Page 12

Chapter 12

Olli

The game isn’t for another few hours, and like I told Mom, I’m not dressing for this one—some BS business with the transfer. But I still get there early enough to lurk around the rink like some kind of bored, lonely ghost.

I mean, what else am I gonna do?

The rink’s empty when I arrive, or so I think until I pace down the long padded hallway towards the locker room. Drinking in the cold air, so stiff and stale compared to the crisp and clean of my morning hike. Familiar, though. Welcome. So welcome.

I’m just opening the door when the telltale scrape of blades on ice tells me someone’s out there.

I forget the locker room and head to the arena instead. Stand just out of view beneath the bleachers—trying to stay invisible, ’cause I’m kinda identifiable. How many Black hockey players live here in Icetown, ya know?

Like a specter shrouded in shadow, I observe. There’s one guy out there, skating slow circles around the long stretch of shimmering white.

Clad in sweatpants, gloves, a helmet devoid of shield or cage, he shifts across the ice in long, lazy strides steeped in grace. Ease. Natural skill.

Takes me half a second to realize I recognize him—

Nat Taylor .

Well, guess that solidifies my theory about him being related to Jesse Taylor, the legend who led this team to success. Is that why there’s something familiar about the way he skates, flows through each motion?

I’ve studied Jesse enough, I might recognize his style of play. But . . . No.

No, it’s something else, something more familiar than that. Something—

Crap.

With a sudden, shocking surety—forgive my alliteration—I know.

Nat plays, but obviously not for the Dingoes. No, he plays somewhere very, very different, doesn’t he?

Somewhere darker . . .

I realize I’m still hovering, breathless, by the door. Watching. ’Cause in addition to learning this dark little secret, there’s still the whole bit where I definitely kissed him at a bar, then told him it was a mistake . . .

I’m spiraling. I’m definitely, really spiraling.

I’m also staring , ’cause the way he moves is mesmerizing. It’s like how he was out on the ice last night, but different too. The Ice Out was so bold and brutal, vicious and hard and cold. But this . . . it’s like a dance on ice, his body flowing through each movement, each flick of his wrist or turn of his feet.

I can’t look away.

Maybe I wouldn’t have, except that somewhere in the back of my mind, I register the click of the locker room door that tells me the rest of the team’s started to arrive.

Damn.

Time to go do team-captainy things—I am still the captain, regardless of whether or not I’ll be on the ice tonight.

So I slip down the hall, through the door, and into chaos. A ball of tape thwacks me in the temple, and a hoot of laughter cracks over the rumble of voices, the barrage of innuendos, and the low throb of music .

“James!” Charlie yells from across the locker room, half naked, chest painted with what looks like bright red lipstick. Blocky red letters spell out D-I-N-G-U-S.

“Close,” I mutter, a grin stretching my mouth at the deliberate misspelling of our team name. “What is this techno crap?”

“It’s house .” The tall blond guy by the radio turns towards me. Skyler Johnson, linemate to hippie-with-locs Andy Everton, currently trying to shove him out from in front of the radio.

Skyler’s just about the most Legolas-looking dude I’ve ever seen, thanks to that lean-n-lanky form and wash of white-blond hair—braided. I have a strong and probably not advisable inclination to ask if he can walk on snow.

“This song sucks!” Everton gives him one final nudge and crushes his way into position in front of the speakers.

Coach barrels through the door behind me, and silence washes over the room as the music cuts off. Skyler and Everton slip into their respective cubbies without so much as another word, and a stray elbow pad tumbles to rest in the middle of the floor.

Coach kicks it aside as he takes the stage. “We got a fight ahead of us, boys.”

I swear I’ve heard a million variations of this same speech a million and ten times. This one, thankfully, only takes five minutes before Coach is retreating from the room.

Chaos returns. Everyone, save yours truly, dons their gear. And then it’s my turn.

“I know I’ve been Captain for like seven minutes,” I say as I rise from my cubby. I don’t bother walking to the middle of the locker room, ’cause I don’t plan on talking that long. “So I don’t have much to say. But I have seen everybody in here skate, and I know that every single person in this room has something good to bring to the game. So . . . bring it! ”

They roar. Leap to their feet. Crush in close so I’m in the center of a sea of smelly pads and pulsing shoulders and lifted fists and hollering voices. The energy is goddamn tangible.

“Dingoes!” Everton yells, and everyone else echoes. “Dingoes! Dingoes! Dingoes!”

And then the locker room door opens and they race out in a cerulean-and-navy wash of skates and pads and sticks. I’m still rocking my suit and tie, but I jog out alongside them as they barrel for the ice.

Overhead, the speakers crackle, and the announcer booms, “And now, your own DAY RIVER DINGOES!”

Out of the locker room, the first thing that hits me is the quiet.

There’s no resounding roar of the crowd. There’s a murmur, a buzz, a faint report to the announcer’s gunshot-loud voice. I slip out of the hallway and up the stairs to the bleachers—and stop dead.

Where the Ice Out was a mass of people crammed together, drinking and cheering and swearing and fighting and all gathered together under that one roof for one passionate purpose, this is . . .

I doubt there’s a thousand people in those stands.

I climb into the bleachers, still staring, my jaw slack with shock at what I’m seeing. Not seeing. Whatever.

We’re in an ice town of hockey-obsessed people. It’s a Friday night. And it’s dead. Empty. A few diehard fans pressed up against the glass, and a whole lot more who look like maybe they won free tickets or have nothing better to do, or maybe they’ll leave before the second period.

The shock hits me in a cold wave. I flop down into one of the chairs behind the glass, but I’m not seeing my team out there on the ice, skating circles, flinging pucks, stretching. I’m just staring at the crowd.

What the hell is going on here?

How could this possibly be the same town that turns out in the thousands for the Ice Out? That braves the dark and the cold, risks the illegality of gathering in an underground space filled with drugs and gambling and fights and God knows what else ?

How could this be the same town that roars numbers in their support and disfavor. That makes bets, begs for blood—

But that’s it, isn’t it?

There’s something a little dark and depraved about this town, about its people. Something that draws them out of the warmth and light of their homes and into the belly of the underground of broken dreams and broken bones.

Does not the darkness inside us crave to find that same darkness reflected in others?

That’s why nobody comes to Dingoes games—why would they, when they lust for violence?

I settle back into my seat, still shocked and shaken from this new realization. With the idea that this team—the thing I’ve staked my entire career on, a lifelong dream—might not be saveable.

How can I save it, when the problem isn’t hockey?

No wonder nobody stays on this team, in this town. No wonder Coach struggles to keep players on the roster. No wonder we’re losing.

That feeling of heaviness returns, so hard and fast it’s like my bones have suddenly turned to lead. And for all my sunshine and smiles, I just want to curl up beneath the blankets of my bed, close the windows, and give in to the darkness I’ve been fighting off for weeks now.

It’s only a matter of time, after all. Sooner or later, it’ll catch me. And when it does . . . But fortunately, a lifetime of dealing with it—and therapy—means I have coping methods.

When I can’t get outside and can’t get on the ice, music is all I have left. It’s time to blast my thoughts out of this funk-spiral with some good old-fashioned metal. And because I’m a nerd—poetry.

Nothing quite like losing yourself in metal and writing.

I fish in the pocket of my dress pants for my mini notebook and my phone. The edge of the notebook snags, and because I’m an awkward human, I manage to fumble both my phone and the notebook onto the ground at my feet .

“Dammit.” I crouch to snag my phone off the floor, check the screen for cracks. Nothing, thankfully. And it seems to still be loading Pandora, so that’s a win.

I start to reach for my notebook—

But someone beats me to it. A hand closes around the battered pages. Fingers tattooed above each knuckle, fingers attached to tattooed hands, hands attached to tattooed wrists, wrists attached to tattooed arms, arms swelling into drool-inducing biceps, also tattooed . . . and suddenly my poetry, a poem I wrote on a dark and lonely and terribly emo night, is being lifted off the floor by none other than—

“Nat,” I squeak, sounding rather like a mouse that’s been stepped on. Not that I specifically know what that sounds like, but I’ve been told I have a very active imagination.

“Not watching the game, Captain?” The deep voice reaches my ears in the same moment Volbeat’s “Still Counting” does. I jerk my gaze up from my Ultimate Pump List playlist—to find Nat Taylor standing over me.

Damn, I can’t stop seeing him at the Ice Out, thinking about how much more sense his scowl and his battered knuckles make. I mean, I don’t know much about the Ice Out, but I know it ain’t for the weak of heart.

I wince, lift up my phone to display my Pandora screen. “Just getting some music.”

But he’s not looking at me or my phone. Or even the game swirling around on the ice below. No, those piercing green eyes tilt down to my little notebook in his hand.

“Is this . . . poetry?” His gaze lifts from the page, brow furrowed in consternation as he beholds me, still crouched on the floor at his feet.

“Songs, actually.” I stand and swipe the paper from his fingers in one fell swoop. “If you must know.”

“Songs,” he murmurs, still watching me. Though it almost looks like his eyes are out of focus, like he’s not seeing me—or maybe he’s seeing more of me than I realize .

“Don’t make fun.” I stuff the notebook into my pocket and flop onto my seat like I’m actually gonna attempt to watch the game. A whistle calls a halt to the play, and music thumps through the speakers.

“I’m not making fun.” Nat slides his hands into the pockets of his torn jeans. I stare at the ice; Devereaux loses the face off, and the puck tumbles into our zone.

I feel like I’m back in middle school, and one of the cool kids has started chatting under the pretext of being friendly, but is really searching out a new way to tease me.

“I can hear the music,” he says, and yep . . . Real funny, bro.

But we're not in middle school anymore, so one of us should act like an adult. “Now you’re really making fun of me. Look, it’s just silly—”

“It’s not silly,” he says, and when he sits down beside me, the smooth, serious lines of his face are almost convincingly earnest. “You think I’d make fun of music to a fellow metalhead?”

His eyes meet mine.

Soft. Green. So soft. Why does that softness brighten something inside me, a nightlight fraying the edges of dark. So fragile, so breakable, but there, inside me. Brightness.

“Yeah, let’s never talk about it again,” I say, forcing my mouth into a tight smile. “Like, maybe you could forget any of this happened?”

“Not likely,” he says, but those severe lines of his visage relax into something that might almost be a smile.

I clamp down on my own smile. “Well, do me a favor and pretend like you forgot.”

“If you insist.” His eyes drop to the phone in my hand. “What’re you listening to?”

He’s returned to his signature almost-scowl. Doesn’t make him look any less beautiful. In fact, the surly look works for him—the low arch of his brows, the tautness of his mouth and jaw.

Or maybe it’s just that he’s so beautiful nothing could dim my attraction. The way I notice the warmth of him, his soft cologne, and beneath that, the faded burn of cigarettes .

“Not emo, rock star.” The words tumble out of my mouth and my lips arch into a teasing grin. But damn, does he even remember that comment?

I opt not to give either of us time to overthink it.

I hit play on my phone, and the notes of In Flames’s “Cloud Connected” start cracking through the speakers, low and tinny. Nat’s brows lift from their tight pull into an arch of incredulity.

“You look surprised,” I say. “But we talked about this.”

The blare of the buzzer announces the first goal, and we both jerk towards the ice.

“Dang.” We’re already losing.

Dread fills my gut as the stakes hit me. I’ve hitched my cart to a horse with no legs, thinking maybe I could what, magic them back into existence?

Stop overthinking, Olls .

I really need a distraction. And what do you know? There’s one sitting right beside me. Staring down at the ice, jaw flexing with tension. Like he’s got something personally riding on this game too.

Kinda makes me wonder why he’s not out there.

Olli, you gotta quit it, bud.

Instead, I dig deeper. “I recall something about a guitar . . . You play metal too?”

“Yes.” His words sound clipped, and it can’t be the game, can it? Is it me? My anxiety obviously wants to name it as such, ’cause I’m probably annoying him with all my talking when he’s clearly just trying to watch the game—

A whistle down below cuts through my thoughts.

“Fuck!” Nat mutters, and we both stare as Everton’s tossed into the penalty box, leaving us down a man. Fantastic. Nat’s hands clench into tight fists.

“So, um.” I steal a glance at his profile. “Why’s there nobody at this game? ”

“The team’s losing?” His hands loosen atop his knees. “Nobody cares about a bunch of California boys? It’s cold? Take your pick.”

“Cold?” I scoff, and then wince as another whistle stops the game for an icing call. On us—’cause we’re already tired. “Seven Nation Army” by the White Stripes blares out of the arena’s speakers. “Isn’t this supposed to be a hockey town? This isn’t cold.”

“Just wait until winter, Florida.” His jaw flicks with tension again as the play starts up—and stays firmly in our defensive zone. “You don’t even know what cold is. You’re gonna hate this town before Christmas.”

I almost laugh, except how could I laugh when the combination of good goaltending and bad shooting is the only thing keeping this from being a blowout game? “Maybe I hated Florida.”

“Did you?”

“It’s hot there. And humid.” Thank God, someone finally ices the puck, securing us a brief respite in the form of a commercial break and a line change. “Plus, I love seasons.”

Nat’s gaze finally leaves the ice, returns to my face. “You haven’t lived through a Day River winter. I promise you, it won’t be fun.”

“Bet.” The play starts up again, but his gaze doesn’t turn back down. So . . . I keep talking. “I love snow. And winter sports. I got no problem with the cold.”

“Cold here’s different.” His head tips slightly towards me, like he’s sizing me up. “Trust me. Most people don’t last long on this team. Especially surfer boys.”

My brows lift. “Who says I’m a surfer boy?”

“I do. Not here, though.”

“Brought my board anyway.” In some distant part of my mind, I realize I’ve stopped paying attention to the game.

He snorts out a surprised laugh, drawing my gaze to the ticked-up corner of his mouth. “Did you really?”

“Yep. It’s my favorite.” I snatch my phone up to skip a slower song. “But while I’m here I expect to do a lot more skiing than surfing. ”

“Not snowboarding, surfer-boy?” A tiny furrow appears between his dark brows. Why is that adorable, that little crease of confusion? Or maybe I just like the idea that I’m interesting enough to bewilder him.

“Nope. Ski.” I set the phone back down, Adalita’s Way “What It Takes” playing now. “Snowshoeing too.”

“Snowshoeing? Isn’t that for old people?” Amusement threads his words.

“Maybe. I dunno. I did it this morning.” I’m babbling, but I don’t seem to be able to turn off the fountain of words, never can when I get going. “I love nature. And being in it. Hiking, biking, skiing, snowshoeing . . . Anything, really. Very cathartic, you know?”

“Cathartic?”

“Hell yes—” But my words are lost beneath the wail of the buzzer.

“Fuck,” Nat groans, sliding a little lower in his seat. “Don’t know what I was really expecting, but dammit.”

I’m very much with him on that, but what use is there dwelling on what seems to be the inevitable? So . . . maybe I do a little conversation steering. “You’ve been up in the Dry Lakes Hills, I assume?”

Nat tilts his head back toward me, brow half knitted. “Sure. When I was a kid.”

“You grew up here?”

“Yep.” His gaze slides back towards the ice.

“And you haven’t had any inclination to go back out there?” My turn for a furrowed brow of confusion. “Have you?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because you hate it here.” The words tumble out of my mouth before I can get a lid on it—before I’ve even realized I’ve thought them. Whoops. “I mean—”

His head snaps towards me, green gaze like a laser. “What makes you think that ?”

His brows twist into confusion, and I think maybe I do this a lot, say things most people don’t say. Or maybe I’m just not suave enough to say the things I’m supposed to say .

Why am I the most awkward creature on the planet?

But still, somehow, my tongue keeps flapping. “It’s easy to overlook a place where you’ve spent too long. Stop seeing it for all its possibilities. Like how you don’t see things about yourself that other people love, or like all the Arizonans who’ve never been to Sedona or hiked the Grand Canyon.”

And there I go, babbling.

“Excited tourists are always sussing out cool new spots, ya know?” And still, still, still , I keep talking. “You need a tourist to show you around.”

“Is that what you are?” he asks, and when I angle my gaze up, his green eyes bore down on me from beneath the backwards brim of his hat. “An excited tourist?”

“I’d consider myself as such, yes.” I don’t know why he hasn’t walked off or told me to stop or changed the subject. “So if you ever want to go for a hike . . .”

“A hike?” His brows twist again. Because there I go again saying all the awkward, forward things nobody says.

“Yeah, you know. Nature. Outdoors. Bugs. Mud. Snow. Maybe a coyote or something . . .”

“Really selling it.” Does his mouth twitch, or is that my imagination ?

“I don’t want the whole town joining me.” My own smile’s starting to crawl over my lips.

“But I’m okay?”

I shrug. “If you wanted, I might share my spot. Your taste in music leads me to believe you’re not a complete assclown.”

“Your spot . . .” His brows twist further. “You’ve been here a week, and you already have a spot?”

“Absolutely.” More babbling on the way, and I am powerless to stop it. “I’m a small percentage hippie, so I need my nature fix. I’m open to suggestions, though, if you know of any trails, since you’re a knowledgeable expert.”

His mouth definitely twitches this time—he’s holding back a smile. “You really want to go for a hike in the middle of winter?”

My stomach fizzes with little bubbles of joy. “Nature has a way of just . . . making everything feel better, you know?”

Sudden self-consciousness crawls over my skin. Who the hell do I think I am, babbling away to this beautiful man who’s probably been Mr. Popular since high school.

I slap one of my big cheesy grins on, because what better defense after showing your true self than to immediately pretend you’re twelve years old. “Or maybe I just want to lure you out into the woods alone.”

“Oh?” Nat’s head tilts, his expression going . . . neutral. Like deliberately, very cautiously neutral. “To kill me or kiss me?”

I bark out a surprised laugh. “Which would you prefer? Nah, on second thought, please don’t answer that. Let me live in my fantasy.”

He laughs.

Mr. Stoic laughs. A wide white grin crawls over his face, showcasing straight white teeth. I’ve made him smile. Hottie McHotstuff is smiling . For me.

The bubbly fizz in my tummy turns to a full-on rolling boil of joy. Stop it, Olls. It means nothing. “Well, in any case. Consider yourself warned.”

I go back to swiping through my playlist before things can get too weird, right, with me lurking next to him like some kind of creepy, too-interested shadow . . . who previously hit on him, then made out with him, and ground up on him against a bar wall.

Right. No way any of this could wind up awkward as hell.

“Sure,” he says, and the offhand, dismissive way he says it, I know it’s like when you give someone your number and they say they’ll call but you know they’ve got no intention of calling. “Maybe sometime.”

My stomach plummets like someone’s dropped a big icy rock in it. That’s a rejection if ever I’ve heard one—but I gotta make like a cat and land on all my feet. I can do that .

“Of course.” And the next thing that comes out of my mouth isn’t at all what I’d planned. “So. How many spots you got that aren’t gyms? Or the Ice Out, Number Forty-Seven .”

His green eyes bubble into big silver dollars of shock all over again, and his head whips around like he’s checking to see if anyone’s listening in. But it’s just us up here, leaving our conversation utterly private.

Nobody knows. Nobody knows about him and the Ice Out. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

I hold up a hand. “I ain’t gonna say anything. But . . . damn. The hell’re you doing out there and like, not in here? I mean, obviously you’re in here but—you know what.” I shake my head, drop my hand back into my lap. “I’m gonna stop talking now. You got your reasons, and I don’t know you, so I gotta respect that.”

His face unfolds into soft lines of surprise. “What?”

I shrug, keep my voice casual. “I ain’t gonna be a nag. You're good. Like, really good. But it’s your business. Your choice. Not my place to judge.”

He regards me with an expression that I can only describe as confusion. Not sure what that’s all about, but I opt to let him keep his secrets. As I said, it’s his business. Not mine.

“How did you figure it out?” His brows knit in consternation. “Did my mask slip or something?”

I shrug, give him the truth. “It’s obvious to anyone who’s looking. But we see what we want to see, you know? What we’re used to seeing. Like locals who stop noticing the Grand Canyon.”

“And . . . I’m the Grand Canyon in this scenario?”

“Damn straight you are.” I hold up a hand again. “Don’t worry, though. I ain’t gonna say anything.”

No, I ain’t. ’Cause the blare of another buzzer has called my attention back to the game, and out of nowhere, my big stupid ADHD brain invents a big stupid light-bulb realization that I will probably dismiss in seven seconds, but for right now seems . . . well, sort of Grand Canyony .

I think I just figured out the problem with the Dingoes: they’re the Grand Canyon of Day River. The the thing that’s right here, that everybody’s stopped seeing. Not to mention that, like Nat said, nobody cares about a bunch of random Cali boys.

So, how do you remind people to look?

How do you make them care?

“Why were you at the Ice Out?” Nat turns away from the ice, back to me.

“I’m all about experiencing every aspect of a place.” My fingers tap against my thigh, unable to keep still. “Excited tourist, remember?”

My brain’s still tripping over itself about this realization , so I’m only half thinking about what I’m saying. “Kinda blew me away, not gonna lie. It was, um . . . darker than I had any idea it was gonna be.”

“Welcome to Day River.” Nat turns as yet another buzzer shrieks out over the arena. Another goal against us. “Looks pretty on the surface, but it’s got a lot of dark secrets lurking underneath.”

“Yeah,” I agree, my voice so low I’m not sure he hears. “We gravitate towards the darkness reflected inside of us.”

But given a choice, won’t all plants tilt their faces towards the sun? Or at least, to the shiny new penny glinting on the darkened street.

Olli’s Big Stupid Brain kind of wants to find out.