Chapter 16
Calder
The rink had gone still except for the hum of the compressors running under the ice.
That low, constant vibration kept the place breathing.
I leaned against the boards, gloves in one hand, stick hanging off the other, watching the reflection of the lights fade in the glass.
The girls had cleared out an hour ago, their laughter echoing down the tunnel until it vanished.
I ran the day through my head—not the plays, just the rhythm.
The patterns of grit and instinct you could only feel.
They’d skated harder. Passed cleaner. Billie had been the pulse of it, no question.
That first shift where she carried the puck through three defenders and still made the pass—that kind of confidence didn’t grow overnight.
Except somehow it had. Her shot had bite now, not just speed.
Got under the goalie’s glove twice during drills.
I wanted to call it progress, coaching, whatever made it sound clean. But the truth tasted like pride, warm and stupid in my chest. Too strong, too personal.
I slammed the pucks back into the bucket to shake it off. The clang of rubber on metal snapped through the emptiness.
Locker room still smelled like sweat and disinfectant. I went bench to bench, checking for stray gear before maintenance rolled through. Half-taped sticks. A missing shin guard. Someone’s scarf.
Then, near the bottom of the last row, I spotted it—a laminated card wedged under a pile of towels, corner torn, the photo side slick with condensation. Billie Donovan. Crestwood Student ID.
The picture caught her mid-blink, eyes too wide, a line of mascara smudged under one of them. Looked nothing like the way she played.
I turned the card over before I could talk myself out of it. Her dorm name, room number, even the campus map logo printed in small letters. Everything neat and official. Belonging to a kid working her ass off to belong on a different ice.
I told myself to toss it in lost and found, walk away, keep it simple. But my hand stayed closed around it instead.
Outside, the parking lot lights cut harsh cones through the dark. My truck sat half-frozen under a layer of road salt, the windshield fogged from the inside. The sensible move was to drop the ID on Paige’s desk in the morning. She’d log it, text the student, easy as that.
Instead, I opened the driver’s door and tossed the card onto the dash like it had pulled me there.
“Just doing my job,” I muttered.
The seatbelt clicked. Engine caught, rough at first, then steady. I pulled out slow, the wheels crunching through packed snow.
The plastic card slid across the dash at the first turn and landed near the gauge cluster. I glanced down. The black-and-white of her name shone under the dash light.
Returning something she needed. That was it.
Then why the hell was my chest tight like I’d just taken a hit? Why did the road ahead feel longer than it should?
I cranked the heat and kept driving toward campus; the ID catching the faint glow from the dash, her name glowing like it had weight.
The hallway smelled like detergent and hot dust from overworked radiators. I could hear laughter bleeding through a door down the hall, muffled pop music under it. Hers was quiet. Only a soft hum, maybe a fan or the low buzz of her laptop. I knocked once.
The door opened halfway, and there she was—bare legs, sleep shorts, hoodie two sizes too big, throat marked with the line of a drawstring. Hair knotted up. She looked more like a kid than a player for half a breath—until her eyes cut up to mine, sharp and clear.
“You forgot this.” I held out the ID like it might scorch me.
She blinked at it, then at me. “You walked across campus to deliver that?”
“Didn’t want you getting locked out.” I kept my tone even, but it came out rougher than planned.
Her mouth twitched, half amusement, half confusion. One hand tightened on the doorframe. “You could’ve just given it to me at practice.”
“Yeah,” I said.
The silence stretched. She pressed her bottom lip between her teeth, studying me, maybe trying to figure out what game I was playing. The truth was, I didn’t have one. I just hadn’t wanted someone else holding a piece of her name.
“You want to come in for a second?”
A bad idea dressed as a polite offer. I hesitated, but my shoes stayed planted when they should’ve turned. She stepped back to make room, so I followed.
The dorm smelled faintly of coffee and citrus cleaner. Fairy lights tangled across the wall, dim and warm. Piles of books and gear crowded every corner. A stick leaned against the desk, tape fraying at the end.
“You can sit, if you—”
“I’m fine,” I cut in. The words sounded bigger than the space between us. I stayed standing. Felt like I blocked the whole room. The ceiling seemed lower with me under it.
She perched on the bed’s edge, laptop still open beside her, a textbook facedown in her lap like she’d been pretending to study. Her eyes flicked to my hands, then to the door, like she was reminding herself she hadn’t trapped anyone here.
I set the ID on the desk. “Next time double-check your stuff before you leave the rink.”
She nodded slowly. “I owe you.”
“Don’t.”
“Still,” she said, voice thin but steady, “thank you.”
My chest tightened. There was nothing dangerous in her tone, just casual gratitude—but it carried heat anyway, sliding under my guard before I could stop it.
I looked around for an exit, found only four walls hung with photos of the team. She followed my gaze. “It’s small,” she offered, almost apologetic.
“It’s a dorm.” I forced half a smile. “They’re supposed to be.”
Another pause. The air thickened.
“You should get some sleep,” I managed.
“Yeah.” She didn’t move. Neither did I.
Every instinct said leave, now, before politeness turned into something heavier. I reached for the doorknob. My hand stopped short.
She looked up through loose strands of hair, eyes soft but unflinching.
She tilted her chin toward the notebook on the nightstand. “I was going over my study guide before you showed up.”
Her voice barely carried, but it broke the quiet enough to pull me out of my head.
I smirked. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
She hesitated, then grabbed the notebook. A few pages curled where the corners had caught condensation from a cup under it. She flipped through quickly, muttering something about “strategies,” and handed it to me like I was about to judge it for neatness.
I dropped into her desk chair. The thing creaked under me and leaned back farther than it should. She perched on the edge of the bed, knees drawn together, notebook open between us.
The lighting made everything soft, even me.
“All right, brainiac—” I ran a finger down the page. “Who drafted Gretzky?”
Her eyes narrowed like I’d offered her a trick question. “Nobody. He was signed.”
I snapped my fingers. “Okay, now I’m scared of you.”
She grinned. For a second the air lost its edge.
I kept going, barking questions like I was running a drill. “Who was the first woman to coach at the NCAA level?”
“Digit Murphy.”
“Who holds the all-time penalty minute record?”
“Sheppard, but Probert’s the legend for it.”
“Tell that to me again when you’ve got a thousand in the box.”
“You’d know,” she shot back, lips twitching.
I couldn’t help it—laughed once, short and real. The sound startled both of us.
Her answers came fast and clean, like snapshots from a mind that never stopped processing the game. I kept the pace, leaning forward every time she nailed another one, tossing in deeper cuts just to see if she’d slip. She hardly missed.
My pulse kept time with the rhythm of her replies.
“Damn,” I muttered after the tenth straight right answer. “You study like you skate.”
“Obsessively?”
“Efficiently.”
Color climbed her neck. She shuffled the pages, pretending to read. I could tell she’d memorized every word already.
I leaned back, chair pitching again. “So what do you win then? Ten out of eleven’s not bad.”
She tilted her head. “You tell me.”
“What do you want? More ice time?”
“What if I already earned that?”
The confidence in her tone caught me off guard. She wasn’t teasing. She believed it. I did too.
“Then name something else.”
The room breathed but neither of us did. The radiator hissed. Outside, someone laughed down the hall. Inside, there was only that small circle of space between us that felt heavier than anything I’d carried off the ice.
Her fingers rested on the open notebook, tapping once, twice, like maybe an answer was written there.
But she didn’t speak.
And I didn’t push.
The silence spread, thick and alive. Louder than any word she could’ve said.
I could still feel it against my skin when I finally forced a breath. I looked down. The notebook on her knees wasn’t about line changes or Gretzky trivia — the header read Human Anatomy.
Of course it did. I could feel the shift before she even lifted her eyes.
“I’m sure there are a few things you can teach me about that.”
The words hung there, half-tease, half-challenge. She knew exactly what she was doing. Or maybe she didn’t. Maybe it was just honesty blinking through the wreck.
My palm flattened over the notebook, the edge biting my skin. Diagrams stared up at me: tendons, sinew, bones fitting together clean, uncomplicated. Nothing about this was clean.
“Billie—” It came out rough, nearer to a warning than I meant.
She leaned in anyway, heartbeat almost audible in the narrow room. Eyes steady. I could smell her shampoo, remember winter air on her breath.
I slid the notebook back across the bed, words catching behind my teeth. “Anatomy’s for someone your own age to teach.”
A twitch at the corner of her mouth. Not anger. Understanding. Maybe victory.
She reached for the book, knuckles brushing mine. And neither of us moved.
I should have stood, muttered something neutral, and left. But my mouth betrayed me first. “That guy at the bar. You into him?”
Her head snapped up. “You asking as my coach?”