Chapter 2
LEONORA
I can still feel the game in my body long after the match ends.
It’s the worst part about only watching hockey instead of playing it. My legs buzz with leftover energy as I walk back across campus, like my muscles expect ice instead of gravel to be under my feet. I think about all the stupid rushed plays and missed openings the Giants had.
I’m itching to fix them.
I imagine keeping the puck on my stick longer. Not panicking when the defense closes in.
I see the lane in my mind’s eye.
I’d wait.
I’d score.
It’s ridiculous, obviously. I’m walking across a dark college campus with frozen fingers and a scarf pulled up to my nose, not skating under arena lights while a crowd chants my name.
It’s just that I can see exactly what they’re doing wrong.
I don’t mean that in a smug way. It’s just the way my brain works.
When you grow up with a head coach for a father, you stop watching hockey the way everyone else does.
I can’t sit through a match without automatically tracking the second defender or predicting where the puck will go two passes from now.
Dad used to joke that I watched games like a hawk circling prey. He’d come watch my junior league games and afterwards we’d stand by the boards while he quizzed me like one of his players.
Why did that lane open?
Where should the puck have gone?
But then he’d always ruffle my hair and tell me how proud he was of me.
The path back to our dorm building is dusted with the first thin crust of winter frost, the air stinging the back of my throat. I shove my hands deeper into my coat pockets and try to shake the game out of my head.
Watching the Giants play makes me want to play again so badly it almost hurts.
Which is ironic.
For a town that treats hockey like religion, it’s strange that Blackwood College doesn’t have a women’s team.
They did once.
Back when my dad coached here.
I used to be obsessed with them. I’d sit behind the bench during practices, watching every drill, memorizing their numbers, dreaming about the day I’d skate onto that same ice wearing the jersey myself.
But the decline of the men’s program wasn’t the only thing that happened after Dad died.
Funding got cut and the women’s team disappeared quietly, the way programs do when no one fights hard enough to keep them alive.
Three years ago, the college shut it down completely.
Which means that now, when I finally attend Blackwood myself, there’s nowhere here for me to play.
People ask the obvious question.
Why not go somewhere else?
Why not choose a college with a proper women’s team?
The answer is complicated.
Losing Dad scattered our family. Markus left for the professional league almost immediately after graduation, chasing the career he’d worked for his whole life. Mom stayed home but seemed to shrink somehow, like grief had hollowed her out.
And me?
I stayed.
Maybe part of me needed to remain close to the place Dad built everything.
Or maybe I just didn’t want to leave Mom alone with the silence.
Either way, here I am.
First-year sports science. And maybe that’s the direction my life is meant to take. Not as a player but still fundamental to a team and to the sport.
The dorm building comes into view, warm light glowing through the windows.
At least the roommate situation worked out.
I’ve heard enough first-year horror stories to know that’s not guaranteed but, lucky for me, Katie and Willow are already halfway to becoming my favorite people.
Willow is the reason I haven’t completely lost my mind from not playing hockey.
She’s obsessed with skating - figure skating, mostly - and now that winter is creeping in we’ve started sneaking out to the lake just beyond campus in the evenings.
The ice is just thick enough for us to be out there gliding under the stars like idiots.
Usually, we end those nights frozen and laughing, stumbling back to the dorm with numb fingers and aching legs.
That’s when Katie comes in.
Katie doesn’t skate. She loves old movies and warm blankets and has somehow taken it upon herself to keep us alive through the winter with endless mugs of hot chocolate.
I push open the dorm door and stomp snow off my boots in the hallway.
Right on cue, the smell of chocolate hits me.
Perfect.
When I step into the room, Katie is exactly where I expect her to be - cross-legged on the couch with a black-and-white film flickering on her laptop, a steaming mug sitting on the coffee table beside her.
“I have immaculate timing as always,” she says without looking up.
I pour myself a hot chocolate from the pan she’s been keeping warm and sink into the chair opposite her, letting the warmth seep into my hands.
Willow isn’t back yet - probably still at the gym - but the room feels comfortably quiet anyway.
I take a sip of the hot chocolate and enjoy the warmth.
For the first time since the final buzzer tonight, my brain finally starts to slow down.
And honestly?
College is going better than I expected.
Good roommates. Classes I’m passing. And in a few weeks, something even better.
My brother is coming to visit. Markus Shaw.
Blackwood’s former golden boy.
Five years ago, he was the player everyone came to watch - the one Dad built half the team around, the one who made the Giants look unstoppable.
Now he’s playing professional hockey and somehow getting more famous by the month.
Legendary might not even be an exaggeration anymore.
I stare down into my mug and smile a little to myself.
My big brother is coming to visit, and somehow that still makes me feel twelve years old again.
ZANE
I’m grabbing my water bottle, ready to leave when Beckett’s voice cuts through the silence.
“Party is at Thompson’s tonight. My buddy’s renting off campus. Said the whole place is ours.”
A few guys glance up. A few groan.
Beckett doesn’t notice. Or doesn’t care.
“Kegs. Music. The usual. Girls are already lining up, apparently.” He grins, trying to drag some energy into the room. “First game is done. We can’t fix it tonight, might as well enjoy ourselves.”
I pull my sweater over my head and say nothing.
Because he isn’t wrong. Not really. This is how it works - you lose, you shake it off, you find a party and drink until the game stops replaying in your head. Most of the league does it. This is how most of the guys in the room cope with a first game loss.
But tonight?
Tonight it feels wrong. Like celebrating a funeral.
I grab my bag and stand.
“Blake.” Russo’s voice stops me near the door. He’s leaning against the frame, arms crossed, watching the room with that unreadable expression he gets after games. “You going?”
I hesitate.
The smart answer is no. Go home. Try to distract myself and not just stare at the ceiling.
But the Captain is still watching. And I know what he’s really asking.
Show your face. Let them see you. Let them believe we’re not broken after one game.
“Yeah,” I say. “For a bit.”
He nods. Nothing else. Just that quiet acknowledgment.
I push through the door.
Outside, the cold hits immediately. A few guys are already drifting toward the parking lot, voices low, breath fogging in the air. Someone’s making a call - “Yeah, we’re heading over now, save us a-”
I tune it out.
Beckett catches up to me near my truck.
“Yo, Blake. You coming or what? Thompson’s place is gonna be-”
“Yeah.” I cut him off. “I’ll be there.”
He hesitates, like he’s waiting for more. Then shrugs and jogs toward a car full of guys already yelling about something.
I lean against my truck for a minute.
The arena looms behind me, dark now except for the security lights. Twenty feet away, the ice is still settling under its covers.
I should go home.
I should absolutely go home.
But Calloway’s right. Perception matters. And if the star forward disappears after a loss, people talk. Assume that he’s licking his wounds.
So, I’ll go.
I’ll show my face.
I’ll stay just long enough that no one can say I didn’t show.
Then I’ll leave.
Simple.
I pull open my truck door and toss my bag inside.
It’s just a party. One hour. Then I can go back to replaying every mistake I made tonight in peace.
LEONORA
The door slams open hard enough to rattle the posters on the wall.
Willow bursts in like she’s been chased halfway across campus, cheeks flushed pink from the cold and her eyes absolutely blazing with the kind of excitement that means someone’s about to get dragged into something.
“You will not believe what I just heard.”
Katie doesn’t even look up from her movie.
“You say that at least twice a week.”
“This is different.”
“It’s always different.”
Willow ignores her completely and drops onto the sofa, nearly knocking the mug out of my hands in the process. I rescue it just in time and give her a look.
“Leo.” She grabs my arm. “Listen to me.”
I sigh and gesture for her to continue.
“The Giants.” She pauses for dramatic effect. “Throw. Parties.”
Katie raises an eyebrow. “…That’s the earth-shattering news?”
“No, you don’t understand. They throw parties. Like, actual, off-campus, everyone-invited, legendary-status parties. The kind people still talk about years later. And I just found out-” she squeezes my arm tighter, “-there’s one on tonight.”
I stare at her.
“Why do I need to know this?”
Willow looks at me like I’ve just asked why ice is cold.
“Because we’re going.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Willow-”
“Leo, listen to me very carefully.” She leans in, lowering her voice like she’s about to share classified intel. “Hockey players. In a house. With music. And probably very poor life choices.” She wiggles her eyebrows. “This is not optional. This is research.”
“Research for what?”
“Life.”
Katie snorts from the couch.
I take a long sip of my hot chocolate and stare at my roommate. Willow is many things - a chaos magnet, a terrible influence, one of the best skaters I’ve ever met - but she’s also impossible to say no to once she sets her mind on something.
“Let me get this straight,” I say slowly. “You want to go to a party full of hockey players from a team my dad used to coach.”
“Yes.”
“So, they can… what? Buy me a drink and talk about how downhill the team has gone?”
Willow grins.
“Maybe. Or maybe you get to watch Zane Blake do something stupid in person instead of from fifty feet up. Either way, it’s entertainment.”
Katie mutters something that sounds like “she’s not wrong.”
I should say no.
I should absolutely say no.
Going to a Giants party feels like crossing some kind of line. Watching from the stands is one thing - anonymous, safe, nobody knowing my name or caring who my father was. Walking into their space, being seen-
“You’re thinking too hard,” Willow says. “I can practically hear your brain.”
“I’m always thinking too hard.”
“Come on. One night. You and me and Katie. We stand in a corner, we watch the chaos, we leave when it gets boring. No strings.”
I look to Katie for support, but she raises her mug in a toast.
“I can finish my movie tomorrow. It’s our first semester in college and this is the first real party we’ve heard about. At least… the first one not put on by the college to welcome freshers.”
I look between them - Willow’s eager grin, Katie’s amused patience - and feel the last of my resistance crumble.
“Fine.”
Willow cheers.
“One condition,” I add quickly. “The second anyone asks too many questions about who I am or why I’m there, we leave.”
“Deal.”
She says it way too fast.
I’m definitely going to regret this.