Chapter 30 - Aleksey | Eight Weeks Later
Eight Weeks Later
My locker room stall was in the far corner, the smallest one in the room, and I’d never been happier to get the worst spot in my life.
The strap of my duffel bag dug into my shoulder as I stood in the doorway of the Milwaukee Cranes training facility.
My back stiffened. Every guy in this locker room was older, bigger, and had been fighting for NHC pro contracts longer than I’d been skating.
Part of me still waited for a tap on the shoulder, half-expecting someone to walk up, say there was a mistake, and tell me Hastings had made a phone call to ruin my contract.
I scanned the room the way I read a forecheck, clocking who was older and who had already written me off. As I neared it, my corner stall looked like the worst one in the row, wedged as far from the coaches’ office as you could get.
Rookie territory.
Exhaustion hit all at once, a pressure behind my eyes that five anxious hours of poor sleep had done nothing to fix.
I was starting over from the bottom again, and some part of me wanted to resent it.
But my championship ring sat in my bag. And Karter’s name was in my phone. I wasn’t starting from nothing.
The fresh rubber floor grabbed at my sneakers as I walked over, dropped my bag, and sat down. Scars crossed my knuckles, old splits from fights and cheap gloves, the calluses thick enough that I barely felt the tape as I wound it around my blade in tight, even wraps.
A few moments later, a shadow fell over the bench. I looked up.
The guy standing next to me had to be at least six-five. The top half of his left ear was gone, clearly sliced clean off years ago, leaving behind a pale ridge of scar tissue.
He caught me looking and tapped the scar with a thick finger. “Helmet strap snapped. Ninety-seven.” His flat tone was my warning not to ask for any more details. So, I gave him a nod and went back to my tape.
“Clarke,” he said, dumping his bag into the next stall.
“Zotov.”
He leaned against the wooden divider and crossed his arms, looking me over like a cut of meat. “You’re the Ridge Cross kid. I heard you almost lost your spot on the team over some off-ice bullshit.”
He was testing me, fishing for gossip, probably. My grip on the roll of tape tightened.
“Didn’t lose a thing.” I set the tape down and met his stare. “And I got the championship ring to prove it.”
Clarke let loose a short bark of laughter. “You talk like that to everyone, or just the guys who could break your jaw?”
I shrugged. “You asked.”
The silence stretched. Neither of us blinked. Behind Clarke, another team player was yanking on his pads, the Velcro tearing loudly in the quiet.
Then a slow grin split Clarke’s face. He reached out and clapped my shoulder hard enough to rattle my teeth.
“Good,” he said. “We need that energy here. Half the rookies come in here apologizing for the air they breathe.”
“Yeah, that’s not my thing.”
“Didn’t figure it was.” He turned back to his bag, still grinning. “Gear on, Zotov. Coach doesn’t like waiting, and I don’t like rookies making me late.”
A voice called from down the room. “Jesus, Clarke, quit flirting and get your pads on.”
“Shut the hell up, Ivan.”
The slap from Clarke’s hand still stung as I bent to finish my tape job, but I fought to keep a small smile from cracking my own face.
This was far from the grudging tolerance I got at Ridge Cross, and the sidelong looks from guys waiting for me to screw up. Instead, Clarke had just said ‘good’ and meant it.
Down the row, someone was arguing with Ivan about some call from last season. Clarke shot back a comment that made the kid duck his head. None of them were watching me like my mere presence on the team was a problem.
These guys were my teammates. And for the first time since I showed up, the old doubtful voice that said I didn’t belong had nothing to work with.
Three sharp whistle blasts sounded from the tunnel cutting through the locker room noise, and I pulled on my helmet, the chinstrap clicking into place. Anticipation coiled in my gut. Not panic. Something cleaner.
I followed Clarke and the others down the tunnel, my skates biting into the rubber matting, and when we hit the ice, the cold air slapped my face.
Two hours later, I was wrecked. The pace had been faster than anything at Ridge Cross; every training drill was a fight to keep my legs under me, and my shoulders were a mess of fresh bruising.
I dropped onto the bench outside my stall, sweat still running into my eyes, and fished my phone out of my bag before my gloves were even fully off.
My phone screen lit up to show that I had three texts waiting.
First message: a photo of Karter’s new dorm room at Ridge Cross. He had a single room this year. The bed was made with the corners tucked tight, and I snorted because he’d done it for the picture.
Perez sent the second one. His face grinning, thumbs up, the caption reading: The new freshmen keep asking about you. You’re a legend now.
The third was just Karter again: Miss you already.
Clarke walked past, working the laces on his wrist guards. “You still sitting there, Zotov? Practice was done twenty minutes ago.”
“Hey, Clarke?”
He stopped and looked over his shoulder like I was already wasting his time.
“Take a picture of me real quick.” I held up the phone.
Clarke let out a long breath and snatched it from my hand. “Sending this to a girl back home?”
For half a second I tasted the instinct to deflect or lie. But Clarke was standing there, impatient as hell, with my phone in his hand, and I was too tired to hide this part of me.
“Nah, my boyfriend,” I said.
Clarke’s thumb paused over the screen. Not a flinch. More like he was processing whether I’d said something worth reacting to. Then he tapped the camera open. “Long distance?”
“Yeah. He’s still at college.”
“That sucks.” He backed up a step and aimed the phone at me. “Does he care if you look like shit?”
“He’s seen worse.”
“Alright. Look tough then.”
“I always look tough.”
Clarke snorted. “Every rookie thinks that until Ivan puts them through the boards.” He snapped the photo. “Ivan’s been here six years. He’ll test you tomorrow.”
“Let him.”
“Big talk, kid,” Clarke tossed the phone back, and I caught it against my chest. “Don’t ask me again. I’m not your personal photographer.”
“Noted.”
He walked off, already yelling at someone about leaving tape on the floor. I looked down at the photo. The scar on my jaw was still there, but it didn’t look so pissed off under the bright lights of the locker room. My thumb hovered over my phone.
Two words: Made it.
And then I hit send.
The typing bubble appeared immediately. A second later, Karter’s reply popped up. A single red heart emoji, followed by: I’m so proud of you. Always.
I sat still, breathing slow, letting the locker room noise fade into the background.
Catching my reflection in the black glass of the phone screen, I saw the scar, the tired eyes, and the guy who’d spent his life bracing for the worst. And underneath it, something I still wasn’t used to.
Relief.
I next turned my attention to stripping off my damp pads, the shoulder straps sticking to my skin, and shoved everything into the locker. My phone went back into the side pocket of my bag, where it wouldn’t get wet.
Five minutes later, the shower was hot enough to sting. I stood under the spray longer than I needed to, letting the heat dig into the muscles around my shoulder blades, and by the time I stepped out, the locker room had mostly emptied.
A few guys were still at their stalls, but the noise had dropped to the low thrum of a room winding down. I grabbed my phone again. Karter’s message was still there. I read it twice before switching text threads.
To Mama, I sent a single message: Hi Mama. Completed first skate. I’m okay. Love you.
My phone went dark, and I sat there a second longer in the quiet, the heat from the shower fading off my skin, thinking about nothing in particular... just soaking in the fact that I was finally here.
My Milwaukee apartment building sat ten minutes from the rink, a brick mid-rise with a parking garage. My rented unit came fully furnished: a gray couch that still smelled like plastic wrap, a bed with an actual sturdy frame, and a kitchen counter clean enough to eat off.
The lease office had stocked it like a hotel room, right down to the matching towels.
Nothing in it was mine yet. No posters, no dents in the wall, no history.
And the silence was different from the Ice House attic, cleaner but also emptier, and it took me the first three nights to stop listening for Karter breathing through the wall.
I ate a frozen dinner over the sink and spent the afternoon on the couch with game tape on my laptop. Three hours of penalty kills from last season, and I rewound the same sequence four times without absorbing any of it.
My legs were still shot from the morning skate, the kind of deep muscle fatigue that settled into the bones and stayed there.
Around nine, I gave up and hit the FaceTime button.
Karter’s face came up on my screen.
“Is that my shirt?” I asked.
Karter glanced down at the collar of the shirt he was wearing. “You left it in the laundry basket.”
“And you’re stretching out the neck.”
“It’s already stretched out.” He tugged the fabric down over his nose and inhaled, dramatic as hell. “Besides, it smells like you. I’m never washing it.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“Oh, please, you love it.” The video feed shook as Karter set his phone against something, the screen tilting to catch him leaning back in his desk chair, grinning. The usual tension around his face was gone. He looked relaxed, the way he only got when it was just us.
“So, hate to tell you this, but you look like shit,” he said.
“Thanks. You’re the second person to tell me that today.”
“No, seriously. Did they even let you breathe up there?”
“I feel like I’m dying.” I let my head drop against the back of the couch. “Coaches here don’t hold back.”
“Have you puked yet?”