8. Dean
Dean
The road stretches time in a way nothing else does. Days blur together. Cities change, rinks change, hotels change, but the rhythm stays the same. Wake up, skate, meetings, game, repeat. It should feel repetitive. It should wear on you. It doesn’t. Not when the team is playing like this.
We carry the momentum from that last home win straight into the road trip, the kind of momentum you don’t question too hard because you know how quickly it can disappear if you do.
The guys are locked in. Focused. There’s an edge to them that wasn’t there earlier in the season, something sharper that shows up in the way they move, in the way they finish plays instead of hesitating.
It’s what I’ve been waiting for. It shows in the first away game.
Not perfect, but controlled. Disciplined in a way that matters when the crowd isn’t yours and the ice doesn’t feel like home.
Luka holds us where we need it. Jake keeps the lines tight.
Grady pushes the pace until the other team starts chasing instead of thinking.
We take the win. The second game is messier.
That one turns into a fight. Not literal, not the kind that ends with gloves on the ice, but the kind that drags through every shift, every period stretching longer than it should because neither side is willing to give.
Those are the games that tell you who you actually are.
We don’t break. We grind it out. Another win.
By the time we’re on the bus heading back to the hotel, the energy is different. Looser. Not unfocused, but earned. The kind of confidence that doesn’t need to be loud to be felt.
Grady is stretched across two seats like he owns them, one arm thrown over his eyes, the other hanging loose off the edge, as he talks to Lennon on the phone in a low voice that says he doesn’t care who hears him, but still keeps it quiet anyway.
Jake’s a few rows up, scrolling through something on his tablet, probably already breaking down plays from the game we just finished.
And Jasper—Jasper is sitting straight up, staring out the window like he’s got somewhere else he’d rather be.
I take the seat across from him, watching him for a second before I say anything. “You look miserable.”
He doesn’t glance over. “I’m fine.”
“You look like you’re about to jump out of a moving bus.”
That gets a slight shift from him, his jaw tightening just enough to give him away. “I just don’t see the point in sitting around all night when we’re in a new city.”
I lean back in the seat, crossing one ankle over the other. “We’ve got a game tomorrow.”
“We always have a game,” he shoots back, finally looking at me. “That doesn’t mean we have to act like we’re already eighty.”
A low laugh comes from behind me. Luka. Of course.
“Speak for yourself,” he says, leaning forward just enough to rest his arms over the back of the seat. “Some of us enjoy our beauty sleep.”
“You don’t sleep,” Jasper mutters.
“I rest my eyes,” Luka corrects, completely serious.
Grady snorts from two rows back.
“I’m asking if anyone’s coming,” Jasper says, pointedly looking at me now.
I let out a quiet breath through my nose. “I’m not going out.”
“Shocker,” Luka mutters.
Jasper leans back, stretching his legs out like he’s settling in for the argument. “You never go out.”
“I’m the coach.”
“And?” he pushes. “You’re still alive.”
“Barely,” Luka adds.
I ignore him. “You want to go out, go out. That’s your choice. My job is to make sure you’re ready tomorrow.”
Jasper watches me for a second, then his mouth tilts slightly, something knowing slipping into it. “Haven’t seen Camille around lately.”
The reaction is immediate. Grady groans from the back. Luka physically recoils like he’s been hit with something.
“Don’t say her name,” Luka mutters. “You’ll summon her.”
“Seriously,” Grady adds. “I thought we all agreed she wasn’t allowed near the team anymore.”
“That’s not how that works,” I say flatly.
“It should be,” Luka replies.
Jasper’s still watching me. “So?” he presses. “Where is she?”
“Not here.”
“That sounds promising.” He smiles.
“It means nothing,” I say.
“Feels like it means something,” Luka adds.
Before I can answer, Jasper twists in his seat and raises his voice toward the front of the bus.
“Maddie!” The reaction is immediate. Grady groans.
Luka laughs. I don’t move, but my attention shifts before I can stop it.
She’s a few rows up, tucked into her seat near the window, her head turning at the sound of her name.
There’s a second where she looks surprised, like she wasn’t expecting to be pulled into whatever this is.
Jasper grins like he’s already entertained by it. “You wanna go out tonight?”
There’s a beat. Then she laughs. It’s soft at first, like she’s caught off guard, but it builds into something real as she shakes her head. “I am not going out with you.”
“Why not?” he calls back, completely unfazed.
“Because I am not being your plus one while you try to get laid.” The bus erupts.
Luka doubles over laughing. Grady’s voice cuts through from the back with a loud “Damn,” and even Jake glances up from his tablet, a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth.
Jasper presses a hand to his chest like he’s offended. “That’s not what I’m doing.”
“That is exactly what you’re doing,” she shoots back, still smiling.
“At least I’m honest about it,” he argues.
She leans slightly into the aisle, her expression soft but completely unmoved. “Go be honest by yourself.”
Another round of laughter rolls through the bus.
Jasper shakes his head, but there’s no real frustration in it. “Your loss.”
“I’m okay with that,” she says easily, settling back into her seat.
The moment passes as quickly as it started, the conversation shifting, the energy of it blending back into everything else happening around us.
But I don’t. My focus stays where it shouldn’t.
On her. It’s not just the way she handled it.
Not just the easy confidence in her voice or the way she didn’t hesitate when she said no.
It’s everything. The way she laughed without thinking about it.
The way her shoulders loosened in that moment, like whatever she’d been holding onto earlier slipped just enough to let something real through.
The way she fits here, in this space, without trying too hard or demanding attention.
She doesn’t pull focus. But somehow—she holds it anyway.
My gaze lingers a second longer than it should before I force it away, leaning back into my seat, my jaw tightening slightly as I refocus on the conversation happening around me.
Because this is exactly what I shouldn’t be doing.
Noticing her like this. Watching her like this.
Letting it sit the way it does instead of shutting it down.
There are too many reasons for it to stop here.
She works for me. She’s younger. She has a boyfriend.
There are lines in place for a reason, and I’ve never been the kind of man who blurs them just because something feels different.
And it does feel different. That’s the problem. Because it’s not just awareness anymore. It’s instinct.
The kind that doesn’t turn off when I’m not looking. The kind that settles in without permission and stays there whether I want it to or not. I know where she is in a room before I think to look. I notice when she’s quieter than usual. I notice when she’s not.
And worse than that…I notice when she smiles.
Not the one she uses when she’s working.
Not the one she gives the guys when she’s filming or trying to keep things easy.
The real one. The one that slips out when she forgets herself for half a second.
That’s the one that stays with me. That’s the one I’ve started to recognize before it even fully shows.
And somewhere along the way, without making a decision to do it, I started wanting to see it again.
That’s where the line blurs. Because I don’t do things halfway.
I don’t step into something unless I’m willing to see it through to the end, and I already know what that would look like if I let this go any further than it already has.
It wouldn’t be casual. It wouldn’t be something I could walk away from when it got complicated.
It would be everything. And I don’t get to want that.
Not here. Not with her. So I keep it where it is.
Locked down. Controlled. Exactly where it needs to stay.
But even as I sit here, even as the conversation around me shifts and the bus hums steadily beneath us, I can still feel it sitting there under everything else.
That pull. Quiet. Persistent. Not going anywhere.
My wrist shifts slightly against the armrest, the movement absentminded, more instinct than thought. My fingers brush the edge of my watch, adjusting it just enough to feel the familiar pressure underneath it.
The hair tie.
It shouldn’t matter. It’s nothing. Something small she left behind that night, something I should’ve handed back or thrown away or forgotten about entirely.
Instead, it’s still there. Tucked beneath the weight of the watch like it belongs there.
Like it’s been there longer than it has.
I don’t look at it. I don’t need to. I know exactly where it sits, exactly how it feels when my wrist moves just enough to remind me it’s there.
Grounding. That’s the part I don’t think about too hard.
The way it settles something in me without asking permission.
The way my hand finds it without me realizing it, like it’s checking something, confirming something I don’t have a name for.
I shouldn’t have kept it. That would’ve been the easier choice. Cleaner. Instead, I let my hand fall back into place, the pressure of it still there, still steady, like it’s not going anywhere either.