Off The Ice Rink

Liam's POV The locker room smells like rubber and sweat and the cheap pine cleaner the janitor uses on Tuesdays, and I am sitting on the bench pretending I give a damn about my skate laces."You're doing that thing again," Rohan says, dropping down beside me with his pads half on."What thing?""That thing where you go somewhere else in your head and get lost in the moment."I tighten the lace until it bites into my fingers. "I'm right here."He doesn't believe me. Smart kid. But he lets it go, because that's what everyone does with me. They let things go. Liam Whitemore doesn't need checking on. Liam Whitemore has it handled. Liam Whitemore is going to break his father's scoring record by spring and everyone in this locker room knows it, including me, and most days I can almost convince myself I want it too.Coach Reyes pushes through the door with his clipboard and that look on his face, the one that means new information is coming whether we want it or not."Listen up. We've got a

Liam's POV My dad calls Sunday night, same as always, and I already know what he's going to say before I pick up, because he's said it every Sunday for as long as I can remember."Coach Reyes says you're looking sharp." His voice has that particular warmth he saves for hockey talk, the warmth that disappears the second the subject changes to anything else. "Sixty goals this season, Liam. That's the number. Sixty, and every scout in the country is going to be calling.""I know, Dad.""You know, but are you doing it? Are you putting in the extra reps? Because talent only gets you so far, you understand that. I had talent. Talent's cheap. It's the work that separates the men from the boys.""I'm doing the work.""Good. That's good." A pause, the kind of pause where I can practically hear him deciding whether to ask the next question. "And how's Bridget? Her father mentioned you two might be coming to the lake house over the holidays. That'd be good for you. Good optics, the team Captain

Liam's POV Practice is brutal. Not because Coach pushes us harder than usual, but because Kai is everywhere I am, fast, sharp, perfect, and completely unreachable. Every pass he sends me is clean and hard and silent. Every drill he runs flawlessly, like he's decided the only way to survive this is to be better than anyone, including me, including especially me.By the time Coach blows the whistle for the last time, my whole body aches in a way that has nothing to do with the workout.I wait until the locker room empties. I've gotten good at waiting, at timing things so nobody notices, and tonight I time it so that when Kai finally heads for the showers, I'm the only one left.He sees me and stops in the doorway, towel over his shoulder, jaw tight."What do you want, Whitemore?" "Don't do that.""Do what?""Call me that. Like you didn't say my name two nights ago like it meant something."Something flashes across his face, anger, hurt, both. "Forget it. It didn't mean anything. Clear

My hands are still shaking when I lock the equipment room door behind us.Kai's pacing, three steps one way, three steps back, phone clutched so tight in his fist I'm half afraid the screen is going to crack. "He knows, Liam. Rohan said he wasn't going to say anything and I believe him, but somebody else saw, somebody else is out there right now deciding what to do with what they saw, and I can't... I can't lose this... I can't go back to...""Kai.""What if Coach finds out before we even figure out who sent that text, what if...""Kai." I catch his wrist, gentle, and he stops moving like the contact short circuits something in him. "Look at me."He looks at me. His eyes are wet, furious at themselves for being wet, and something in my chest cracks wide open at the sight of him trying so hard to hold himself together for both of us."I'm scared too," I say, quiet. "I want you to know that. I'm not standing here pretending I have this handled, because I don't. But I know one thing for

Bridget opens her dorm room door in an oversized sweater, mascara she's mostly scrubbed away still faint at the corners of her eyes, and she looks at me for a long moment without saying anything before she steps back and lets me in.Her room smells like vanilla and the particular warmth of a space someone has lived in long enough to make entirely their own. String lights over the desk, photos layered on the mirror, the two of us in half of them, grinning at cameras at functions neither of us particularly wanted to attend. I look at those photos and feel the full weight of what I've been doing for three years fall on me all at once, the comfortable convenient beautiful lie of us."Sit down," she says, sitting cross-legged on her bed, hands folded in her lap.I sit. The desk chair. Enough distance to have a real conversation."You don't have to explain everything," she says. "I need you to know that upfront. I'm not sitting here needing the full history of Liam Whitemore laid out in chr