this whole thing started.
Because this wasn’t supposed to work. Gisele’s Post-it notes and greeting options and emotional vocabulary lessons weren’t supposed to translate to the ice.
To the team. To actual, measurable improvement in the thing I care about most.
But they did.
“Good work.” The words feel foreign coming out of my mouth, but they’re true. “Rest up. Game tomorrow. We’re going to need this energy.”
The guys file off the ice, still chattering, still easy with each other. Shep throws me a salute as he passes. Boone claps my shoulder. Even Heath nods at me without the usual wariness in his eyes.
I stay on the ice after everyone leaves.
The rink is quiet now, just the hum of the refrigeration and the occasional creak of the building settling. I skate slow laps, trying to process everything—the chirping, the practice, the way my team looked at me differently today.
They weren’t afraid.
Shep was right. For three years, I’ve ruled practice with an iron fist, convinced they needed the structure and discipline. They responded — but they did it tight, defensive, always bracing for the next explosion.
Today, I came in softer, just because Gisele had spent forty minutes with her hands in my hair telling me I was allowed to want things for myself. And everything shifted.
I don’t know what to do with that. Don’t know how to reconcile the captain I’ve been with the one I apparently need to be.
Eventually, I coast to a stop by the bench, lean against the boards, stare at the empty rink.
My reflection catches my eye in the glass barrier. Just a shadow, really—dark shape against the white ice—but I find myself studying it anyway. The silhouette looks different than I expect. Less rigid. The shoulders aren’t hiked up toward my ears the way they usually are.
I look like someone who might actually be okay. I’m not sure I recognize him.
The thought is terrifying.
Because if this version of me—the post-breakdown, Gisele-intervention, hug-greeting version—is better for the team, then what does that say about everything I’ve been doing? All the control, all the discipline, all the wall-building I’ve convinced myself was necessary for survival?
What if it was never holding anything together?
What if it was just keeping everyone else out?
The question sits heavy in my chest. I push off from the boards, start skating again, but I can’t outrun it. Can’t outwork it. Can’t do anything but feel it settling into place like a truth I’ve been avoiding for years.
My phone buzzes in the pocket of my gear bag. I ignore it. Buzzes again. Again.
I give up, skate over, check the screen.
Three messages from Gisele.
Heard practice went well.
Small towns.
See you tomorrow, hothead.
I stare at the words for a long time. Warmth unfurls in my chest—not quite hope, not quite fear. Something in between. Something that feels dangerously close to wanting her to text me again.
How do you already know about practice?
Her response comes immediately: Shep live-streams everything. You should know this by now.
I’m going to murder him.
Sure. But maybe wait? Violence before games is bad for morale.
I catch myself smiling at my phone. Actually smiling, alone in an empty rink, at a text from a woman who’s systematically dismantling every defense I’ve ever built. And I don’t hate it. That’s the part that terrifies me.
I should hate this. Should resent the intrusion, the loss of control, the way she’s rearranged my entire life without asking permission.
Instead, I’m standing here grinning like an idiot because she calls me “hothead.”
The smile fades as I realize what that means.
This isn’t just about emotional exercises and Post-it notes. This is about Gisele. Specifically Gisele. The way she shows up at my door with coffee. The way her hands felt in my hair. The way she looks at me like I’m not a project or a problem, just... Bennett.
I’m in deeper than I planned. Deeper than is safe.
And the worst part? The team is better for it. I’m better for it. Even Shep, who makes my life a living hell on an hourly basis, is better for it.
Which means I can’t stop.
Even if I wanted to—even if I could convince myself that the old way was working—I’ve seen what the alternative looks like now.
A team that trusts me instead of fears me.
Practices that build up instead of grind down.
A version of myself that doesn’t require constant, exhausting vigilance just to function.
I catch my reflection in the glass again. The shadow that looks less rigid. The shoulders that aren’t climbing toward my ears.
I’m changing.
Whether I want to or not.
And tomorrow, I’m going to show up at her salon at whatever ungodly hour she dictates, because apparently that’s who I am now—a man who picks “hug” as his greeting option and lets a woman with honey-brown eyes reshape his entire understanding of how to exist in the world.
God help me.