All Chapters of Off The Ice Rink: Chapter 1 - Chapter 7

Kai's POVThe locker room empties out slow, guys peeling off in twos and threes toward the parking lot, and I take my time because I don't actually want to go back to my dorm yet. My roommate's the kind of guy who asks a hundred questions before you've even got your shoes off, and tonight I don't have answers for any of them.I sit on the bench and unlace my skates and replay the practice in my head, every drill, every rep, cataloguing what I did right and what I need to fix, because that's the only way I know how to survive a place like this. You don't get to relax. You don't get to coast. Every single day here is an audition for the privilege of staying."You're still here."I look up. Whitemore's standing by the doorway, gear bag over his shoulder, hair still damp from the showers. He looks different out of his Captain voice, quieter, like someone took the volume down on him."Yeah." I go back to my laces. "Figured I'd let the crowd thin out.""Smart." He doesn't leave. I can feel

Liam's POV I step back so fast I nearly trip over the stick I'm holding."Bridget. Hey." My voice does the thing it always does around her, easy, light, a register I've practiced so long it barely feels like acting anymore. Except right now it feels like everything. Right now it feels like I've been caught with my hand somewhere it shouldn't be, even though nothing happened, even though we were just standing there, even though...Even though.Bridget's looking between me and Kai, her smile faltering just slightly, that quick recalibration she does when something doesn't match the story in her head."I texted you like five times," she says. "I was worried. Your mom called my mom asking if you were with me, and I had no idea where you were, so I figured I'd check the rink, and..." Her eyes land on Kai. "Oh. Hi. You're the new guy. Kai, right?""Yeah." Kai's voice is flat. He's not looking at me anymore. He's looking at his skates, at the net, anywhere but at me, and I feel something in

Liam's POV I don't sleep.I lie in my bed and stare at the ceiling and count the ways my life is about to collapse. Rohan is my best friend on this team. Has been since freshman year, since he covered for me the night I missed curfew and my dad would have driven six hours just to drag me back by the collar. Rohan knows things about me that nobody else does, but not this, never this, I made sure of it, I've been making sure of it for years.And now he does.My phone stays dark. He doesn't text me, which is either a good sign or the worst sign, and at three in the morning I give up trying to figure out which one it is.I get to practice early. Rohan is already there.He's taping his stick at the bench, not looking up when I sit down across from him, and the silence between us has a texture I don't recognize, something careful, like we're both moving around something fragile."Hey," I say."Hey."More silence, the kind that has weight to it."Rohan.""Liam." He finally looks up. His fac