Chapter 23
twenty-three
ROOK
Tonight, I’m a thief in my own kingdom.
My phone glows like a beacon of guilt in the dark of the men's hockey equipment storage area, a cavernous room filled with everything from replacement 'captain' sew-on patches to a couple of Zambonis and everything in between.
Everything my team has and Morgan's team needs.
Her text message is on the screen, a list of exactly what her squad needs to get through the next few games. We've already completed an order for some new uniforms and other gear that needs to be manufactured and delivered, but this supply run is simply for the basics of existing as a hockey team.
The list isn’t just detailed, it’s forensically precise. Not just tape, but specific brands and widths. She’s itemized everything down to the gram weight of stick wax, complete with acceptable alternatives ranked by preference. Christ, I bet she has a spreadsheet to organize her spreadsheets.
Either she's always like this, or she thinks I'm too dumb to figure it out.
Probably the former, given how the last few days have gone.
Warmth spreads through my chest, slow and inevitable, as the memory of the last few study sessions at the library floods back. Not just the fact that she helped me, but how she made me feel… not stupid… for the first time in my whole time at college.
She didn’t laugh when I got excited and started sketching hockey plays in the margins to explain Rousseau’s state of nature. And, for the first time since freshman year, sitting in a library didn’t feel like wearing a costume three sizes too small.
“You’re not stupid, Rook,” she’d whispered, almost like she hadn’t meant to say it out loud. “You just think sideways.”
So now I'm determined to get it right and get her what she needs, so I'm treating the last few items on her list like the difference between life and death. Ah, there it is, athletic tape, 1.5 inches, white, hypoallergenic adhesive… the good stuff that doesn’t leave residue or tear skin when you rip it off.
Check.
The task, although probably illegal or immoral at best, is weirdly soothing. No performance required. No audience to entertain. Just me, alone with the squeak of my sneakers on the polished floor, quietly stealing from my own team to save hers.
“What the fuck?”
The sound almost makes me drop the case of tape, my heart attempting to exit through my throat.
Erik Schmidt stands in the doorway, staring at me like I’ve started speaking in tongues.
His expression shifts from confusion to suspicion to something that might be genuine concern if Schmidt actually did emotions.
“Are you having a stroke?” He steps closer. “Why are you in the supply closet at midnight?”
Any other time, I’d lean into it and make a joke about developing a tape fetish or spin some elaborate bullshit about Coach wanting everything catalogued by moon phase. But the manic energy that usually fuels my deflections has evaporated, replaced by something heavier.
“Riley’s team is getting squeezed by Galloway," I say, the words coming out low and serious, with no punchline and only truth hanging in the air between us.
Schmidt’s eyebrows climb toward his hairline. “And?”
I shrug. “So they need stuff, and we have stuff. Too much stuff, if I'm being honest, so I’m fixing it.”
The silence stretches between us, sticky and uncomfortable. Erik Schmidt has known me for a couple of years. He’s seen me at my absolute worst—so drunk and crying after a heartbreaking loss that I puked on his shoes (twice)—but I'd bet he’s never, not once, seen me this serious about something.
“This about the girl?” he says, the question careful and clinical.
“It’s about doing the right thing.”
“Since when do you—” He stops himself. “Galloway or Pearson know?”
“What do you think?”
Another silence, but this one’s different… more thoughtful… and then he nods.
I watch as Schmidt walks over to the composite stick rack and pulls down a brand-new Bauer Vapor—top-of-the-line, the kind with the holographic logo that catches light—and adds it to the bag with the care of someone handling explosives.
His voice is flat, practical. “The serial numbers are tracked, so don't give them any of the PBU-purchased sticks," he says. "But they can have that one. It's a birthday present from my parents, so if anyone asks, I gave it to you for your cousin or something.”
“Thanks, Schmidty.”
He puts a hand on my shoulder. "Good job.”
The gesture—both the stick and the praise—hits me harder than expected. Schmidt doesn’t do gestures. He does logistics and systems and brutal honesty, so this quiet act of shared rebellion means more than any drunk bonding session ever could.
I don't ruin it by telling him that I—we, the team—are getting something back.
Besides, he’s already heading for the door. It's clear he's not going to say anything to anyone, but he doesn't want to be all in with my grand theft hockey spree. The door clicks shut with finality, and I’m alone again with my phone and my stolen goods and the memory of Morgan's face.
When she's looked at me like she was seeing something new.
Like maybe I wasn’t just a disappointment waiting to happen.
I zip the bag and then test its weight, satisfied it's light enough for her to carry without looking suspicious. My thumb hovers over my phone screen, and I have to retype the message three times because finding the right balance between casual and friendly and collegiate is tough.
In the end, I settle on brutal efficiency:
Service exit. Ten minutes.
I head down to the service exit behind the Devil's Cauldron, where the hockey programs hide all the ugly necessities—the ice resurfacing equipment, industrial compressors, and the dumpsters where broken sticks and blood-stained jerseys go to die.
It’s perfect for a clandestine exchange between two people who can’t figure out what they are to each other.
The November air has teeth tonight, biting through my hoodie hard enough to make my ribs ache. I could’ve grabbed my team jacket—the nice one with the fleece lining and our championship year embroidered on the back in gold thread—but that felt wrong somehow.
Like bragging in front of a girl who has to beg, scrape, and steal hockey tape.
The bag sits on my shoulder like a guilty conscience. Not the theft—that barely registers on my moral radar, which admittedly isn’t calibrated for much beyond don’t get caught and don’t be a complete asshole—but the quiet simplicity of it that feels foreign.
No grand gesture.
No public display.
No audience to measure my worth by their applause.
Just me, in the dark, trying to be the kind of person who doesn’t need a standing ovation to know they did something right.
Novel concept, really. My therapist would be so proud, if I had one, which I probably should.
Add it to the list of adult things I keep meaning to do, right after learning to cook something.
I wait a while, and right on time, a figure emerges from the steam.
Morgan.
Even in a simple gray hoodie and black tights that do nothing to hide her figure, she moves with that same coiled energy as always. Her hood is up, casting her face in shadows, but I can see her eyes darting around the alley, cataloguing exits and threats.
She looks like a soldier entering enemy territory.
She stops ten feet away, maintaining distance like I might be contagious. Her posture screams distrust—weight on her back foot, ready to bolt—as if I've orchestrated this whole thing to expose her, and suddenly the lights will go on and Galloway will emerge with campus security.
For once, I don't crack a joke about the spy movie aesthetic of our meeting spot or how we should have code names. I just let the bag slide off my shoulder, letting it hit the ground with a soft thud that seems to echo off the brick walls, then nudge it toward her with my foot.
It's an offering.
An apology.
An alliance made good.
And, maybe, the promise of a future of some kind.
She approaches it like it might explode and kneels without taking her eyes off me.
Opening the bag, her phone appears in her hand, the flashlight casting harsh white light that turns her face into a study in shadows and exhaustion.
And I can see the exact moment suspicion gives way to gratitude and relief.
The mask doesn’t just crack, it shatters, and for three seconds I see Morgan Riley, the girl I knew for two weeks at that summer camp, unguarded and soft. Not the Morgue, not the ice queen captain… just a girl who once knew how to trust.
Her shoulders collapse inward, and then her eyes go glassy with something that might be tears if she were the kind of person who cried. The exhaustion breaks through, and suddenly she looks so fucking young, so fucking tired, that it makes my chest cave in.
The feeling that spreads through me is better than any goal I’ve ever saved and better than the horn sounding for a win in overtime. Hell, it's better than the roar of ten thousand fans chanting my name or the cheers when we won the championship.
She stands, face blank again. “Thank you," she says.
I nod, knowing now isn't the time to press or crack a joke. “Do you need help—”
“No.”
Of course not.
Morgan doesn’t need help, especially when she does.
She’d carry the world on her back before she’d ask someone to hold even an ounce of it.
It’s like watching someone try to juggle chainsaws while insisting they’re perfectly fine, thanks for asking, they’ve got it under control even as the blood starts to flow.
"Hey, extra surprise," I say, grabbing Schmidt's stick and holding it out.
Her eyes go wide, because she knows exactly how much that stick costs. And as she reaches for the stick, her knuckles brush the back of my hand, the tiniest contact. Such a whisper of skin on skin shouldn’t matter and shouldn't register, but we both pull our hands back like we've been shocked.
Our eyes meet in the darkness, and suddenly the alley isn’t an alley anymore.
It’s the stairwell. The cold air is her gasping breath against my mouth when I sucked that spot on her neck that made her whole body shudder.
The steam from the compressors is the heat radiating off our bodies when I pressed against her.
Her lips part slightly, just enough that I can see the tip of her tongue touch her bottom lip, and I know—I know—she’s right there with me. Remembering the desperate clash of teeth and tongues. The way she pulled me closer instead of pushing me away.
“I should go," she says, her voice cracking on the last word.
“Morgan—”
“Don’t.” A warning. A plea. A prayer. "Thank you, James."
She disappears into the steam, swallowed by the night and the distance she’s so careful to maintain between us. I stand alone in the alley, the back of my hand still tingling from that brief touch, my body humming with a current that has nothing to do with the cold.
The familiar itch for noise and for distraction starts crawling up my spine.
Two weeks ago I would’ve headed straight to the loudest party with the most people and the strongest drinks.
I would have performed until the silence couldn’t touch me, until I was too drunk to remember why quiet felt like drowning.
Now I just stand here, letting the quiet exist around me.
It doesn’t feel like victory. There’s no crowd cheering, no teammates slapping my back, no scoreboard declaring me the winner.
There’s just the steam and the cold and the phantom pressure of her knuckles against my hand.
But there’s something else too, something solid in my chest where the panic usually lives.
It takes me a moment to recognize it because it’s been so long since I felt it without an audience to validate it. It's pride. Quiet, private pride that has nothing to do with anyone else’s approval and everything to do with the look on her face when she saw that stick and the bag of supplies.
My phone buzzes. For a wild, stupid moment, I think it’s her, already texting about Thursday, maybe. Or telling me she remembers the beach or the stairwell too, and wants to remember what I felt like inside her before I ruined everything by—
But it’s a message from Nash:
Where are you??? Party at Theta house!! That freshman with the fake tits is asking about you, but she’s drunk enough to lower her standards for me…
Three months ago, that text would’ve been a lifeline to rescue me from the dangerous quiet. Now it just feels exhausting, like being asked to perform Shakespeare to an audience that only wants fart jokes, and that party is the last place on Earth I want to be.
I reply:
Can’t make it. Early practice tomorrow.
The response is immediate:
Since when did that stop you?
The question makes me stop and think, but the answer is obvious. Since a girl started trusting me with things that matter. Since I realized that being the loudest doesn’t mean being the leader. Since I started wanting to be the kind of man who deserves more than eye rolls and exhausted sighs.
But I don’t type any of that. I just pocket my phone without responding and start the walk back to my dorm. Nash will be just fine at the party on his own, and I just want to spend the night alone in the quiet. With no noise, applause, or audience.
And, for the first time in my life, that feels exactly right.