Chapter 2 — Carter
Carter
Carter Hayes had taken slap shots to the ribs, elbows to the jaw, and one horrifying freshman-year haircut that still appeared in team group chats when morale got too high.
None of that had prepared him for Lena Brooks saying you’re trying harder than you want people to know and then looking at him like she could see straight through every joke he had ever used to survive.
That was a problem.
A serious one.
Because Carter liked problems he could hit, skate around, or blame on Mason Cross.
Lena was none of those.
Lena was standing near the stage with a clipboard in one hand and his coffee in the other, hair twisted up with a pencil, lips pressed together in concentration, pretending she had not just reached into his chest and rearranged something.
She looked dangerous.
Not in the obvious way.
Not like girls who knew they were beautiful and used it like a weapon.
Lena’s danger was quieter.
She made him want to be better without making it sound like an accusation.
Four out of ten.
Would not recommend.
“Hayes!”
Carter blinked and turned.
Mason Cross stood in the middle of the ballroom holding a water bottle at arm’s length like it contained poison.
“There is glitter in this,” Mason said.
Carter stared at him. “Why were you drinking from an open bottle near the craft table?”
“Because I trust campus resources.”
“You once ate nachos from a helmet.”
“That was team bonding.”
Jonah Pierce walked by with a stack of donation signs. “That was food poisoning.”
“It was mild,” Mason said.
“You missed practice.”
“I spiritually attended.”
Carter rubbed a hand over his face. “Throw the bottle away.”
Mason looked wounded. “But hydration.”
“Hydrate with something that doesn’t sparkle.”
Tank leaned over from the children’s booth, peering into the bottle. “Honestly, it’s kind of pretty.”
Lena’s voice cut across the room. “No one drinks glitter.”
Carter turned toward her, unable to help himself.
It was aggressively hot.
Mason slowly lowered the bottle. “She scares me.”
“She should,” Carter said.
Lena glanced up then.
His brain immediately abandoned the glitter crisis and returned to the supply closet. To the way her shoulder had brushed his chest when she squeezed past him. To the tiny hitch in her breath when he’d leaned close. To the fact that she had looked at his mouth three times.
Lena arched one brow from across the room as if she could read his thoughts and found them disappointing.
It felt like something he wanted to collect.
“Dude,” Mason said, stepping beside him, “you’re staring.”
“I’m supervising.”
“You are supervising her face.”
Carter gave him a warning look.
Mason grinned. “Oh, this is bad.”
“What is?”
“You and Clipboard.”
“Don’t call her Clipboard.”
“See?” Mason pointed at him. “Bad.”
“There is no me and Lena.”
“Right. That’s why you brought her coffee order like a Victorian suitor with oat milk.”
Carter took the glitter water from him and tossed it in the trash. “Go tape QR codes to the donation jars.”
“I don’t know what a QR code is emotionally.”
“It’s a square. Tape it.”
Mason sighed and wandered off, muttering something about unpaid labor and the death of athletics.
Carter looked back at Lena before he could stop himself.
Tables lined the ballroom in clean rows.
Blue and silver balloons clustered near the entrance.
The raffle baskets were labeled. The children’s booth had bins of foam pucks, stickers, coloring sheets, and temporary tattoos that had been carefully screened after Carter’s GO HARD OR GO HOME contribution was confiscated.
Carter understood that more than he wanted to.
“Hayes.”
Coach Harlan’s voice pulled him around.
Coach stood near the stage with his arms crossed, the usual expression on his face: part disappointment, part strategy, part man who had seen too many hockey players make life harder than necessary.
Carter walked over. “If this is about the glitter water, I would like my legal counsel present.”
One of those conversations.
Carter tucked his hands into the pocket of his hoodie. “What’s up?”
Coach glanced toward Lena, then back at him. “How’s it going?”
“Excellent. We’ve only had one glitter-related incident and no child bites yet.”
“There aren’t children here yet.”
Coach’s mouth twitched, but barely. “You’re working with Brooks.”
“Sharp observation.”
“Don’t be an idiot.”
Carter blinked. “That’s broad advice.”
“Make it specific in your head.”
Ah.
There it was.
Carter looked away, jaw flexing.
Coach lowered his voice. “She’s doing a good job. This event matters to her. Don’t turn it into one of your games.”
“It’s not a game.”
Carter hated that.
Coach had known him since freshman year, which meant he had seen every version of him.
The cocky rookie. The idiot who partied too much after wins and laughed too loudly after losses.
The player who hid behind jokes until Coach benched him for a period and told him he was wasting talent like it was pocket change.
And now, apparently, the guy standing in a fundraiser ballroom thinking too much about a girl with a clipboard.
“Good,” Coach said. “Keep it that way.”
Carter’s smile sharpened. “Anything else? Maybe a warning about hydration?”
“Opening remarks. You’re still doing them.”
His stomach tightened.
He kept his face easy. “Can’t wait.”
“Don’t charm your way through it.”
Coach looked at him for a long moment. “You’re better when you stop performing.”
The words landed too close.
Carter stared at the stage floor.
Then he shrugged. “The performance sells tickets.”
“Not to people who matter.”
Carter’s eyes flicked toward Lena before he could stop them.
Of course he noticed.
The man missed nothing except maybe the fact that his motivational speeches occasionally sounded like threats.
Coach sighed. “Exactly.”
Carter forced a laugh. “Wow. Great talk. Very subtle.”
“Yeah?”
“Take the risk. Just don’t be careless with it.”
Carter looked at him.
Coach gave one nod toward Lena, then walked away.
Carter stood there for a second, annoyed by two things.
One, Coach was right.
Two, Coach was right in a way Carter absolutely did not want to process under fluorescent lighting near a defective banner.
Carter could risk his body. That was easy. He did it every game. He could throw himself into corners, take hits, drop in front of shots, skate through pain like it was weather.
Letting Lena see him when the jokes were gone?
That felt worse than blocking a slap shot with his sternum.
“Hayes!”
This time Lena called him.
He turned.
She stood near the supply closet, holding a tangled mess of extension cords like she had just discovered a dead animal.
“I need your height,” she said.
Carter grinned because that was safer than whatever Coach had just cracked open. “Finally.”
She gave him a flat look. “For the overhead lights.”
“Sure.”
“Do not make this weird.”
“I’m wounded you think I would.”
“I’m experienced enough to know you will.”
He crossed the room toward her. Every step closer made the buzz under his skin worse.
Lena held the cords out. “The sponsor spotlight needs to plug in behind the stage, but the cable has to run above the curtain rod. I can’t reach it.”
“And you immediately thought of my height.”
“I immediately thought of a ladder, but Mason is standing on it pretending to be ‘quality control.’”
Across the room, Mason waved from the top of the ladder. “I can see everything from up here!”
Lena closed her eyes. “Including your future lawsuit.”
Carter leaned closer. “You want me to get him down?”
“No. I want you to hang the cord before he discovers gravity.”
“I can do both.”
Carter reached for the cord, his fingers brushing hers.
Not much.
Just a tiny pause.
But Carter felt it like a win he had no business claiming.
“You okay, Brooks?” he asked softly.
Her chin lifted. “Fine.”
“Liar.”
“You keep saying that.”
“You keep lying.”
“I’m trying to run a fundraiser.”
“And I’m trying to help.”
“By flirting with me?”
His smile faded into something slower. “Is it working?”
A ridiculous, tangled, plastic-covered excuse for them to stand too close.
Lena’s lips parted.
Then she looked past him toward the room, toward the volunteers, the teammates, the chaos, the eyes that were probably not watching but could be.
“Hang the cord,” she said.
Just enough that the toes of her sneakers nearly touched his.
Her voice lowered. “Please hang the cord before I make you regret asking me to say please.”
Carter’s pulse kicked.
Hard.
He smiled despite himself. “That was mean.”
His favorite thing.
Maybe too favorite.
“Carter,” she warned.
“Right.”
He reached up and threaded the cable over the curtain rod, stretching one arm above his head. His hoodie lifted slightly at the hem, and Lena’s eyes betrayed her by dropping.
Carter froze with his arm still raised.
“You were looking.”
“At the cord.”
“The cord is not under my hoodie.”
“I was checking your technique.”
“Electrical safety.”
He lowered his arm and leaned in. “You’re very concerned about my body around live wires.”
“I’m concerned about liability.”
“Your face says otherwise.”
“My face is tired.”
“Your face is flirting with me.”
“My face would like to be excluded from this conversation.”
The small smile escaped, quick and bright, and Carter’s chest tightened like someone had pulled a string.
He wanted to kiss Lena Brooks in the middle of the Ridgeview student center ballroom while twelve hockey players argued about glitter, one banner committed a spelling crime, and the fundraiser still had a hundred things left to fix.
Her fingers tightened around the leftover cord.
The air went still.
“Carter,” she whispered.
She didn’t step back.
He didn’t either.
For one reckless second, he considered forgetting the room. Forgetting the team. Forgetting the event and the speech and every smart reason not to.
Then Mason’s voice boomed, “WHO WANTS TO SEE ME JUMP FROM THE LADDER?”