Page 1

Chapter 1

Nat

The ice glows orange under the hanging heat lamps.

My breath fogs against the cold glass, blurring that vast stretch of orange-white, smearing the hundreds of people who surround it into a violent rainbow of melted wax. Their voices ebb and swell in an undulating ocean of chatters and shouts and ill-veiled threats; like a boxer constantly sporting bruises, our world aches. A clear black sky arcs over the pale ice, splattered with the delicate pinpricks of a million disordered stars.

I swipe a finger through the condensation on the glass to study the crowd. They can’t see me from down here, in this private hall beneath the bleachers, and I prefer it that way. Not that anyone would notice the Zamboni driver lurking around in the shadows.

There was a time when I’d be in the locker room with the team. Or out on the bench, where the official staff arrays pucks and water bottles and towels, medical equipment, extra sticks.

These days, I’m lost between worlds. Not clad in a jersey of the players, not in the crinkly wind-suits of the personnel. So here I linger, in my leather jacket and jeans, looking out on the ice before the game, privy to the secret world of hockey’s inner machinations.

Here I am, lurking. Watching. Tasting and touching and smelling the tiny pieces of a life I can’t seem to let go of, like somehow these light caresses of sensation might be enough .

The crowd’s even smaller tonight than it was at the last game. Makes my chest ache—with sadness, with worry. Once upon a time, when the Day River Dingoes played, the whole town would come out to watch.

In a world sheathed in snow and ice from September through May, hockey is more than a sport, a distraction. It’s a fucking religion, and those who play it are gods.

Just . . . not in this arena anymore. Not since Jesse left sixteen years ago. That feeling claws at my gut again—worry. Worry for what will happen if the team keeps losing. If the crowd keeps shrinking.

No smart business person would keep a dying team in an ice-crusted town that doesn’t care about it. And if the league moves the Dingoes, the rink closes, I lose my job . . .

My stomach aches. Nerves flutter against the inside of my chest like the eyelashes of fear. The call of the fight pulses beneath my veins, begging for release.

Hockey used to sate that, but now . . . Well, it’s been a long time since I suited up for a real game; the Ice Out doesn’t count, even though the crowds are bigger there.

“Whatcha doing out here, Nat?” The deep voice pulls me back from the ice and the stars and the diminishing crowd. For an instant, I’m transported to an earlier age, when my elder brother still captained this team—when the people packed the stands to its gills—but when I turn, it’s just Charlie leaning against the short wall beneath the bleachers.

He’s dressed in gear from the waist down, but there’s nothing to separate his torso from the cold of the arena.

Thirty-five years into this life, he doesn’t feel it anymore.

“What are you doing out here?” I ask instead.

“Seeing where the hell you were.” His eyes flit past me toward the rink, the game calling to him like it does to me. I know the same pulse of longing beats the blood through his veins.

Charlie and I grew up together in this frost-encased world, shooting pucks on the ponds or racing icy streets when the plows couldn’t get through for days at a time. Us and the other Day River boys who fought the cold and the dark to earn our spot on the high school team—dreaming we’d someday be gods of ice and winter.

Before, one by one, our careers vanished out from under us.

“Was just checking out the crowd.” The words dance from my lips on a cloud of frozen breath. Once, I’d have given anything to be out there. But that dream died eighteen years ago. “Barely anybody here.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” He reaches out to wrap an arm around my shoulders. “C’mon. You got skates to sharpen.”

He lets go, takes the lead down the chilled hallway towards the locker room. I’ve already done my duty for the night, as lucky skate sharpener —Charlie’s words, since my official title is equipment manager —but I follow him anyway.

He pulls the door open and calls inside, “Better be dressed, boys! Coach’ll be here soon.”

I slip in behind him. It’s warm, due to the twenty bodies arrayed around the room in various states of undress. Most of the faces are barely more than strangers at this point—a constantly rotating roster of transplants from other leagues, other cities, trying to claw their way up from the bottom. Looking for a hint of recognition so they can move on.

Nobody stays here long.

None have quite the same story as me, but in the end, hockey is the one constant in all our lives, the thing we’ve always relied on. Hockey’s always been the foundation of my existence, and even when my hopes and dreams shattered around me, it was still hockey I turned to.

I think it’s why we’re all here, huddled into the locker room. Us and the few remaining fans in the bleachers above, already drunk on beer and cold air and bloodlust.

When life doesn’t go on, hockey does.

Like the ice under our feet and piercing our lungs, hockey will always be.

“Good of you to join us, Mr. Taylor.” Coach Ethan Douglas marches into the room behind me. He’s even bigger now than he was during his illustrious defensive career; he’s packed on a few dozen pounds in the decades since he played.

His assistant coach shoves a cluster of hangers into my hands. Another unofficial aspect of my job, along with sharpening skates.

Coach’s pre-game speech blurs in my ears as I circle the locker room, handing out jerseys. Part of the ritual—and in hockey, the ritual is important. Must be respected, adhered to, down to the last detail. Who you sit next to, the order the gear goes on, which water bottle you drink from or meal you eat before or stuffed animal you bring to place on the bench beside you.

Everything must be exact.

Me distributing shirts must happen—in the proper order.

When they’re all delivered, I shadow to the corner of the locker room, out of sight and mind, and my gaze lifts to the two jerseys hung over the doorway. My eyes trace the dogs-head logo of Day River pressed against the white background, the navy and powder-blue stripes over the elbow, the navy number outlined in powder, the name printed above it.

R. Taylor, 14

J. Taylor, 15

My father’s jersey, and my brother’s. They both played, both captained this team, before they stepped up to stardom, and the whole city knows the Dingoes haven’t been the same since Jesse left. Since he walked away with barely a backward glance.

Now, the town’s slowly giving up on it, turning to the Ice Out for entertainment instead.

Around the locker room, players tug jerseys over their heads, straighten them over bulky shoulder pads. That’s my cue to leave, to return to the civilian world where I’m not lingering on the edges of this family like the little match girl peering through the glass, silently begging to be invited in for dinner.

Once, I had this.

I lost it .

So I’ll stand outside the window, looking in, lighting matches to keep my fingers warm, to pretend I can taste it and smell it, feel it, like the boys inside. Sometimes that’s more painful than moving on.

The buzz of my phone draws me back to reality. Glad of the excuse to leave, I slip the device from my pocket and head for the door. Probably JB with a new job—but no.

It’s from the rink manager: Come to my office .

I groan. No good conversation’s ever started that way; there’s nothing I can do to combat the sudden sick churn of my gut

Still, I pace to the front of the arena, rap my knuckles against the frame of his partially opened door.

My boss’s gruff voice filters through the crack. “Taylor?”

“Yeah.”

“C’mon in. Close the door.”

My stomach plunges towards my feet. But I slide into his narrow, paper-strewn office. The man himself sits behind his cluttered desk, half-hidden by a wall of coffee mugs and file folders.

“Sit.” Jerry doesn’t look up from the screen of his ancient desktop. From the faded reflection in his glasses, I’d guess he’s working on scheduling. “No easy way to say this, kid.”

My suddenly sweaty palms flatten against the thighs of my jeans. “You’re firing me?”

“Nah, not yet,” he says, but I know better than to be relieved. “The Dingoes are moving money around trying to get people to stay or bring in good players or whatever.”

“Right.” My voice escapes in a croak. I can guess his next words.

“Long story short, they’re cutting their funding for the rink—so we’re reducing hours.”

“You’re cutting my hours,” I clarify, my heart sinking down towards my shoes.

Jerry winces. “Yeah, kid. Which is technically gonna take you out of full-time status. ”

My stomach clenches into a queasy knot. “So I’m losing benefits. Healthcare.”

“Unfortunately.”

“Shit.” I tug my hat from my head to run a hand through my overgrown hair. “Shit. That means Syd . . .”

Means I’ll be paying out of pocket now. Means my extra money will be going to health insurance, instead of Syd’s college fund. Fuck me.

“Could be worse.” Jerry leans back in his chair, giving me his full attention. “The Dingoes don’t start winning, pulling in fans, no way they’re keeping the team here.”

He doesn’t need to elaborate—this is the Dingoes’ arena. High school plays here, sometimes, but mostly they use the older rink on the other side of town.

If the Dingoes leave, there’ll be hardly any business here. Forget full time, I’ll be lucky to have a part-time job if that happens. Not to mention, I’ll lose my skate-sharpening duties, too. Another little pad to my paycheck.

“Right.” I back towards the door, my palms still sweaty, stomach still clenched up too tight. “That all?”

“Honestly, Taylor . . .” he sighs, flattens his hands out atop his desk. “Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise. I should just fire you, rip off the Band-Aid.”

I’ve forgotten how to breathe, or perhaps my throat’s started to close, an anaphylactic shock to Jerry’s indelicately delivered news. “What?”

The word barely escapes my swollen larynx.

“Look.” He holds up a hand, probably at the sight of the panic etched across my features. “You’ve worked here for a long-ass time. We both know this job’s gonna get you nowhere.”

I bite the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste blood, a coppery spill against my tongue. Soft and sour and so familiar—the taste of so many fights, so much emotion and passion, denial and resistance and want.

“You’re only hurting yourself by dividing yourself too many ways. Skate sharpener for the Dingoes?” Jerry shakes his head. “C’mon, man. I thought you were gonna get your own repo business going, ’stead of working part time for that shitty title company.”

I don’t speak. Can’t speak. Can only stand and let the tide of his words butt against my weakened dam of resistance, barely holding back the waters of my emotions.

“Think about it,” he says, and he flaps a hand to shoo me out of his office.

I climb the stairs to the stands as the arena’s lights dim. The crowd around me is subdued, disinterested, or maybe it’s just so diminished from how it used to be. And still, I’m separate, unbelonging.

I am not civilian, can never be, not when I’ve been a part of the world down below. Not when I’ve tasted it and touched it, breathed it, lived it, when the ice was my everything. Even when the dream fades, you remember it, lingering like a ghost.

“Let’s hear it for your own DAY RIVER DINGOES!” The announcer’s voice booms across the darkened arena as I take my seat on the edge of the top row. My eyes subconsciously scan the crowd for Sydney, but hell. I doubt the cool young kids are going to Dingoes games anymore these days.

Blue jerseys hurtle out onto the ice. A whirl of color, life, energy, and the fans reward their presence by opening their lungs.

The game’s different, up here. I should be at the glass near the Zam door, but I prefer it here, where I can look down on the game, the team, like a distant and removed god, refusing to evoke any power over the outcome.

It’s different, so different, but it’s still the game I love. This is hockey. And in this broken world, hockey is life.

So I settle back in my seat to watch my home team, no longer led by my brother, collapse beneath the weight of the competition. There’s hardly a crowd to care .

Even if they started winning, would that make a difference? No, it won’t just be good hockey, or a winning record, that keeps the Dingoes in this town.

Something will have to bring the fans back to the stands.

My phone dings in my pocket, and I slide the device out to find a new message from JB—my buddy at the title company.

Got a job, you want it?

I sigh.

JB’s been trying to rope me into partnering up on a repossession business for months now. I don’t even know where he finds them, but he’s always throwing jobs my way.

Do I want this one? No. I want to sit here and watch the Dingoes’ game. I want to join the team in the locker room afterwards, commiserate together. I want it to be all hockey, just hockey, me and the rink and the ice. I want my Zamboni job to be enough.

But hockey is a pipe dream from another life. Now I have to want other things, like a gig that actually makes money. Jerry’s right; I really should branch out on my own, or I’m very soon going to find myself up shit creek without a paddle.

I sigh, type out my response. I’ll take it. Send me the details.