Chapter 4
Ash
Ispend the next few days becoming completely normal about Hayes. By which I mean I become the exact opposite of normal. It starts innocently enough.
The morning after the game, I catch myself looking for him when I walk into the locker room. The realization annoys me immediately because I am thirty years old and fully capable of entering a room without scanning it for one specific person. Apparently not.
The problem only gets worse from there. Part of my brain is constantly keeping track of where Hayes is. At first, I tell myself it's because of his ribs.
That excuse works for approximately twelve hours, then I catch myself watching him bend over to tie his skates. A rib injury does not require that level of surveillance.
The bruise is still visible whenever his shirt rides up while he's changing. It's an ugly thing stretching along his side, dark purple fading into yellow around the edges. Every time I see it, I want to ask if it's feeling better. But I stop myself because asking about it would be weird.
We're teammates. Not whatever my subconscious is trying to make us out to be. Still, my eyes keep finding him.
The other problem is that Hayes doesn't seem nearly as interested in me as I am in him. Which is driving me slightly insane. Not because I need his attention.
I don't.
I mean, I definitely want it. I want him to check to see when I come in for practice. I would like to catch him staring at me for once. In reality, Hayes seems perfectly capable of going about his day without obsessively tracking my location. The lack of fairness irritates me.
A lot.
Dante corners me while we're changing. Actually, cornering isn't the right word.
Dante lacks the physical capability to ever corner me, but still, he tries.
“You've been weird.”
I don't look up from my gear. “We could've opened with 'Hi, how are you?'”
Dante ignores the sarcasm; the man has built up an immunity to it over the years. “Hi, how are you, Grant? Why are you acting so fucking weird all of a sudden?”
He sits beside me and studies my face.
“I'm not acting weird.”
“How are things with Riley?”
The question catches me off guard.
I stop taping my stick. Then I shrug. “We ended it.”
Dante's eyebrows immediately climb. “Oooh.”
I already dislike that tone.
“What?”
Dante smirks. “No wonder.”
I stare at him. “No wonder what?”
“No wonder why you're acting so feral.”
I nearly choke. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Dante starts counting on his fingers. “You're grumpier than usual.”
“It's impossible not to be grumpy with you always yapping at me.”
“You almost murdered a rookie for making a joke.”
I grit my teeth, “He deserved it.”
“You got into a fight on opening night.”
“Okay, he deserved that too.”
“And you spend half of practice staring at Hayes.”
My head snaps toward him.
Dante grins. The bastard.
“I do not.”
“You do.”
“I don't,” I hiss, checking to see if anyone is listening.
I hate how amused he looks. The conversation is rapidly becoming a threat to national security.
“I'm just worried about the guy. He looks like a kicked puppy. Also, he got injured in the last game.”
The excuse sounds weak even to me.
Dante's grin widens. “I don't remember him injuring his ass.”
I elbow him in the stomach. “Shut up.”
My eyes flick to Hayes stall. His stuff is there but he isn't. Thank God. “I was just making sure he was okay.”
“That's adorable.”
I throw a roll of tape at his head. This has become a recurring theme in our friendship.
Dante ducks while laughing. “You have a crush.”
“I don't.”
“You absolutely do. Your ears are turning pink.”
I stand. Mostly because staying seated increases the chances of homicide.
Dante continues laughing. The sound follows me halfway across the locker room. The annoying part is that I can't entirely dismiss what he said.
Not because I have a crush. Because that's ridiculous; I'm a fucking grown man.
The problem is that Hayes keeps finding ways to occupy space inside my head.
When he's quiet, I wonder what he's thinking.
When he smiles, I find myself wanting to see it again.
When somebody takes a shot at him, I immediately want to put them through a wall.
Those feelings should probably concern me.
Instead, I spend most of the afternoon pretending they don't exist.
The strategy works right up until film review.
The entire team files into the meeting room after practice. The lights dim. The projector turns on. Opening-night footage fills the screen. And despite everything Dante just said, my attention immediately drifts toward Hayes.
This is deeply unfortunate for my argument that I don't have a crush.
Hayes is sitting near the front again in the same seat he always chooses. Notebook open.
Pen ready.
I settle into my chair. Coach starts talking as he starts the footage. And once again, I find myself paying far more attention to Hayes than I do to hockey.
The film session is supposed to be routine.
Every team does them. Coaches pull apart games frame by frame, identifying mistakes and highlighting things they want repeated.
Most players tolerate them. A few enjoy them.
Dante spends the first ten minutes whispering complaints beside me as though Coach personally designed the exercise to ruin his afternoon.
The room is dark except for the glow of the projector.
Most of the team is spread throughout the rows of chairs with coffees and notebooks balanced on their knees.
The game looks different on film than it felt on the ice.
Everything seems cleaner. Faster. The crowd noise is muted beneath commentary from the coaching staff.
Mistakes stand out more clearly. Good decisions look obvious.
About twenty minutes into the review, one of the assistant coaches pauses the footage on a play Hayes created in the offensive zone.
“Right here,” he says, pointing at the frozen image on the screen. “This is excellent patience.”
The clip runs again.
Hayes draws a defender toward him, waits half a second longer than most players would, and threads a pass through traffic.
The coach nods approvingly. “This is elite vision. Not many guys make this play.”
Most players would enjoy hearing something like that. Hell, most professional athletes live for moments like that.
Hayes lowers his eyes to his notebook. “Thank you, Coach.”
His voice is polite. Completely empty.
The coach moves on. A few minutes later another clip appears. Another positive play. Another compliment. Again, Hayes thanks him. Again, it sounds like he's apologizing for existing.
The more it happens, the more uncomfortable I become. Because this isn't false modesty. I've seen athletes do that before. They smile awkwardly, shrug off praise, then secretly enjoy every second of it.
This isn't that. Hayes genuinely looks distressed. Every compliment seems to tighten something inside him. His shoulders grow stiffer. His posture closes off. His eyes stay fixed on his notebook whenever attention lands on him.
The reaction is so strange that I stop paying attention to the film entirely. Instead, I find myself watching him. There is a difference between somebody who dislikes attention and somebody who believes they don't deserve it. I think Hayes falls into the second category.
By the end of the session, I'm no longer surprised when the assistant coach highlights another one of Hayes's plays and calls it exceptional. The surprising part is the look on Hayes's face afterward. Most people glow when they're praised. Hayes looks like he's being punished.
I find Hayes sitting alone in the cafe area. That part isn't unusual. The guy spends more time by himself than anyone else on the roster. If the team is eating together, he's usually at the edge of the group. If the room is crowded, he somehow finds the quietest corner available.
What catches my attention is what he's doing. He's reading. Not scrolling through his phone. Not watching game footage. Actually reading.
I grab my tray and walk over before I can talk myself out of it.
Hayes glances up when I sit down across from him. For a second, he looks surprised. Then he notices I'm looking at the book in his hands.
“The Count of Monte Cristo?” I ask.
His eyes drop to the cover. “Yes.”
I stare at him.
“You read that for fun?”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “I know. It's a controversial hobby.”
A laugh escapes me before I can stop it. Interesting. There's a person in there after all.
I point toward the book. “What's it about?”
Hayes blinks. “You've never heard of it?”
“No.”
His expression shifts into something between disbelief and amusement. “It's one of the most famous novels ever written.”
“That doesn't answer my question.”
He closes the book around a bookmark. “It's about a sailor who's falsely imprisoned for years. He escapes, finds a fortune, reinvents himself, and spends the rest of the book getting revenge on the people who ruined his life.”
I stare at him for a second. “That is unbelievably depressing.”
Immediately, Hayes shakes his head. “No, it isn't.”
I laugh. “The guy gets thrown in prison for years.”
“Then he escapes.”
“And becomes obsessed with revenge.”
Hayes smirks. “He's very good at it.”
“That doesn't make it less depressing.”
Hayes actually smiles. A real smile this time. “It's hopeful.”
“That is not the word I would've chosen. The main character loses everything!”
“He gets it back.”
“Through elaborate revenge, I assume?”
“You're focusing on the wrong parts.”
The smile grows slightly. God. There really is a sense of humor buried under all that sadness.
I lean back in my chair.
“So what? You just sit around reading—What is it?” I pick up the book to read the author’s name. “Russian suffering all day?”
“Sometimes French suffering.”
“That's somehow worse.”