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He headed to his room and went through his pre-game nap routine. Low-key anxiety he couldn’t shake, imagining Marie and Rusty chatting about him, kept him tossing and turning a long time, but eventually he drifted off.

He woke gasping, his throat raw, and fell off the side of the bed.

Fuck. Blinking hard, he focused on the familiar pattern of his quilt.

Blue and brown and burnt orange patchwork.

Not a tinted-window SUV. Not a shadowy figure with a gun.

This time, it hadn’t been Scott with the barrel of the weapon held to his head, but Rusty.

The kidnapper had retreated step by step down a long hallway, pulling Rusty with him, while Cross begged and pleaded and offered everything he owned… Fuck.

He got up, went into the en-suite bathroom, and splashed water on his face.

He should be done with those nightmares.

Then again, it’d taken something like seven years to stop having an anxiety dream about the draft— standing onstage sweating in the pool of an overhead spotlight while team after team picked someone else first, until he was the last one left unchosen.

He hadn’t had that in a couple of years now, so perhaps he was in for a decade of waiting for the guns-and-SUVs version to fade.

No big deal. He didn’t have PTSD or anything.

He rode in a similar SUV every day. They were just stupid nightmares.

But the agony of watching Rusty hauled away from him while he could do nothing to help lingered in his chest. I’m going to be braver about this, about us. Whatever it takes to keep him.

Heading to the game in his favorite blue Cesare Attolini suit, freshly shaved and wearing cologne, he had to laugh at himself.

Odds were, Rusty wouldn’t see him until he was all sweaty in his underlayers after the game.

But still, maybe Rusty would hang out by the players’ entrance with the fans.

Even for a one percent chance, Cross wanted to look good.

He tried not to be disappointed when he didn’t spot Rusty on his way in. They were going to get together later. It would’ve been stupid for Rusty to stand in the drizzling rain with the autograph-seekers.

The locker room had a relaxed vibe. They’d clinched the wildcard slot already.

A loss couldn’t drop them out of the playoffs and a win couldn’t move them up the rankings, so basically it was meaningless.

Not that they didn’t want to win, but no one was going to kill themselves to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Zykov would be in goal, resting Pushkin for the playoffs.

A couple of rookies, called up to replace players on the short-term injured list, would get more playing minutes tonight, a chance to show the coach what they could do.

Cross stripped down and got his workout clothes on.

Dodging an errant spikeball from where some of the younger guys had the net out, he put his headphones on and began a quick jog on a treadmill to get his muscles warming up.

Past the music, he could hear his teammates joking around, chirping each other for everything and nothing.

As he moved on to resistance band exercises, the guys around him settled into their own routines.

Cross realized how much he enjoyed this part, the anticipation and build.

Everyone on the team putting in the time and the work, individually but together, before heading out onto the ice.

He liked feeling his body tune in to the job ahead, muscles activating, joints loosening.

He had a few aches and pains, of course, by his age.

His right knee took more time to warm up and stretch, ever since surgery five years before.

His lower back twinged now and then, tighter than he’d like on the knee-hugs.

But his body still served him, still woke up to do the job he’d loved since the first time he laced up skates.

By the time they stepped onto the ice to the roar of the crowd, Cross was feeling great. He was going to play an excellent game, he could tell. Having Rusty and Marie in the audience just made it better. Hopefully. As long as nothing went wrong between them.

A second of doubt had him catching a blade and he had to recover awkwardly.

Right, bozo. You can’t play an excellent game if your head’s off in the crowd. Focus.

He refocused, cut behind the net and went to take his turn at a shooting drill.

Tonight, he was going to be Cross, the star defenseman for the Rafters, putting on a clinic for anyone with doubts about how good this team could be in the playoffs.

He wouldn’t even try to find Rusty or Marie in the stands.

Later. Non-hockey life stuff could come later.

Seven more minutes and the puck would drop for the first faceoff. He cut close to the boards and flipped a loose puck over the glass for a young girl with a rainbow sign. Meant for Scott, of course. No one knew it applied to him too. But the least he could do was reward her.

Five more minutes. He gave up and turned to scan the seats.

This was his last chance. They’d bring the lights down for the intros and anthem soon, and then he’d be busy.

He knew the general section where the players’ reserved seats were.

Just center of the blue line, seven to ten rows up on the north side…

There. He spotted Rusty’s blond hair, his head higher than the people on either side of him.

Beside him, Marie had gone bright auburn again.

They sat turned to each other, saying something.

Pleasure and worry clashed nauseatingly in Cross.

Then Rusty glanced down. For a second, they gazed at each other. Cross raised a glove, pivoting to put Marie off the scent, the gesture so broad he could be waving to anyone in a thirty-seat radius. Rusty would know it was for him, though—

Scott thumped Cross on the shoulder. “You’re looking a bit distracted. Come on, we have a game to play.”

“Right.” Cross followed his teammate off the ice as the Zamboni began to hum its way onto the rink.