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 transfer joining the roster today. Scholarship kid, came up from one of the development leagues. I want everyone to make him feel welcome."

Nobody looks particularly thrilled. Scholarship kids don't usually last long here. They show up with chips on their shoulders the size of Manitoba and either wash out by Christmas or spend four years apologizing for existing.

The door opens again.

He's not what I expect.

He's not tall, not the way our defensemen are tall, but he carries himself like he's daring the room to underestimate him. Dark hair pushed back, damp at the edges like he already ran here. His jaw is set in that particular way people get when they've practiced not looking nervous. He's got a duffel bag slung over one shoulder and a jersey folded under his arm, and when his eyes sweep the room they catch on me for exactly one second longer than they catch on anyone else.

I feel it like a hand on the back of my neck.

"Novak," Coach says. "Kai Novak. He'll be skating right wing."

A few of the guys nod. Rohan says something low and friendly that I don't catch because I'm still looking at this kid, this Kai Novak, and he's looking right back at me with an expression I can't read, something between challenge and curiosity, and my stomach does something it has absolutely no business doing.

"You're Captain Whitemore?" he asks. 

"Yeah."

"Heard a lot about you."

"Don't believe everything you hear."

Something flickers across his face, gone before I can name it. "I don't believe much of anything until I see it for myself."

A couple guys laugh. Rohan whistles low, the universal sound for 'ooh, he's got nerve'. I should laugh too. I should make some easy joke that puts him in his place and reminds the room who's Captain here, that's the script, that's what Liam Whitemore does.

Instead I just look at him.

"Guess you'll see it tonight, then," I reply. "Practice starts in ten."

He nods once, sharp, and heads for the empty locker in the corner, the one nobody wants because it's right under the air vent that never stops dripping. I watch him go and I hate that I'm watching him go, hate the way my eyes track the line of his shoulders under his shirt, hate the heat that's crawling up the back of my neck for absolutely no reason at all.

"Earth to Whitemore." Rohan is grinning at me. "You good?"

"I'm good."

"You're staring."

"I'm assessing the competition."

"Sure you are." He laughs and pulls his jersey over his head, and I'm grateful for the few seconds of cover that gives me, because I need them. I need a minute where nobody's looking at my face, because right now I don't trust what it's doing.

Bridget finds me before practice, the way she always does, materializing at my elbow with her ponytail bouncing and her megawatt smile already in place.

"There's my favorite Captain." She loops her arm through mine like it's the most natural thing in the world, like we've done this a thousand times, which we have, which is exactly the problem. "I heard there's a new guy. Is he cute? The girls are already talking."

"Haven't really looked," I say, which is a lie so obvious I almost laugh at myself.

"Liam." She bumps her shoulder against mine. "You okay? You seem weird today."

"I'm fine."

"You always say that."

"Because it's always true."

She studies me for a second, head tilted, and for one terrible moment I think she's actually going to see something, really see it, but then someone calls her name from across the hall and she squeezes my arm and says she'll catch up with me after practice, and she's gone in a cloud of perfume and certainty.

I stand there in the empty hallway for a second longer than I need to.

Then I push through the doors onto the ice.

The rink is freezing the way it always is, that clean bite of cold that used to feel like home and now just feels like another room I have to perform in. I do my laps. I run the drills. I'm good at this, I'm good at all of it, and for forty minutes I almost forget the new kid exists.

Then Coach calls for line drills and pairs me up with Novak for a passing run, and the second he skates toward me, fast, controlled, completely unbothered by the fact that he's never played with any of us before, something in my chest goes tight.

He receives my pass clean. Sends it back harder than he needs to.

I catch it. Barely.

He's smiling, just slightly, just enough that I know it's on purpose.

"Careful, Captain," he says, skating past me close enough that I catch the smell of him, ice and sweat and something underneath that I can't place. "Wouldn't want you to lose your edge."

He's gone before I can answer, gliding backward toward the blue line with that same maddening half smile, and I'm standing there in the middle of the rink with my heart going faster than forty minutes of drills should account for, and I don't understand it, I don't understand any of it, except that I already know I'm going to be thinking about that smile long after practice ends.