Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Kyle
The sharp cold of the rink hits first, the chill biting through my lungs and reminding me I’m still alive.
It’s been almost a month since I walked out of her office, and the season starts next week, but somehow none of that distance has done a damn thing to dull the burn she left behind.
I tell myself that being back on the ice will clear my head, scrape the ache out of my chest, and freeze over the parts of me that are still burning from what she said. But it doesn’t.
The second my blades hit the rink, the noise floods in—sticks clattering, skates cutting grooves into the surface, and Beau shouting something about my “rookie glow-up.” The air smells of sweat and home.
It’s chaos, but I still feel off balance.
It’s like my body showed up and my mind stayed back in that damn office, watching Alycia hold herself together while I came undone.
I circle the rink twice, pushing harder with each stride.
The ice sings under my skates, slicing through the noise in my head.
Focus, Hendrix. Eyes up. Hands steady. You have a job to do.
My body knows the rhythm after years of training, moving automatically and giving me something that I can rely on.
The ice doesn’t care that my chest feels like it’s caving in.
It doesn’t ask questions. It just takes what I give it.
So, I skate harder and try to pour everything into the pattern.
If I can get the timing right, if I can make it look easy, maybe I will forget the way she looked at me when she shut down any chance of there being something real between us.
But forgetting her feels like trying to unlearn how to breathe.
“Keep your spacing! Henriksen, you’re crowding Kyle’s lane again,” Cooper’s voice echoes from the bench.
The kid—rookie winger, barely twenty—flushes under his helmet. “Sorry, Coach.”
“Sorry doesn’t win games,” one of the vets, Crosby, calls from his place on the ice. “Move your feet, kid!”
Laughter ripples across the ice as a few sticks tap the boards. This is typical for any hockey practice; being in the NHL doesn’t make anyone exempt from some harmless chirping that fills the gaps when we’re not trying to think too hard.
Cooper blows the whistle in two short bursts. “Run it again!”
Henriksen and I line up for the faceoff, waiting for everyone to set.
He taps his stick against the ice, eager to make up for his last miss.
The puck drops, and he wins it, carrying it up ice, but his stick is too far out in front, telegraphing every move.
I track him easily, waiting for the mistake.
It comes fast. A clumsy shift of weight, a half-second hesitation.
I dart in, angle my blade, and lift the puck. It slides toward the left boards, and he scrambles after it. I drop my shoulder, cutting inside, ice hissing up my shins as I pull it back under control.
“Head on a swivel, kid!” I bark, stealing the puck clean off his blade. “Lesson one: don’t telegraph your move.”
Crosby glides parallel to my left, calling for the pass. “Here, here!”
I open my stance, faking the feed his way just long enough for Carter to bite. He shifts to make space, pulling his defender with him. That’s all the space I need. A stick tap echoes behind me—tap tap—letting me know Cole is with me.
I pivot my wrists, sending the puck backward across the ice.
He catches it on the tape perfectly, and in the same breath, sends it back my way.
The pass hums over the surface, and I drop low into my stride and drive straight through the middle, cutting right to left.
I angle, twist my torso, and let the puck fly.
It cuts through the air and snaps against the back of the net with a crisp, electric sound that hits somewhere behind my ribs.
Cheers echo from the guys around me as Henriksen skids to a stop beside me, shaking his head with a grin. “You make it look easy, man.”
“It’s not.” I grin back, panting. “You just gotta think less.”
“Yeah?” Crosby shouts, coasting past. “Tell that to Coach the next time he’s yelling about coverage!”
Laughter rolls across the ice, grounding me just long enough to pretend I’m fine. Then I see her through the glass, and every sound in the rink goes muffled.
Alycia stands just beyond the boards, clipboard tucked against her chest, head tilted slightly as she watches.
Her lips press together, and I see the exact moment she realizes I have caught her looking.
She straightens and scribbles something on her notepad that does not need to be written.
The air between us vibrates through the glass until she feels like the only thing in motion and everything else falls away.
Cole skates up beside me like he has been watching the same thing. He doesn’t say anything at first, just coasts with me as we loop back to center.
“You good?” he asks finally, low enough that only I can hear it.
I keep skating, forcing my shoulders loose and pretending the ache in my chest is just from the workout. “Always.”
The lie tastes sharp, like chewing glass. I can still feel her eyes on me. Maybe it is just my imagination, taunting me with what I cannot have.
“You’ve got that look.”
“What look?”
“The one that says you’re trying real hard not to think about something or someone.”
My grip tightens on my stick until the fiberglass creaks. My jaw flexes behind my mouth guard. I want to snap back, tell him he is wrong, but he isn’t. He never is when it comes to me.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
His gaze flicks toward the boards, where Alycia stands with the rest of the PR staff. “Yeah,” he says, mouth curving. “I’m not seeing things, kid.”
There it is. A soft punch to the gut. He sees right through me, the way big brothers always do.
What am I supposed to tell him? That I can’t stop replaying the look on her face when she told me to forget?
That I’d give anything to convince her to give this a chance?
The words tangle up behind my teeth and never make it out.
Cole keeps pace beside me like this is nothing. But if anyone on this ice understands wanting something that doesn’t fit the lines you have been given, it’s him.
“Does wanting it ever… stop?”
The question slips out quieter than I mean it to, but it hits hard anyway.
“Nope.” Cole exhales a soft laugh, shaking his head. “You just learn to become better at faking it.”
The thought of pretending I don’t want her feels impossible when every breath makes her feel closer, not further away.
“Sounds miserable.”
“Sometimes it is.” He taps his stick lightly against mine, a small, grounding touch. “Sometimes it’s worth it.”
I search his face. The lines around his eyes say more than his words.
He has already lived through the mess and the regret and the fight to get his footing back.
Cole is not the steady one. He’s the one who fell apart and didn’t bother hiding it.
The one who clawed his way out and never pretended the scars weren’t there.
“Do not let Cooper spook you,” he adds quietly. “He means well, but he forgets what it’s like to want something that’s not safe.”
Something low in my gut twists. We’ve never really talked about any of this. Not for real.
“I didn’t think you noticed.”
He huffs out a small laugh. “Kid, I notice everything. I just don’t always know how to say it.”
It shouldn’t hit me as hard as it does, but it does. Maybe because Beau and Cooper have always had their thing, and I have been orbiting, trying to find where I fit. Maybe because, for the first time, it feels like Cole and I could get there, too. Not all at once, but someday.
Cole bumps his shoulder lightly into mine. “And for the record? There’s no actual rule about dating staff. PR pretends there is, but it’s more… heavily frowned upon.”
He snorts. “The only person that rule was ever meant for was you. Cooper practically drew it in Sharpie across your forehead when you signed.”
I choke on a breath. “What?”
“He told you not to date anyone on staff,” Cole says with a shrug. “He didn’t bother telling the rest of us. Which, if you think about it, means it’s not really a rule.”
My heartbeat stumbles. “Yeah, well… what Cooper doesn’t know—”
“—won’t hurt him,” Cole finishes, grinning like he’s enjoying every second of this. “Cooper worries about everything, but you’re not him—or any of us, either. You’ve got your own game, kid. Don’t let anyone scare you out of taking the shot.”
As if it’s that simple, like I didn’t already try last night and lose her the second our lips touched.
“I think I already took my chance with her, and blew it,” I say, quiet enough that it almost gets swallowed by the scrape of our skates.
Cole studies me for a second, and, for once, he doesn’t look like my older brother. He looks like someone who knows exactly what it costs to want something that could ruin you.
“Then make it count,” he says.
The whistle shrills loudly; Cooper’s voice follows a heartbeat later. “Good work, boys! Hit the showers. Kyle, press room in thirty minutes. Try not to give Janine and Alycia a reason to call me before lunch.”
The team laughs, sticks tapping the ice. I force a smile, even manage a nod, but my chest feels too tight to breathe. Cole bumps my shoulder once before skating toward the bench.
“Think about it, little brother.”
The rink clears, the echo of blades and voices fading until all that is left is the hum of the arena lights and the rasp of my breathing. When I glance back at the boards, she’s gone. Only my reflection stares back at me in the glass.