جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 170

SierraMy mom took one look at Edric Vane and decided she liked him. Like, right away. Twenty minutes tops. Then she spent the rest of the weekend making damn sure he knew it.I say “decided” because with her, nothing just happens by accident. She’s got this warm way about her—she really does like people—but she can point it like a damn laser when she wants to. She zeroed in on him as someone worth her full effort, and she gave it. By Sunday morning this guy who’d spent thirty years brushing off charm was sitting in his own kitchen at nine o’clock, talking about kitchen gardens like he was actually into it. And smiling. Really smiling.Dad watched from across the room with that face he makes. The one that says he’s seen her do this a hundred times and it still gets him.---They showed up on Saturday. A proper visit this time, not the quick in-and-out from the council weekend. Two full nights. Time to actually be there instead of just rushing through.Mom brought food, obviously. That’

AsherThe paperwork took eleven days.Jace did most of it. Made sense. He built the fake stuff from the beginning, so he knew exactly how to pull it apart without leaving anything hanging. Three filings, two offices, one careful letter to the enrollment office at the university, and this twelve-minute phone call with Harlen that Jace listened in on. Harlen wrapped it up with, “Get it to me by Friday,” in that voice that said he’d smelled something off since March but figured it wasn’t worth bothering about.I asked to be the one who actually talked to Harlen.Not the full story, obviously. No palace, no poison, none of that. Just that the names we’d been using weren’t ours, we’d needed cover for a while, the mess was over now, and we wanted to play hockey with our real names on the roster.He didn’t interrupt.When I finished he went quiet for a second.“You’re still Rayce to me,” he said. “Twenty years coaching and I’ve never figured out how to switch a guy back once I’ve been yellin

AsherThe second season felt... off. In a good way, I guess. Not magically upgraded or whatever. Just fuller. Like I'd quit guessing at the blurry parts and could finally see what was really there underneath all the bullshit.By February we were top of the conference. No lucky streak, no random chemistry popping up out of nowhere. It came from all the shit nobody sees the brutal early mornings, those endless drills we never even gave names to because naming them would've made skipping them feel too easy. The slow, painful process of a bunch of random guys turning into people who just *knew* what the other was about to do before the idea even finished in their head.Callum, fuck... he'd become the best D partner I'd ever had skating in front of me. If I told him that to his face he'd probably snort and throw some sarcastic comment back he's always been like that about praise but it was straight facts. He read my shifts like he'd been watching me forever. Not predicting. Just knowing. B

AsherThe roster showed up on a Thursday in September, stuck there like it was no big thing. Harlen didn’t make a fuss, just slapped one wrinkled sheet on the board outside the equipment room. Corners already peeling by the time half the guys dragged themselves over. No email. No text in the group chat. Nothing. You wanted to know if you made it? You walked your ass over and looked.I did.And right at the top, first line, in Harlen’s usual chicken scratch: *Asher Vane.*Not Rayce. Not that fake name Jace had cobbled together with some filing screw-up and two weeks of sweating over paperwork. My real name. Actual, full thing. Sitting there like it had always belonged.I stood frozen for a beat, just staring. Not getting all choked up or anything, but... damn. It landed weird. Good-weird. Like repeating a word until it turns alien, except backwards. My own name suddenly felt fresh again. Same letters I’ve dragged around forever, but now they clicked into place. Like someone shifted the

Asher.My dad hadn’t watched me play since I was seventeen.Just the plain truth. Not that he didn’t give a damn he always did but after Mom died the rink turned into this loaded place for him. Somewhere he couldn’t bring himself to go back to. It was only twenty minutes from the pack house, yet he hadn’t set foot inside since her funeral. I understood without anybody explaining it. Kids pick up on that kind of grief shape early, even before they have the words.When I was still playing school hockey he used to ask Jace for reports. I had no clue back then that Jace was the middleman. Found out one random November my first season here, when Jace dropped it with that extra-careful voice people use when they’ve been sitting on something and finally decide it’s time.I didn’t get pissed. Clicked right away.Dad keeping tabs from far off because showing up in person was still too heavy.---He called in October.I was parked at the kitchen table doing my usual half-hearted course reading