Chapter 18
Sasha
Aaron is avoiding eye contact and I want to pin him to the boards until he looks at me.
He’s on the far side of the ice, running a breakout drill with Robertson and Cooper, and he hasn’t glanced my way once in twenty minutes. Which is fine. We’re at practice. We’re co-captains. We don’t need to look at each other.
Except he’s doing the thing. The careful, deliberate not-looking that’s louder than looking. He’s managing me from forty feet away, and the worst part is that it’s working. I can feel every inch of the distance he’s put between us.
Two days since the library. Two days since I told him about Lily and the citizenship and the marriage idea and watched his jaw lock up like someone wired it shut. Two days since he said “it’s a bad idea” in that flat, controlled voice and didn’t say anything else.
He didn’t say don’t.
I wanted him to say don’t.
“Vorontsovsky! You’re up.” Coach blows his whistle.
At least this rivalry has made me so prominent that it’s gotten some people beyond Coach Rafferty to finally pronounce my last name.
Board battle drill. One-on-one, fight for the puck in the corner, come out with possession. Simple. Bread and butter.
I line up against Elliot. He’s a defenseman, six-one, solid. A good test on a normal day. Today my legs feel like they’ve got somewhere to be that isn’t this drill.
The puck drops into the corner. I’m on it first — shoulder into Elliot’s chest, pinning him to the glass, my stick working the puck free along the boards. He leans back into me and tries to reach around but I’ve already got it, rolling off his hip and cycling toward the net.
“Nice,” Robertson says from the line.
I don’t answer. I circle back. Get in line again.
The next rep is against Daniels. I win it in two seconds.
The one after that is against Adams. Same thing.
I’m playing like the puck personally owes me money, and I know it, and I can’t make myself stop.
Every battle is the citizenship application sitting in some bureaucrat’s inbox.
Every check is Diego’s voice saying be patient.
Every time my shoulder connects with someone else’s chest, it feels like the only honest thing I’ve done all week.
“Easy, Sasha.” Cooper skates past me after my fourth rep. Dry. Not a warning — just Cooper noticing.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re going through guys like a blender. Save it for the competition.”
He skates off. I get back in line.
Aaron is three spots ahead of me in the rotation now.
I watch him take his turn against a sophomore D-man — clean, efficient, smart positioning.
He uses his hands instead of his body, working the puck out of the corner with a quick toe drag and a pass to the slot.
Textbook. Controlled. Every move deliberate and measured, the way everything about Aaron Kelly is deliberate and measured.
He comes out of the drill and skates past me. Close enough to touch. Doesn’t look at me.
My hands clench.
Coach whistles the switch. Full scrimmage now.
Blue versus white pinnies. I pull on the blue, Aaron pulls on the white.
Of course. We’re on opposite sides. We spend half our practices on opposite sides because Coach likes the competition, likes the way we push each other, likes what happens when the two best players on his team go head-to-head.
Usually I like it too. Usually this is the part of practice where I feel most alive — Aaron across the dot from me at the face-off, his eyes locked on mine for the one moment where looking at each other is mandatory.
The draw is the only place in this building where we’re allowed to be this close, this focused on each other, and nobody thinks twice about it.
Today I win the draw clean. Pull it back to Elliot at the point. Cut through the middle and call for it back. The puck hits my tape and I’m driving the net with Aaron’s white pinnie in my peripheral vision, his stick reaching for my hands, his body closing the lane —
I shoot high glove. Callan snags it. Whistle.
“Damn,” Robertson says. “Almost.”
I circle back to center ice. Aaron lines up across from me again. This time he looks at me. Just for a second. Green eyes under his cage, that little crease between his eyebrows that means he’s worried.
Don’t worry about me, Aaron Kelly. Worry about losing this draw.
I win it again. Backhand, quick, pulling it between his skates. His mouth tightens behind his cage. I’d smile but I don’t have the energy for charming right now.
The scrimmage picks up. I’m playing hard — harder than a Tuesday practice calls for. I know it. Coach knows it. I can hear him on the bench, not saying anything yet, which means he’s watching. Deciding whether this is competitive fire or something that needs managing.
It’s something that needs managing. But I can’t stop. My body won’t come down from wherever it went when I sat in that library and said maybe I should marry her and Aaron’s highlighter snapped in his hand and he still didn’t say the word I needed to hear.
Next shift I take a bad penalty. Hooking — my stick caught in Nakamura’s elbow as he cut through the slot. Lazy. The kind of play I don’t make when my head is right. Coach doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to. I can feel the clipboard taking notes from the bench.
I sit out the two minutes. Watch Aaron win a draw on the penalty kill.
Watch him block a shot with his shin — doesn’t flinch, just absorbs it and clears the zone.
He’s good. He’s always good, but he’s especially good when things need to be steady, when someone else is falling apart and the team needs a captain who isn’t losing his mind.
The guilt sits heavy in my stomach.
My penalty expires. I hop the boards and drive into the offensive zone on a rush — pick up a loose puck at the red line, split two D-men with a move I’ve been running since I was fifteen in Russia, and rip a shot that beats Callan clean. Top corner. Bar down. The sound echoes off the glass.
Nobody celebrates. In a scrimmage you don’t. But Robertson taps my shin with his stick as he skates past, and Callan pulls the puck out of his net with the kind of resigned headshake goalies give when they know they had no chance.
It should feel good. It doesn’t feel like anything.
Board battle along the far wall. Young comes in hard on the forecheck — third-line energy, trying to impress. I’ve got the puck behind the net and he’s leaning on me, stick on my hip, mouth going the way Young’s mouth always goes.
“Move your feet, Sasha. Thought you were supposed to be fast.”
I spin off him. Protect the puck. Start the cycle up the wall.
He stays on me. Follows me into the corner. Gets his stick in my hands and knocks the puck loose. Fine. Good play. He’s a pest — that’s his job. He does it well.
I collect the puck along the half wall. Young’s back on me immediately.
Hip to hip. He’s got that grin — the one the third-liners wear when they think they’re getting under your skin.
He’s been watching me all practice, the way the younger guys watch when they can smell blood.
They know something’s off. They just don’t know what.
“Heard they want you for another commercial,” he says. Still grinning. “What’s next, modeling for jockstraps? Anything if the paycheck is right, I’ll bet.”
“Get off me, Young.”
“I’m just saying. Big star. Big money.” He leans in harder. Close enough that I can smell his mouthguard. “Nice footwork, pretty boy. Did you learn that from a real athlete while pretending to play hockey in your TV commercials?”
My vision goes red.
I don’t think about it. I don’t decide. My gloves are on the ice before my brain catches up and I’ve got two fistfuls of Young’s jersey and I’m driving him backward into the boards.
His helmet bounces off the glass. His eyes go wide — surprise, not fear, because Mitch Young has never once in his life had the good sense to be afraid of anything.
“Whoa — Sasha —”
I hit him. Not a hockey fight, not the kind with protocol and linesmen stepping in. A practice punch, short and sharp, that catches him on the jaw below his cage. His head snaps sideways. My knuckles sting.
Whistles. Multiple whistles. Hands on my shoulders — Robertson pulling me back, Cooper stepping between us, someone yelling my name. Young is against the boards touching his jaw, more startled than hurt, looking at me like I’ve lost my mind.
Maybe I have.
“Vorontsovsky!” The coach is barking at me. Furious and loud. “Off the ice. Now.”
The rink is silent except for the sound of my own breathing. Every player on both sides has stopped moving. Aaron is at the far blue line, stick across his knees, watching me. His face is unreadable behind his cage.
I pull my gloves off the ice. Skate to the bench. Don’t look back.
Coach Rafferty’s office smells like coffee and old equipment. There’s a game tape paused on his computer — Michigan’s power play, from the look of it. He doesn’t turn it off when I sit down in the chair across from his desk.
He doesn’t say anything for a long time. Just looks at me.
“You done?” he says finally.
“I’m done.”
“You sure? Because I’ve got Young sitting in the training room with an ice pack and I need to know if my captain has lost his mind or if this is a one-time event.”
“It was a one-time event.”
“Was it.” Not a question. He leans back. The chair creaks. “Because what I saw out there wasn’t a hockey play. That was a kid throwing a tantrum.”
My teeth clench. I deserve that. I know I deserve that. It doesn’t make it easier to hear.
“Young was chirping,” I say.
“Young chirps everyone. That’s what Young does. You’re a captain. You’re supposed to be above it.” He folds his hands on the desk. “You want to tell me what’s actually going on?”