Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Kyle
The rink is too bright this morning, making the ice look like a sheet of white fire instead of frozen water, harsh enough to expose every place I am falling apart.
Skates carve sharp, angry lines as I push harder into my stride.
Hard left, hard right, pivot, stop, explode forward again.
My muscles are screaming for a break, but I don’t take one.
The pain is the only thing that keeps the rest from swallowing me whole.
“Morning, little brother,” Cole calls as he glides past, tapping my stick with his. “Are you trying to set a land-speed record or die during warmups?”
A puck comes flying toward me from the left, someone yelling my name, but I am a step slow getting my stick down. It ricochets off the boards behind me. I curse under my breath, low and ugly. Another mistake. The only thing I have managed to do consistently for the last two days.
Cole skates up alongside me, shoulder brushing mine before he peels off again. “Hey.” His tone drops. “You good?”
I don’t answer. My chest is too tight to speak, and even if it weren’t, the words are not there. They haven’t been since the car ride home from the gala when she walked away from me.
I dig my toe pick in and stop hard enough that a spray of ice dust hits my shin guards.
The sharp breath that rips out of me fogs the air.
Inside, everything still feels like I am breathing smoke.
Beau and Cooper stand near the crease, watching the drill with narrowed eyes.
Today, they’re not my brothers. They’re my coaches, trying to get a restless roster ready for our next game against the Wolverines.
None of us, me included, wants to lose this one.
Especially not after winning the Cup last season. We cannot afford mistakes.
“Let’s go! Defense, start your gap-control reps. Forwards, rotate through at half speed first.”
A familiar tension pulls across my shoulders, the kind that usually sharpens me, narrows the world to a single point. Today, it only makes the ache in my chest spread wider.
The drill isn’t complicated. We start at the blue line, skate backward with control, read the forward’s approach, and match his pace and angle him toward the boards.
I’ve done it so many times it should live in my bones, but the second I line up and settle into my stance, something feels misaligned.
My body and mind are not speaking the same language.
Cole takes his place behind me in line, nudging the back of my skate with his stick, the gesture bordering on obnoxious if it weren’t so familiar. “Don’t embarrass me. We all know I’m Coach’s favorite.”
“You’re not his favorite,” I mutter, shaking out my arms as I wait for Cooper’s signal.
“I’m definitely his favorite.”
“Shut up,” I say, but there’s no heat behind it, just the thudding pressure beneath my ribs that hasn’t eased since the gala.
Cooper’s whistle cuts through the air like a knife tapping glass. “Kyle, you’re up.”
I push off the line and glide backward into position, lowering my center of gravity, stick extended in the passing lane, the way Beau drilled into me when I was sixteen.
The world narrows to Diaz across from me.
He’s also a rookie, with quick feet and the confidence that comes with youth and not enough hard lessons yet.
He starts down the ice with a controlled stride, the puck moving in easy arcs across his blade. My job is simple. Hold the gap. Make him uncomfortable. Force him wide or strip the puck. Nothing more. Nothing less. As he picks up speed, something inside me slips.
I try to match his pace, adjusting my edges, controlling the backward glide, but my timing is wrong.
I am half a beat behind, and Diaz feints left.
My weight shifts too early, throwing me off balance.
He takes advantage instantly, cutting across my body with a burst of acceleration that leaves a streak of ice shavings in his wake.
I reach out, trying to close the lane, but my stick hits nothing but air as he blows past. He would’ve had a clean path to the net if this were live.
Behind me, I hear Cole suck in a breath. Somewhere farther out, Cooper mutters something that sounds a lot like frustration. Beau steps forward near the crease, one hand braced on the crossbar, eyes narrowed, tracking the exact moment everything went wrong.
“Your hips opened too soon,” Beau calls, voice calm but firm. “You gave him the lane before he earned it.”
“I know,” I say, though the words feel thick in my throat.
“And you were drifting instead of dictating,” Cooper adds, skating a few feet closer, tone clipped. “A forward like Diaz eats that alive every time.”
They’re right. I know they are. But knowing doesn’t fix the fact that my body isn’t responding, and my mind is somewhere else entirely. Every time I try to focus on Diaz or the drill, I feel the ghost of Alycia’s voice pressing into my ears like cold fingers on the back of my neck.
Cooper blows the whistle again. “Reset. Diaz, again. Let’s go.”
I skate back to the blue line and drag a deep breath into my lungs. It does nothing to steady me. Cole glides up beside me again, less smug this time, concern pulling his features tight.
“Kyle,” he murmurs, “you are off. And not just a little. What is going on?”
“Nothing.”
He doesn’t push, but he doesn’t believe me either.
The whistle sounds, and I am moving before I’m ready, backward strides carrying me into the lane. Diaz approaches faster now, no more half-speed courtesy. I sink lower, trying to control the angle, to read his weight before he shifts instead of chasing him after.
He crosses the blue line, and my timing breaks apart again. His shoulder dips, and I misread it. My feet tangle for half a heartbeat, a tiny misstep most people wouldn’t notice, but in that half-beat, the gap widens. Diaz darts behind me with ease, and my stick clatters uselessly against the ice.
“Jesus,” Cooper mutters, loud enough for everyone to hear.
Beau runs a hand through his hair. “You are dropping your top hand. That’s not like you.”
“I know,” I force out, the words scraping something raw.
Cole skates closer, chest rising and falling in controlled breaths. He says nothing, but his stare feels like it cuts straight through the excuses I haven’t even managed to make yet. There’s no chance I’m walking out of this practice without one of them wanting answers.
Before I can put together anything resembling an explanation, the metal doors at the far end of the rink open with a low groan. The sound rolls over the ice and pulls every nerve in my body taut. I feel her before I see her.
Alycia walks in with the media team orbiting around her.
She moves with quiet authority, every step steady and precise.
Her hair is twisted smooth at the nape of her neck, the line of her shoulders elegant and controlled.
Neutrals again today, soft beige and black, colors that make her look even sharper, as if she built herself out of intention alone.
She looks untouched by the wreckage of the last two days, but I know better. I have memorized too many of her tells. Her eyes sweep the rink, cataloging everything she needs. The camera operator asks a question. She answers with a nod, expression cool and professional. Then her gaze lands on me.
Something in my chest seizes, the air leaving my lungs in a slow, painful drag.
I straighten instinctively, some part of me desperate to meet that look, to hold it, to find anything in it.
She glances away before I can read a thing.
Like I am just another player. Not the man who watched her walk away as if it cost her something she couldn’t afford to say out loud.
Cole exhales quietly beside me. “Well. That looked like it hurt.”
I don’t tell him to shut up. I’m not even sure the words would come out if I tried.
Beau, still at the crease, has that look that says he has noticed more than I wanted him to. Cooper shifts at center ice, focus flicking between me, Alycia, and the drill with a stare edged in assessment and something that looks a lot like concern.
She continues across the rink, chin lifted, gestures efficient, expression unbreakable. Her shoulders are a fraction too tight. Her movements are a little too rehearsed, telling me she isn’t fine; she is pretending. The knowledge hits like a body check I never saw coming.
Cooper’s whistle blares again, snapping me back into motion. “Get back in the drill, Kyle. Right side. Now.”
I push off the boards and gather speed, trying to shake off the pounding in my chest from one look. Cole drifts back to his lane, but keeps glancing at me, braced for the moment I implode.
I drop into my stance as Diaz approaches yet again.
I already know my timing is off. My feet glide where they should cut and cut where they should glide.
The ice feels foreign, like I am skating to someone else’s rhythm.
I try to focus on the puck, but all I feel is the ghost of her eyes sliding away from mine and the twist in my chest that follows.
Diaz crosses the line. His weight shifts. And I fall for it again. He swerves around me like I’m a traffic cone instead of a defenseman. My stick slams against the ice with a sharp crack, frustration burning through me so hot my vision washes out at the edges.
Cooper lowers his whistle, staring at me like I am twelve again. Beau looks like he’s running diagnostics on every part of me. Cole is watching me with worry that would have been funny any other day. None of it hits as hard as what I see when I look toward the far boards.