Chapter 28 Grayson #2
Then my mind drifts, uninvited, to her sitting on the bleachers earlier this week with her arms wrapped around herself, as if she needed protection. Protection from me.
And that’s when my timing goes half a beat late.
A pass hits the heel of my blade instead of my tape. It skips. It dies in the neutral zone like a bad secret.
Coach’s whistle shrieks. “BENNETT.”
I turn, skating backward. “Yeah?”
Coach points his stick at me like he’s aiming. “You want to be here today?”
Heat climbs up my neck. “I’m here.”
“Then stop skating like your head’s in the stands.” His eyes cut over my shoulder toward the empty bleachers, like he can smell my distraction. “Again.”
I nod once, jaw tight, and push off harder.
Weston glides past me on the reset. “You’re playing like you got cursed.”
“Shut up,” I mutter.
He grins. “That’s a yes.”
Kai doesn’t say anything, but when we line up again, he bumps my shoulder, telling me wordlessly to get my shit together. I try my best.
Coach shifts us into special teams.
Power play unit runs first: set breakout, drop pass, swing through the neutral zone, enter with speed. It’s structured, which I normally like. There are rules. There are lanes.
Today, the structure feels like something I can hide inside.
Kai runs the top as center, calling the entry. Weston and I are the wings. We execute the set like we’ve done it a thousand times—because we have. Puck to Kai. Drop to me. I draw a defender and shove it back wide. Weston crashes the far post like he’s allergic to staying upright.
Asher watches from the crease during reps, tracking everything with that goalie-stillness that makes him look like he’s already seen the future.
We get into the zone, set up our umbrella, cycle high-low. I slide into the soft space at the dot, stick down, ready.
Kai looks off the defenseman, then snaps a pass that finds my blade like it was always coming there.
I shoot.
The puck hisses past Asher’s shoulder and slaps the net.
Asher doesn’t react. Just glances over his shoulder like, noted.
Coach barks, “Again!”
We run it again. And again.
Somewhere in the middle of it, Coleson chirps at a defenseman for missing a read.
Not playful chirping. Mean chirping. The kind that’s trying to make someone smaller.
Kai’s head turns just slightly, enough to cut him with a look.
Coleson grins, like he lives to push boundaries.
Coach blows his whistle. “Richards. You want to audition for captain?”
Coleson shrugs like consequences are optional. “Just trying to hold up standards, Coach.”
Kai’s voice is quiet, but it reaches anyway. “Standards aren’t the same as disrespect.”
Coleson’s smile tightens. “Yes, Captain.”
The rink goes still for half a second.
Then Coach barks, “Back to work.”
But something is different now, like the air remembers. Because Kai Mercer doesn’t speak unless it matters. And when he does, everyone listens.
I should be focused on the drill.
Instead, my brain flicks to Tyler Rushton.
There is a similarity between him and Coleson.
Tyler used to be a name I heard in passing, always paired with the way Kai gets sharper the week we play his team.
The way Kai’s jaw locks like he’s swallowing glass.
The way he hits harder and skates faster, like he’s trying to punish the ice itself. Now I know why.
Practice ends with conditioning.
We run line-to-line sprints until my lungs scrape and my legs go numb. It’s the kind of pain that makes your brain go quiet by force.
When the whistle finally blows, the locker room hits like a wall of noise. I don’t hear any of it.
I strip my gear off fast, moving on autopilot.
Kai’s a few stalls down, retaping his stick as usual. His posture is calm, but I know him well enough now to read the tension in his shoulders.
He isn’t done with me. I can feel it.
Weston flops onto the bench like he’s been shot. “I’m retiring. Effective immediately.”
Asher, sitting in his goalie gear like an actual mountain, says, “You announce this weekly.”
Weston clutches his chest. “It’s called commitment to the bit.”
I don’t laugh. I don’t have it in me.
I pull my shirt on, shove my gear into my bag, and try to pretend my phone doesn’t feel like a weight in my pocket.
She hasn’t messaged me today. I didn’t expect her to, but foolishly I held onto a small piece of hope. I keep telling myself I’ll give her space, but every minute she’s quiet feels like a door closing.
Kai stands.
Not a big motion. Just enough to shift the room around him.
“Bennett,” he says. “Walk with me.”
My stomach dips.
I nod.
We leave the locker room, the noise fading behind us as we step into the hallway. It’s cooler here. Quieter. The kind of quiet where you can hear your own thoughts.
Kai doesn’t talk right away. He walks like he’s deciding how much truth he’s willing to put in the open.
Then he says flatly, “We play Rushton’s team next week.”
I keep my voice steady. “Yeah.”
Kai’s eyes flick to me. “You’ve noticed?”
I don’t pretend I haven’t. “You get…intense.”
A humorless huff leaves him. “Yeah.”
We stop by a vending machine that’s been broken since the dawn of time. Kai leans back against the wall, arms crossed, and stares at the floor like it’s easier than looking at me.
“You want to know why,” he says.
It isn’t a question.
My chest tightens anyway.
“Yeah,” I admit. “I do.”
Kai’s jaw flexes once. “Tyler Rushton is the reason Harlow stopped eating.”
Anger immediately consumes my mind, and I can’t wrap my head around hearing this from his point of view, so I tell him the truth.
“I know.”
His gaze whips to mine, shock written all over his face. “What? Harlow told you?”
“Yeah, she did. She told me all of it.”
His eyes are intense, like he can’t decide if it’s a good or bad thing that his sister trusted me enough to confide in me.
“He made her feel like she was the problem,” Kai says, eyes moving back to the floor. “And I didn’t find out until it was already…bad.”
My hands curl into fists without permission, and I have to force them back open.
Giving in to rage is easy, but control is hard.
Kai finally looks up at me again. His eyes are slightly hazy and tired. “I’m telling you because you’re on my line, and I need you locked in, but if he says anything to me on the ice, I don’t want to cost us the game.”
And then, quieter, like it costs him, “And I was going to tell you because I know you care about her.”
Not a threat, not a warning. Just the truth sitting between us.
I hold Kai’s gaze. “I do care about her.”
Kai nods once, like he expected that answer and hates it but accepts it anyway.
“I’m trying,” he says, and his voice goes rough around the edges. “To follow her lead. But sometimes it makes me nervous.”
I keep my voice calm. “If she tells you to give her space, you give her space.”
Kai’s mouth tightens. “Yeah.”
“And if she tells you she needs you,” I add, “you show up. Not as a cage. As a person.”
Kai’s eyes flicker. Something like agreement. Something like grief. “I’m trying.”
“I know,” I say, and I mean it.
We stand there for a beat.
Then Kai’s gaze hardens back into captain mode. “Next week,” he says. “Rushton will run his mouth. He always does.”
My pulse steadies into something colder. “Then we make sure the puck responds.”
Kai watches me for a long second.
Then he nods once. “Good.”
He pushes off the wall. “Film in ten.”
I stand there, trying to work through everything spinning through my mind.
I’m still clinging onto hope that Harlow can see through the mess and that we can find a way to make things work. I want to be there for her.
But only if she’ll have me.