Chapter 20 Colby
Chapter twenty
Colby
“Morning, assholes.”
Dex’s voice echoes through the weight room before I even hear the door shut behind him.
Bryce follows a step later. “Speak for yourself.”
Dex smirks. “That’s easy for you to say. You’re fueled entirely by caffeine and bad decisions.”
“Keep talking,” Bryce says. “I’ll start messing with your playlist.”
“That’s a federal crime.”
“No, your playlist is a federal crime.”
A few laughs bounce off the walls.
Normal.
I don’t look up from my bench.
Dex clocks that immediately.
He grins anyway. “Well look at that. Captain America’s already awake and mad at the world.”
“Someone has to set the tone,” I say.
Bryce points at me with his shaker bottle. “See? That right there. That’s our guy. Wakes up ready to run through a wall.”
“I call it discipline,” I say.
“Same thing,” Dex answers.
Eli comes in behind them, headphones around his neck. “Morning, ladies. Anyone touch my pre-workout, I’m calling the cops.”
“Your pre-workout is basically illegal already,” Dex says.
“Exactly.” Eli sets his bag down. “I don’t want it diluted by your germs.”
More chuckles.
Bryce drops onto the bench beside Dex, already mid-rant. “Tell me why the smoothie machine downstairs is still broken. Third week in a row. At this point it’s a social experiment.”
Dex nods solemnly. “They’re testing how long before we riot.”
“I give it two more days,” Bryce says. “Then someone’s getting bag-skated out of spite.”
Eli snorts quietly as he starts stretching.
Normal.
For a minute, I almost let myself pretend it’s just another morning.
The weight room smells like rubber mats and sweat and something metallic I can’t quite place.
I’ve been here since before sunrise.
Someone’s playlist switches over to old-school hip-hop.
Dex jerks his head toward the speakers. “Who put this on?”
Bryce smirks. “What, you don’t like it?”
“I like it fine,” Dex says. “I just don’t need a soundtrack reminding me I can’t rap and shouldn’t try.”
Eli laughs. “That didn’t stop you last road trip.”
“That was confidence,” Dex says quickly. “Different thing.”
Gabriel shakes his head. “You were off-beat for three straight verses.”
Dex points at him. “Leadership is knowing when to lie for your teammate.”
Familiar. The kind of noise and rhythm that usually keeps my head straight.
Then Dex glances at the stack of plates I’ve loaded and his grin falters.
“Dude,” he says, dropping his voice a notch. “Are you training for a prison yard fight?”
I rerack the bar with a hard, clean clank and add another plate.
The bar dips.
My arms shake.
Good.
Pain is simple. Pain makes sense.
Unlike everything else.
I finish the set and rack the bar harder than necessary. The clang echoes through the room.
“Jesus, Cap,” Dex says from behind me. “You mad at the weights or trying to intimidate them into submission?”
I don’t turn around.
“Morning to you too,” he adds.
I grab my towel and wipe my face.
“Morning.”
That’s all he gets.
Normally, that would earn me a comment. A chirp. Something about me being grumpy before coffee.
Instead, there’s a pause.
I feel it without looking.
Guys start filtering in. Shoes squeak. Music switches. The room fills the way it always does.
Someone argues about fantasy football rankings even though it’s not football season.
Someone else claims their new massage gun is life-changing.
Dex tells a story that starts with, “So this guy walks into a bar,” and somehow ends with him getting kicked out even though he swears it wasn’t his fault.
It’s loud.
Loose.
Comfortable.
Except today, no one’s really talking to me.
They’re watching.
I move to the squat rack and load more weight.
More than I should.
“Cap,” Gabriel says calmly, stepping closer. “That’s not your program today.”
“It is now.”
He doesn’t argue.
That’s worse.
I drop into the squat. My legs burn immediately. My vision blurs on the last rep.
I grind it out anyway.
When I stand, I feel the room shift.
Not dramatic.
Just… attentive.
“Alright,” Dex mutters. “Now I’m concerned.”
I rack the bar and turn on him. “You always say that.”
“Yeah, but this time I mean it.”
Eli leans against a bench, arms crossed. “You’ve been like this for days.”
“I’m fine.”
The lie comes easy.
It always does.
Gabriel exhales slowly. “You don’t lift angry unless something’s wrong.”
“I’m not angry.”
Dex snorts. “Buddy, you just tried to fight gravity.”
A few guys chuckle.
Normally, I would too.
Today, I don’t.
The silence that follows isn’t awkward.
It’s intentional.
They don’t push.
They just don’t move.
Not staring.
Not crowding.
Just… present.
It’s the kind of thing you don’t notice until it’s happening to you.
That’s when I feel it.
The pressure.
Not from expectations.
From people who know me too well.
“Say it,” Dex says finally.
“Say what?”
“The thing you’re not saying.”
I grip the towel in my hands.
I could shut this down.
Captain voice. End the conversation.
But something tells me not to.
Because I’m tired of carrying it alone.
“I think she used me."
The words drag on the way out. Like they don’t want to be said. Like they’ve been waiting to be forced loose.
The words hit the room like a dropped weight.
No one laughs.
No one rushes to talk.
Even Dex goes quiet.
Gabriel’s expression doesn’t change, but his jaw tightens.
Eli nods once. “Okay.”
That’s it.
Not disagreement.
Not judgment.
Just acknowledgement.
Which somehow makes it worse, because it means they’re taking me seriously.
“I think she knew exactly what she was doing,” I say. “That’s what I can’t get past.”
Dex scratches the back of his neck. “That’s… fair.”
“When Gabe read that post out loud in the locker room. The timing. The promo. All of it lining up at once.”
My voice stays level.
It has to.
“She let things keep going without saying anything,” I say. “Let me think it was real. Let me show up like it mattered.”
Gabriel steps closer, quiet but solid. “Did it feel real?”
He doesn’t ask like he’s testing me.
He asks like he already knows the answer.
The answer comes too fast.
“Yeah.”
That’s the problem.
Because I don’t fall halfway.
And I don’t pretend when something matters.
Eli speaks next. “That doesn’t make you stupid, bro.”
I scoff. “Feels like I walked in blind and smiled while it happened.”
Dex shakes his head. “If she wanted a headline, she picked the dumbest possible way. No offense.”
“Some offense,” I mutter.
Dex shrugs. “Point stands. Did you ask her?”
I blow out a breath. “No. Didn’t want to.”
“Why?” Eli asks.
I look down at my hands.
“Because if I ask and she says yes, then that’s it,” I say. “I don’t get to unhear it. I don’t get to stand there pretending it didn’t matter when it already did. And, then I’m the asshole in this.”
Silence again.
Heavier this time.
Gabriel nods slowly. “That’s pride.”
“Yeah,” I say. “And I’m not ashamed of it.”
“No one’s asking you to be,” Eli says.
Dex points at me. “But you don’t get to disappear either.”
“I’m not disappearing.”
“You are,” he says. “You’re just doing it quietly.”
That one lands.
“Cap,” Gabriel says, voice low. “You don’t get to let silence decide this for you.”
“Why not?” I ask.
Gabriel answers instead, voice steady. “Because when silence makes the call for you, it never picks the one that lets you keep your spine.”
I swallow.
Because he’s right.
Avoiding her felt like control.
Like I was choosing when the damage stopped.
But it isn’t.
It’s surrender.
It’s letting the story end without me ever saying my part.
“I’m still pissed off,” I say.
“Good,” Dex replies immediately. “You should be. It means you give a shit.”
I huff out a breath despite myself.
“There it is,” Dex says. “That’s the face. You’re still in this.”
“I don’t know,” I say.
Gabriel claps a hand on my shoulder. “You don’t need to.”
Eli adds, “You just can’t hide.”
I nod slowly.
They’re not telling me what to do.
They’re just refusing to let me disappear behind the captain badge and a quiet smile.
My phone buzzes on the bench.
I don’t check it.
Not yet.
Tomorrow night, the arena will be loud.
Bright.
Public.
And I already know she’ll be there.
Working.
Doing what she’s always done best.
I’ll be on the ice. Wearing the jersey. Leading the line.
And for the first time in days, I know I’ll have to face her.