Page 3 of Cold Comeback (Richmond Reapers #1)

Chapter two

Gideon

I liked the rink best before anyone else showed up.

No chirps. No bad playlists. Only the hum of lights warming up and the faint bite of detergent before twenty guys replaced it with sweat and coffee breath.

For ten minutes, hockey was simple: tape the stick, lace the skates, keep the noise out.

I'd barely finished my first strip of tape when the door creaked and Thatcher Drake stepped in. 8:12 AM. Hoodie up. Hair damp. Eyes clear. He'd actually slept instead of doomscrolling his name.

He paused, glancing around the room, then lifted both hands like he was surrendering. "Phone's in the cubby."

"Good." I pressed the tape down and cut it clean with a thumbnail.

Thatcher slid into the stall beside Linc's and unpacked his gear. Everything came out folded. No scatter. No mess. He pinched his laces and started the rabbit-ear knot I'd used since juniors. I'd expected chaos to clatter in with him. Instead, I got… order.

Huh.

"Morning," he said without looking up.

"Helmet fit?"

"Like a glove." He grinned. "Three alarms worked, too. You proud?"

"I'll be proud when you win a puck battle."

"Ruthless." He bent back to his laces, but the corner of his mouth didn't stop trying to be trouble.

The quiet died fast. Linc came in humming off-key. Pluto showed up with a paper bag that gave up under its own grease and dumped three bagels on the floor.

"Man down," Pluto groaned, dropping to his knees.

Thatcher slid off his bench without hesitation, scooped up two bagels, and hot-potatoed them back into Pluto's hands. "Five-second rule."

I muttered, "Five-second rule is not a rule."

"It is in the minors," Linc said. "And last night's leftover nachos are breakfast if you believe in yourself."

"Nachos are a lifestyle," Pluto said, reverent. "Also versatile. Also… wow, that is a lot of cream cheese."

"Try eating it before it eats you," Knox muttered as he stomped in, with each step, he complained about the floor, the weather, and the concept of mornings.

Wren poked her head in. "Systems in five. If you bring coffee, bring me one."

"Budget cuts," Pluto said, and every eye rolled in Wren's general direction.

The video room's fluorescent glare made every moment look like an interrogation. Coach cued up clips from last season: our worst habits filling a twenty-foot-wide screen.

A blown coverage in the slot. A two-goal lead gift-wrapped and mailed to Norfolk. Me on the PK, stick two inches too high, and there went the seam pass. I hate film when I'm the problem; I love it, too, because it means I can fix it.

"Simple," Coach's laser pointer underlined our slip-ups. "Support the puck. Short, north, talk. No cute."

His eyes cut briefly to Thatcher.

I waited for the flinch. Didn't get one. Thatcher nodded, and he almost made me smile. He pulled out a small notebook and jotted something down like a rookie trying to earn his way out of healthy scratch purgatory.

Linc elbowed me. "Support the puck. Is that, like, a euphemism?"

I growled under my breath. "Don't make me take your nachos."

Thatcher heard it. His mouth did a quick don't-laugh tilt before he bent over the notebook again.

He had a question for Coach. "On that last breakout, you want F3 soft in the middle or high at the far dot? Looked like we got caught choosing."

Coach blinked—surprised, not irritated. "Soft middle unless they sag, then high. Trust your read."

Thatcher wrote it down. Not for show. For later study.

Practice shook loose the video room sour taste. Steel cutting ice, lungs burning the right way. We ran a half-ice drill, then a full breakout into a two-on-one.

I squared off with Thatcher in the neutral zone, kept my gap at a stick-length, and trusted my feet. He tried to sell outside, rolled his edge, and I bumped him hard enough to say hello.

He popped up without chirping and won the next rep down low, stripping Linc behind the net and tucking a quick backhand before our goalie could seal. A few sticks hammered glass. He looked straight at me.

I didn't nod. Captains don't feed on crumbs. They set meals. But yeah, I noticed.

On the bench, Pluto stage-whispered, "Captain's got hearts in his eyes."

"Pluto—"

"Right, right. Stars, not hearts."

Thatcher's helmet hid most of his face, but the grin got out anyway.

Weight room, after. The air was thick with effort and the smell of rubber mats. I spotted our rookies on squats and pretended not to watch Thatcher.

He matched every rep the strength coach put him through. No peacocking for the mirrors. No half-reps to look fast. Sweat at his temples, shirt clinging, jaw set. That was the version of him I wanted: the worker, not the meme.

Pluto drifted by with a towel over his head like a nun in a protein cult and sing-songed, "Captain likes what he sees."

"I like good habits."

"Same thing." Thatcher grinned around the rim of his water bottle. The man's hearing was too good.

By lunch, half the team hit a burger place, and I followed. Pluto produced a coupon the size of a placemat and announced he was buying.

We crammed into two booths. Knox sat on the aisle. Linc declared that anyone who ordered a salad had to sit at the children's table. I ordered a salad.

Linc lowered his head. "Betrayal."

"Fiber. Try it."

He waved a fry. "I am trying it. Potato is plant."

"Plant drowned in oil."

"Delicious oil." Pluto slid the ketchup toward me. "Drake, settle something for us. Ranch or blue cheese."

Thatcher stole a fry off Pluto's tray and inspected it like evidence. "Ranch is people-pleasing. Blue cheese is a lifestyle."

Knox thunked the table twice. "Finally, some culture."

"I didn't say I chose it," Thatcher added, popping the fry into his mouth. "I'm not ready for that kind of commitment."

"Coward." Linc smiled. The whole table did, even Knox, who only smiles when something breaks.

I sat on the edge of the booth and didn't contribute to the sauce theology discussion. I watched. Thatcher's quick fit with the team made me itch.

He laughed easily, deflected chirps with better ones, and let Pluto shove the coupon under his nose like a proud child saying, "You're saving us from financial ruin." He was good at being liked.

I reminded myself that being liked isn't the same as being trusted. Then, I stared at the line of his throat when he tilted his head back to drink.

His eyes met mine once. I looked away first. Discipline is a habit you feed or it starves.

After lunch, the boys trickled back to our practice facility to grab cars, laundry bags, and shreds of their pride. The locker room softened into quiet again. Thatcher lingered, hoodie back up, hair damp from a shower. He examined the wall of old team photos.

"You from one of those?" I asked, stepping up beside him. A championship picture from eight years back showed a group of guys who looked like they'd duct-taped joy to themselves and refused to let go. Different logo. Same hopes.

He laughed under his breath. "My junior team's board of governors used to frame all the good years and hang them over the doors so you had to walk under the past on the way to the ice. Motivation via guilt."

"Effective?"

"Depends." He turned and leaned a shoulder against the wall. "Guilt is clingy."

"Hmm."

"Hey." His voice was quiet—honest. "Thanks for not making it harder than it has to be."

"I didn't make it easy."

"I didn't ask for easy." He paused, "Only fair."

Fair sits in me like a tuning fork. It's the thing I care about more than goals or glue guys. Not nice, soft, or everyone gets a trophy. Fair.

"Tomorrow." It was a warning wrapped up in a promise.

He grinned. "Tomorrow."

I left before my mouth did something undisciplined.

***

My home is quiet on purpose. Couch, two plants that refuse to die, a corkboard schedule, and a kitchen whose only real uses are making ice and brewing coffee.

I lounged on the couch and answered my sister’s text— Eat a vegetable or I’m driving down there —with a photo of my tragic salad and the word garnish because she knows me too well.

The Bone Yard—our team chat—lit up around eight. Pluto posted a GIF of a dancing skeleton. Linc changed the group name to THE BONE ZONE until Wren joined and renamed it to Bone Yard with a skull and a stern face.

Knox demanded we stop using the word “content” like it was a condiment. Someone who’d saved their contact as “GRIMMY (ACCT PAYABLES?)” asked if anyone had seen the invoice for ten thousand foam sticks printed with our logo. No one had.

I muted the chat and stared at Thatcher’s number. I’d sent him a message last night, and he answered.

I should’ve put the phone down. Instead, I kept seeing practice in slow motion—how sweat slid down his temple, the snap of his wrist on that backhand, and the grin he tried to hide under his helmet. None of it was useful information. All of it was too easy to remember.

My thumb hovered. I typed three words. Deleted them. Set the phone down. Picked it up again. Discipline is a habit, and mine was cracking.

Gideon: Solid work today. Don’t let Linc talk you into ranch on game days

Three dots appeared like he’d been waiting for a cue.

TDrake: wow captain. praise? in my house?

Gideon: Don’t make it weird

TDrake: too late. printing it out and framing it over my door so i have to walk under it on the way to the ice

Gideon: I’ll take it back

TDrake: you can’t, it’s in the cloud now

A photo icon blinked. I told myself not to open it. Opened it anyway.

It was just his taped wrist and forearm, captioned: support the puck? Nothing explicit. Still suggestive. Still more than I should be staring at this late at night.

Gideon: Don’t fish for attention

TDrake: wow. captain cold. thought u liked good tape jobs

Another photo icon blinked before I could decide to block him.

It was Thatcher in the mirror, hoodie shoved up one-handed to mid-torso.

No face, just the slope of abs under damp skin, a line of tape residue still clinging to his wrist, and the suggestion of hipbones where the waistband of his shorts slung low.

Not obscene. Not safe either.

The same hands that had folded his gear this morning, and had taken notes like a rookie, were now holding a phone with the easy confidence of someone who knew exactly what he was doing to me.

My heart did the thing it does right before a faceoff, and I pretended to ignore it.

Gideon: Shirt down. Now.

Three dots. He didn’t.

TDrake: that a rule or a request

Gideon: Team rule. also asking

TDrake: what happens if i break it?

Gideon: Break it and see

TDrake: put me in the box, Cap'n

I swallowed nothing and it went down like something.

Gideon: Decide: praise or penalties

TDrake: praise is nice. penalties are fun. decisions are hard

TDrake: tell me what to do and i’ll pretend to hate it

Gideon: Don’t make me block you

TDrake: you won’t. you like good habits

Gideon: Prove it tomorrow

There was a pause long enough to let my pulse attempt returning to normal.

TDrake: yes, Sir

Two words. Too much in them. My thumb hovered over delete, but it was too late. Discipline starves if you don’t feed it. I’d let mine go hungry.