9. Wren
WREN
Ilearned three important things during my first official shift with the PCU men’s hockey team.
One: hockey players use more towels than any group of people should be legally allowed to use.
Two: Donnelly Pierce has a label for everything, including a bin marked emergency towels, which I regret asking about.
Three: Kai apologizing to my face is significantly harder to recover from than Kai ignoring my text.
That feels unfair.
The ignoring was familiar. Painful, yes, but familiar enough that I knew where to put it.
I had a place for it in my mental filing cabinet already.
It could sit with every other time Kai got quiet instead of honest, every time he disappeared into hockey or responsibility or whatever else felt safer than looking directly at me.
The apology did not fit there.
It’s been sitting under my skin for the last hour while I sort practice jerseys and pretend I am deeply invested in the difference between white tape, clear tape, and the black tape Donnelly told me never to misplace unless I want to “experience what mutiny smells like.”
For the record, I do not.
I already know what hockey gear smells like, and that is enough suffering for one lifetime.
“You listening, Calloway?”
I look up too fast and nearly drop the stack of towels in my arms. Donnelly stands beside a rolling cart with a clipboard in one hand, and his reading glasses low on his nose.
“Yes.”
He gives me a look.
“Mostly,” I add.
“That answer I believe.” He taps his pen against the clipboard and points toward the bins along the wall. “Practice towels in the gray bin, game towels in the blue, emergency towels in the red.”
“I’m still concerned about the emergency towels.”
“You should be.”
“That wasn’t exactly comforting.”
“Wasn’t meant to be.” He checks something off on his list. “Jerseys get sorted by color first, then number. Don’t trust the players to put anything where it belongs. They have many talents. Organization is not one of them.”
A laugh slips out before I can stop it. “That seems accurate.”
“It is.” He looks at me over the top of his glasses. “You did fine earlier.”
The praise catches me off guard. It feels good for my work; even when it’s expected, it is appreciated.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t look too relieved. You still folded half the towels wrong.”
I glance at the pile. “There’s a wrong way to fold towels?”
“There are many wrong ways to fold towels.”
“Of course there are.”
He shows me again, and I can’t say I’ll be able to remember this come Monday. But I do have a Mount St. Helens pile of laundry waiting for me at home, so I guess I’ll be practicing.
I have to admit, there’s something calming about a room where everything has a place, and someone notices when it’s not in said place.
At home, I can set the same lunch box by the door every night and still watch it vanish by morning.
Not like I can talk, since my room is in a constant state of chaos, and you never know what could be hiding in the bottom of my closet.
But I understand taking missing things personally, especially when you don’t know what exactly led to them going missing in the first place.
I spend the next forty minutes folding towels the Donnelly style and labeling a drawer full of laces. The work is boring, but not bad. It keeps my hands busy. The instructions are clear, which helps me focus on one task at a time.
Fold this. Sort that. Label these. Do not put the practice jerseys with the game jerseys unless I want Donnelly to let out a very, very, very deep sigh.
Kai would also sigh if things weren’t where they were supposed to be.
Not that I’m thinking about him.
Obviously.
I’m thinking about much safer things, like towels.
The equipment room door opens, and my body reacts before I look up.
I hate that.
My shoulders slump in disappointment when I realize it’s not Kai.
It’s Asher, still damp from his shower, holding a broken skate lace in one hand and wearing the expression of someone forced to communicate against his will.
“Donnelly around?” he asks.
“In the back.”
He glances at the bins. “Do you know where he keeps laces?”
I lift the drawer I just labeled. “I have been training for this exact moment.”
He raises a brow at me, but I cut in before he can say anything. “I’m new. Let me have this.”
The corner of his mouth moves. “Fair enough.” I hand him a replacement pair, and he takes them with a nod. “Thank you.”
Weston appears behind him with a towel over his shoulder and a granola bar in his mouth.
“Hey, Wren,” he says around it.
I point at him. “No food in the equipment room.”
He pauses mid-chew and looks genuinely betrayed. “Donnelly tell you that?”
“Yes,” I say, continuing to fold a few of the lingering towels in my pile.
“He has too many rules.”
That might be true, but I can’t admit that. “Well, he is the one that pays me.”
“You’ve chosen a side.”
Asher takes the granola bar out of Weston’s mouth and tosses it into the trash can nearby.
Weston stares after it. “That was my breakfast.”
“It’s eleven,” Asher says.
“Breakfast is a state of mind, and we all know I hate breakfast foods.”
Asher looks at his friend, completely at a loss. “You truly concern me so much.”
Weston ignores him and turns back to me. “Are you liking the glamorous world of hockey operations?”
I glance at the laundry cart. “Seeing as it’s my first full day, I can’t exactly say it’s been a life-changing experience.”
“Yeah, that happens. First comes the towels, then comes the power.”
“Says the person with no power,” Asher says.
Weston points at him. “You don’t know my life.”
“I wish I didn’t, but I know too much of it.”
Their bickering should be annoying, but instead it loosens something in the room, and I hate that I notice. I hate that this team has a rhythm I can already feel myself learning, because learning something makes it harder to leave.
“Cooper,” Donnelly calls from the back. “If you’re in my room, you better be bleeding or useful.”
Weston winces. Asher gives me a small nod and drags Weston out by the back of his hoodie.
“Rude,” Weston says, but he lets himself be moved.
The door swings shut behind them.
Donnelly reappears, unimpressed by the world. “Don’t feed the animals, especially Cooper.”
“I didn’t.”
“Good. They come back.”
“I’m learning.”
“That you are.”
By the time my shift ends, my hair is falling out of its buns, my hands smell like detergent, and I have a new respect for anyone who packs equipment bags without crying in a supply closet. So much organization that my brain simply cannot get on board with.
Donnelly signs my work-study sheet at 12:18.
“Monday morning,” he says.
“Yes, sir.” I nod. “Five-thirty.”
“And, Calloway?”
I pause with my sweatshirt halfway on.
He gestures toward the rolling cart. “Nice work today.”
The smallest compliment shouldn’t make my throat clog instantly, but it does. Not really sure what that says about me other than that I’ve been feeling extremely underappreciated lately and will take any scrap I can get.
I look away quickly, pretending to adjust my sleeve. “Thank you.”
I step into the hallway and stop.
Kai is there.
Maybe I need to sage this place and get rid of what seems to be some really bad juju in terms of running into him at any and all times.
On the other hand, he’s not bad to look at, especially with his still damp hair, a fitted white tank stretching across his chest perfectly and making him look even hotter than usual. There’s a good chance I might be drooling a bit while ogling my ex, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers and all that.
I can hear Grayson talking to him, so I should be safe to continue my perusal, but when I make it back up to his face, his attention is most definitely not on Grayson.
His eyes are locked right on mine, and I wish I could combust on the spot. Heat rushes to my cheeks, and the smirk that takes over his face is downright sinful.
For a few seconds, the hallway narrows to the space between Kai and me. Part of me hopes he’ll look away.
He doesn’t.
Good.
No, not good.
I don’t know.
I am too tired for this much eye contact before one in the afternoon.
Grayson glances between us before he says something low that I can’t make out, and Kai finally looks away. The loss of his attention should not feel like relief and disappointment at the same time.
I turn toward the exit before my face does something stupid.
Outside, the warm air hits my cheeks, and I take my first proper breath since stepping out of the equipment room. My car is halfway across the lot, sitting crooked between two lines because I was running late this morning, and my parking standards are more aspirational than real.
My phone buzzes before I reach it, and I see a text from my mom.
Mom: I’m so sorry, honey. They asked if I could stay four more hours. Can you handle dinner?
I stop walking.
For a second, I just stare at the screen.
I’m not mad at her, which almost makes it worse.
It would be easier if I could be mad, but Mom works until her feet hurt, and her smile goes thin, then apologizes to me like she’s the one asking too much. She’s not. The hospital is. Dad is. The bills are. The whole broken system we keep calling temporary because permanent is too depressing.
I type back a reply.
Wren: Yeah. I’ve got it.
Mom: I’ll make it up to you.
Wren: You don’t have to. It’ll be fine! I don’t work with the team again until Monday.
Mom: I don’t deserve you, sweetie. Love you!
Wren: Love you too
I get into my car and make the mental list.
First, pick up twins. Then, make dinner, check Justin’s assignment sheet to see how many are magically missing, ask Holden about his math quiz without making him defensive, laundry, gather the books for tomorrow’s library run, make sure Lily’s sneakers are dry, email my professor about the discussion post, then shower, if ambition strikes.
More than likely, I’ll collapse into a pile on top of my bed and stare at my ceiling.
Maybe fall asleep.
A girl can dream.