Spectrum & Smoke (Rochester Copperheads #2)

Chapter 1

Russell “Chip” Cornish

The first thing Janne Rautio, defenseman for the Lehigh Valley Vortex, said to me was, “You praying, weirdo?”

Not praying, no. Analyzing out loud, yes. There’d been no clean outcome on the last play from the angle I’d been forced to take, and a new calculation had been running under my breath.

“Don’t need to pray when we’re winning.” That was my standard reply whenever that particular praying chirp happened, and it happened a lot. I only used the winning part when we were in the lead.

“Fuck you,” Janne snarled.

We were in our barn, and the Vortex was trailing by three.

Their captain was out—upper body, week-to-week—and his absence on the ice showed in late decisions and long shifts.

Their spacing was sloppy, wingers too high, and their center late on the faceoff.

If we kept generating chances, we would carry it to a win—seventh in a row in an already amazing season that had us sitting on top of the table.

As Cap said in the pre-game speech, this could be our year.

Janne was a thorn in my side tonight, though, kept talking as if something he said was going to stick to me. Chirp after chirp of nonsensical words that I ignored.

“Your mom could do better minutes,” he said as he crowded me in the corner.

“My mom doesn’t play hockey.” I glanced at the clock as I pivoted, already reading the lane opening at our right side.

He said something else, but I was watching our center, Orly, push through the middle as their other D backed off too early, giving us a space they shouldn’t have.

The puck kicked loose just ahead of their blue line, and I accelerated, shoulder to shoulder with Janne, both of us reaching.

He tried to cut me off, but he was a half-step late, like most of their line that night.

They were chasing instead of dictating, reacting instead of reading, and it showed in every small gap they left open.

I got a stick on it first, and we scrambled in the corner, but nothing came from that play either. My line, the third—centered by Orly and Taft on the left wing—was back on the bench.

Walker Hannan, our captain, leaned in as we sat down. “And?” he asked as if he already knew the answer and just wanted me to say it out loud.

“Their zone exits are down, center support is late, and wingers are cheating high. Entries against them are up. Shift length is stretching past fifty seconds on their second line. Stats are good, Cap.”

He smiled and glanced at the board. “We’ve got this.”

Next time I was over the boards, Janne was all over me again, frustrated.

“Wish they’d send out a real boy for me to play,” he snarked as we waited for the faceoff.

“That’s so cute.”

“I’m not being fucking cute, Robot.”

I guess Robot was better than the other R word people had thrown at me in the past. The ref was having words with Orly and the opposing center, who weren’t positioned right, which gave me time to finish my canned response.

“Autism isn’t a deficit. I don’t waste processing power on things that don’t matter.

Like your chirps.” Then I backed into him, accidentally on purpose, angled his stick off mine, and took the inside lane, the puck hitting my stick just right.

He hooked at my hands, subtle, but I felt it, enough to throw off the clean entry.

I dumped the puck deep instead and chased hard, forcing their other D to turn.

They both hesitated for a second as if neither was sure about who was taking it, and that was all it took at this level.

I hit the end boards at speed and absorbed the contact as Janne caught up and slammed me into the glass.

Solid hit. Legal. I braced, dug, and kicked the puck loose behind my skates, keeping my balance while he tried to pin me there longer than he should.

He was too close—pressure at my shoulder, his breath hot through the cage, sweat and tape and damp gear—and outside the rink that kind of proximity would have spiked everything, but on the ice, it resolved to contact, angle, force.

That was the thing nobody understood about me and hockey.

The noise was predictable noise. The contact was purposeful contact.

Every collision had a reason, a direction, a consequence I could calculate in real time.

Off the ice, the world came at me without structure.

On it, the chaos had rules, and rules were something I could work with.

He huffed a laugh in my ear. “Bad luck, Robot.” I tightened my grip on my stick and shifted my weight half an inch to square up.

The puck cycled high then back down low. I peeled off the boards, finding space in the right circle with my stick down, ready. Cap threaded it through traffic, a clean lane opening for half a second because their coverage collapsed.

I dropped to one knee as the puck hit my stick, weight forward, the angle already there. The release was clean, fast.

I shot.

I scored.

The team didn’t make a big deal out of it.

No jumping on me, no arms around my shoulders dragging me into a pile.

They knew better than to crowd me, but they tapped my ass, gloves knocking once, twice, quick and solid.

Taft was there first, a firm tap to my helmet, then Cap and the rest closed it down for a few seconds, noise and movement and heat.

I let them, and the huddle broke as quickly as it had formed. We peeled off, reset, and lined up again as if nothing had happened.

Janne hooked me—stick across my hands. The ref saw it. Two minutes. Cap converted on the power play. Goal.

In the locker room, sweat cooling and gear half off, Walker knocked his shoulder into mine.

“You coming to Mabel’s to celebrate?” Mabel’s was a coffee shop that some of the team had commandeered since a group of us attended art therapy sessions and needed a space to chat afterward.

It’s where we’d seen Walker’s love story with Finn unfold, and we’d gotten used to going there.

I shook my head. “Early night. I’m helping my brother in the morning.” I paused, recalculated. “Next time, though.”

He glanced at me, a quick read, then nodded. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Good goal tonight.”

“I know.”

We fist-bumped, then it was shower, get dressed, pick up Sable from Coach Ronan’s office, head home, read, eat something, sleep, and then, in the morning, head to the gym that I co-owned with my brother.

Having a plan fixed in my head was as good as scoring a goal.

I’d been playing since I was six. My mother had signed me up alongside my brother, Matt, because my therapist at the time suggested a structured physical activity with clear rules and immediate feedback.

It wasn’t supposed to be hockey—Mom called it a violent, danger-ridden game—but Matt wanted to play hockey, so I did.

Simple. Mom hadn’t anticipated that I would become genuinely good at it, or that the ice would turn out to be the one place in which my brain ran cleanly without my having to argue with it.

Cornish Iron was closed to the public this morning—weights stacked near the exit, benches pushed out of their usual lines, drywall missing in one corner.

Despite the chaos, which I had to work hard to ignore, this was an empty gym, no noise, no music bleeding from bad speakers, and only a faint citrus scent lingered from whatever Matt had used to wipe everything down the night before.

My black lab, Sable, heeled at my side, then adjusted her line around a bench pushed into the walkway, her black coat catching the strip lights, her harness snug across her chest. She was my buddy now, my assistance dog, and although my partnership with Sable was new, we’d clicked.

The program I was now part of was run by a nonprofit called Clarity Canine, which matched handlers with trained dogs and required a six-month integration period before the partnership was considered established. We were five and a half months into the scheme, and it worked.

I loved Sable. She was beautiful, kind, calm.

And when my anxiety spiked, she knew before I did most of the time.

The alert came as a nudge to my hand, a shift in her weight against my leg, grounding pressure that pulled everything back in line.

It didn’t fix anything, but it made life outside hockey manageable.

Clarity Canine’s trainer, a woman named Jo, had told me the alerts would get more precise the more we worked together.

She hadn’t been wrong. Sable knew my nervous system better than I did.

She checked in with a quick look up at me before settling when I stopped.

I patted her head and praised her.

“I should’ve canceled the electrician,” Matt said from behind me, and I turned to face him.

He was the image of Dad, tall, muscled, with blond hair and blue eyes, whereas I was all Mom, with dark curly hair and green eyes.

I was also a couple of inches shorter and not as muscled, but what I lacked in that respect, I made up for when I got on the ice.

“Why would you cancel?”

“Then you wouldn’t have to wait around for him on your single no skating day this week.”

That made no sense to me. “If you cancel him, then the wiring wouldn’t be fixed, and you’d need to close the gym for longer than one day, and businesses that close at random have a seventy-three percent failure rate.”

He smiled at me. “I love that you know that.” And he did love it.

He loved me and all my stats, and I’d never had reason to doubt it.

Then he grew serious. “I’d stay, but we have the doctor’s appointment.

Lena’s blood pressure is up, and I don’t want to be across town while she goes alone—” He cut himself off and ran a hand through his hair. “You know.”

I nodded. I didn’t know the feeling part, but the facts—Lena’s due date in four weeks, margin of error, migraines, increased probability of pre-eclampsia—were front and center. “Pre-eclampsia only occurs in about five percent of first pregnancies—”

“Don’t,” he said quickly, but there was no bite in it. Just nerves. “Don’t give me numbers right now.”

I paused, adjusted. This was probably a time when my talking wasn’t going to help, and I understood that. “Okay.”

Sable sat when I stopped moving, and Matt crouched automatically, his hand out. “Hey, girl,” he murmured, rubbing behind her ears, fingers gentle against her collar. She leaned into it for a second then refocused on me.

“Are you getting used to her?” he asked.

We were still learning each other. “She’s getting used to me,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, softer. “She’s good for you.” Then he looked at me for a second, then his eyes flicked to his phone again. “You got your headphones?”

I tapped my pocket. “Yes.” I stepped around a stack of plates left too close to the walkway and adjusted my line to reach the treadmill.

“The electrician might be early or late, okay? He said after nine, but it could be before or after that. I get that it’s chaotic—”

“I’m okay.” The last thing Matt needed today was to worry about me when he was focusing on Lena and the imminent arrival of my niece or nephew.

He’d had a lifetime of managing my need for accuracy in all things ever since seven-year-old Matt was presented with a baby brother.

But not today because Lena was his priority right now.

“I’m going to run and not focus on time. ”

“Right.” He nodded. “Keep an eye on the door.” He pointed at said door, which had sheetrock leaning against the wall next to it and coils of wire, the job half done. “Let the guy in. He knows what he’s doing. I’ll be back by lunchtime at the latest.”

“I know.”

“And if… ” He stopped again, tension pulling tight across his shoulders. “If you need me, you could call—”

“Go,” I said. “I can handle an empty gym and one electrician.”

“I know you can.” He seemed annoyed that I’d even suggest otherwise. Some people underestimated my abilities in social situations, but Matt wasn’t one of them.

He hesitated for half a second, then stepped in, gripped the back of my neck in a quick squeeze and let go just as fast. On the way out, he bent to Sable again, one last fuss. “Look after him,” he told her.

“She will,” I said because Matt needed to know I was going to be okay.

“You’re the best brother,” Matt said, already moving. “Even if you are a pain in my ass.”

I didn’t answer that. It wasn’t a question. He was teasing me, and it made him smile. I loved it when Matt smiled.

I locked the door behind him, and the gym settled back into quiet.

After turning the sign to CLOSED, I set a reminder alarm on my phone for the electrician and put on my headphones.

The first track dropped in, bass steady, predictable, one of the five I listened to on repeat every time I was in a gym.

Sable circled once, paused where her usual spot was blocked by stacked plates, then lay down by the front desk instead, chin on her paws, eyes on me.

“Good girl,” I said, and her ears pricked. “Such a good girl.” She wagged her tail and huffed in that doggy way she had of relaxing. Then I started the belt and began a slow jog to warm up.