Chapter 5

POV: Ava Carter

I did not even blink.

"It belongs to a girl I am seeing," I said.

Kai looked at me for a long moment. The locker room was almost empty now. Just the two of us and the hum of the lights and the hair tie sitting in his open palm between us.

"A girl," he said.

"Yeah."

"You are seeing a girl."

"Is that a problem."

He looked down at the hair tie again. Then back at me. His expression was completely unreadable which was somehow worse than if he had looked angry or suspicious. He just looked like someone doing very careful math.

"No," he said slowly. "It is not a problem."

He held it out to me.

I reached for it and his hand moved before I could stop it. His fingers closed around my wrist gently.

He looked down,I also do the same.

My wrist in his hand. His thumb resting against the inside of it where my pulse was currently doing something embarrassing and frantic. His hand was big and mine looked small inside it. Too small. I had strong hands from years of stick work but they were not Noah's hands and we both knew it and the silence in the room was so loud I could hear my own heartbeat.

His eyes came up slowly and met mine.

Neither of us spoke.

I pulled my wrist back carefully and he let me. I closed my fingers around the hair tie and pushed it into my pocket and turned to my locker and stared at the back wall of it and breathed.

"See you at warm up," I said.

He said nothing.

I walked out first and did not look back and told myself the feeling crawling up my spine was just nerves about the game.

I was a very good liar. I was getting worse at lying to myself.

+++++++

The arena was packed. Every seat was filled and the noise was a living thing that bounced off the rafters and pressed against your chest. I could see the scouts in the third row from the ice. Six of them. Clipboards and quiet eyes and nothing on their faces that told you anything. The kind of people who had watched hundreds of players and would decide your future in ninety minutes without blinking.

I strapped my helmet down tight and stepped onto the ice and let the noise wash over me. Across the rink the Eagles were warming up.

Liam caught my eye and raised his stick once. A greeting. Normal. The way he always acknowledged Noah before a game. But his eyes stayed on me one beat too long and I looked away first.

Kai pulled up beside me during warm up circles. His shoulder nearly touching mine.

"Play clean," he said.

"I always play clean."

"You play like you have something to prove," he said. "Tonight do not prove anything. Just play."

I looked at him sideways. His jaw was set and his eyes were forward and he looked like he was saying something that was harder to say than it sounded.

I did not know what to do with Kai Bennett when he was almost being kind.

"You too," I said quietly.

He pushed off and was gone.

+++++

The first two periods were brutal. Liam was everywhere. Fast and physical and carrying the Eagles on his back the way captains do when they want something badly. He scored once in the first period and the Eagles bench erupted. Kai answered it four minutes into the second with a goal so clean the arena went quiet for a second before the Falcons side exploded.

They kept finding each other on the ice. Not just competing. Hunting each other. Every collision between them was harder than it needed to be and the referees were watching both of them closely.

I stayed in the middle of it and did my job and tried not to think about the scouts or the hair tie or Kai's thumb against my wrist.

Third period. Three minutes left. Score tied.

The puck came loose in the neutral zone and I picked it up on pure instinct. I was already moving before I thought about it. My legs found their gear and the ice opened up in front of me and I went.

One defender. I cut inside and left him behind. The goalie came out to cut the angle. I saw the top left corner. Small window. Tight.

I took it. The puck hit the back of the net and the arena detonated. I did not plan what happened next. I was not thinking. Three months of pressure and fear and pretending exploded out of my chest all at once and I threw my arms up and screamed and spun around on my skates and the momentum was too much.

My helmet clipped the boards.

The strap gave. It came off. My hair fell out around my face. Not long but long enough. Long enough to not be Noah. Long enough to be exactly what I was.

The arena noise died immediately.

Not slowly but Instantly Like someone cut the power to every voice in the building at the same time. I stood on the ice and did not move.

Coach Merritt was on his feet behind the bench, his face completely white, staring at me like I had just appeared out of nowhere.

Kai was ten feet away. Completely still. His eyes wide and fixed on my face with an expression I had never seen on him before. Not anger. Something worse. Something that looked like every test and every question and every moment of watching finally clicking into place all at once.

I looked at Liam.

He was staring at me from the blue line. His chest heaving. His stick hanging at his side. And on his face was something that broke a piece of me quietly.

He looked betrayed. Not surprised but betrayed to the highest core. Like some part of him had known and had chosen not to look and now he had no choice.

The referee's whistle cut through the silence like a knife. His voice carried across the whole arena, flat and final.

"Carter. You are off the ice."

I stood there under every light in the building.

Thousands of eyes staring at me, I feel like I could just enter the ground.. but they was no where to go, no where to hide.

Just me. Finally, completely, terrifyingly me..