Page 17

Chapter 17

Nat

Every week, I tell myself I won’t go back.

That I’m done with the Ice Out, that I’ll clean up and focus and not take the risk.

And every week, I find myself trekking through the dark of Day River’s downtown once again. Skates in my hand and stick over my shoulder. Feels wrong. Feels right.

No matter what I decide to do about the rink, about work, about JB’s repo business, one thing I know without a doubt: I can never truly give up hockey.

It lives in my bones, beats in my blood, a rhythm, a music all its own. To give up on skating would be, truly, to fade out of my own existence. And so, it’s to the Ice Out I’m headed, to the dark twisted depravity of Day River’s literal underground.

I flash my phone in front of the bouncer, and he waves me through.

I crowd into the holding pen, the stink of skates and gloves and sweat and unwashed bodies making my nose burn. Tripping some kind of adrenaline response at its familiarity.

We gravitate towards the darkness reflected inside of us , Olli’s words return to me, which of course means Olli does too—always. Why can’t I stop thinking about him?

Why can’t I stop seeing him—limned in moonlight outside Everton’s house, grinning at me from across the ice, bare chest speckled with lingering drops of water that set the lean muscles of his chest and arms shimmering—

The crack of the door opening jerks my attention back to the present. A blue-haired, purple-masked woman leans in to call out our numbers. Leading pigs to the slaughter. “Forty-Seven! Twenty-Three! Ninety-Three!”

And like the desperate sheep we are, we follow.

My heart slams at my ribs like it’s trying to beat through the bone. I rise to meet my new teammates at the door. One’s huge—taller than me by a few inches, nearly twice as broad.

He eyeballs me down from behind a fitted black mask. “Same Forty-Seven from last week?”

“None other.”

“You start shit with me, I’ll end it.”

“I believe it.” I shrug. “I didn’t start the fight last week.”

“Takes two to tango.” He turns away. “Stay off my shit side, and put the puck in the net.”

“Can do.” My eyes slide to the second player—roughly my size. Nondescript. Number Twenty-Three. He merely inclines his head in the briefest of nods. Better than threats, I suppose.

But when the door opens, I forget about everything else. The teammates flanking me, the crowd screaming outside, the soft rubber under my skates, the sharp, pressing smells of sweat and mildew, even the ghost-boy who haunts my days . . . it all fades as the ice stretches out before me.

And for this one moment, as I cross the distance between the door and the ice, the screams of the crowd a muffled roar around me, it might just have been real hockey.

My skates slide onto the ice. I breathe in that cracked-cold air, sharp enough it’s almost weaponized, a knife against my lungs. Size up the other team—blood splatters the front of one skater’s jersey. The second leans hands onto knees, chest heaving as he struggles to catch his breath. Third tips water over his face through the mask .

Tired. They’ve been out for a while, I’d bet.

My gaze trails back to my own team. The big man stands like a stone, glaring down the opposition. The smaller man turns quick circles in the ice, his skates fluid and free against the slicked surface.

Good. He’ll be my ally then.

Someone throws a puck onto the ice, and hell breaks loose. The two closest players surge forward. Collide. They scrabble together like rats in a cage.

So I dart in, snatch up the puck.

My gaze tilts, searching—there.

Number Twenty-Three cuts between two players, giving me a wide open passing lane just as someone barrels towards me.

I snap the puck forward onto Twenty-Three’s stick.

Hesitate one breath as that rampaging player closes in, overcommitting—

I sidestep, spring forward. Race up behind my temporary teammate.

My tape taps the ice. “Here!”

And like he’s got eyes in the side of his head, or maybe he was expecting me to do exactly what I did, he sends the puck flying towards me.

I barely get the pass cradled into my curve before I’m lofting that puck forward towards him again.

He winds up.

Puck launches.

Slams against the back of the net.

The crowd detonates in a frenzy of cheering and stomping, swearing, roaring, fist-waving. Probably fist-fighting too.

“Yeah, you think you’re gonna do that again?” The opposing player with the bloody shirt flies up next to me, ready to start a fight.

And I’m ready to meet him.

Someone hurls another puck onto the ice. And when Twenty-Three swoops in to scoop it up, my hockey instinct overrides the fight .

I spin, leave my trash-talking opponent behind as I race to get into passing position. My skates carve the ice, wind ringing in my ears, and I’m here , here to play, skate, dominate, let the game own me.

“Open!” I roar, and I cut in, opening up the passing lane. A narrow window—

But he sees it. Twenty-Three sees it, and he nails the puck directly onto my tape. It’s in my hands now as I rocket towards the net. Goalie’s eyeing me, and an opponent hurtles forward.

But I feel him, my teammate, like a phantom limb. Feel his presence beyond my periphery.

Opposition pummels in.

I hold steady.

Steady . . .

Drop the puck just before the opposer collides with me, leaving it for Twenty-Three to scoop up—unmolested and undefended—as I tangle with the defender.

I shove him off, and Twenty-Three plasters the puck to our third teammate’s tape.

One-timer.

The puck bounces off the goalie’s pads, but I’m already cutting in, crashing the net.

Lifting the puck in a shot—

Someone grabs at my jersey, hauling me away from said net. Nearly tugging my feet out from under me.

I whirl.

Gloves and stick already dropping, because it’s one thing to get in my face, but you touch my jersey and I turn back into the boy who used to own the ice in blood and fists and fury.

My bared knuckles swing.

The rest of the world whites out. Fades away. Vanishes. It’s this moment, here, slowed to the stop-motion of game play. Of fights. Of being so viscerally fucking alive, nothing else matters.

My knuckles crack his cheek .

My heart throbs in my throat, skull, chest. Hands and feet.

His head whips sideways as my fist curves, completing the swing of my arm in a heavy follow-through.

He stumbles.

My fist snaps back up towards my face, knees easing into a half crouch as I prepare for another hit.

He straightens, scooping blood away from his mouth with the back of his hand, reddened teeth bared, fists clenched—

“Hey! Hey! Who’s open?” The deep voice pulls my attention from my fighting opponent to Twenty-Three—currently swooping down the ice. Dancing and ducking, trying to keep the puck away from not one but two defenders—

I launch into motion without thinking. Leave behind my fight, my fucking gloves on the ice as I snatch my stick up. My feet already flying, carrying me towards him.

“Here! Open!”

Like he’s been waiting for me, he sends the pass roaring my way. So fucking clean, so neat, I don’t even have to move to cradle that catch. It’s there, on my stick, and I’m sailing past the D.

He’s there.

Right beside me.

The goalie’s watching me, so it’s only too easy to slide the puck sideways, onto his stick.

He shoots.

Goalie butterflies—

Too late.

The puck thumps the back of the net, and the crowd explodes.

We win.

Just like that.

I hold my bare fist out to the other guy. “Nice pass.”

“Same to you.” He bumps his glove against my bloodied fist, and I can’t help but think there’s something familiar about the timber of his voice, the set of his shoulders, the dark of his brown eyes. The way his mouth crooks into half a grin behind his mask.

But I know better than to ask if I know him. This is the Ice Out—you don’t tell people who you are.

The losers slide off the ice, and I don my gloves again.

Three more take their place. The game starts slow, hacky. Our opponents are fighters, not skaters, and the chippiness of their every move stirs my ire. The fight inside me begs for release.

There’s a reason I skate here and not with the Dingoes.

A reason my knuckles are scarred with a history of violence.

My swinging fist draws blood. An answering sideswipe might leave a faint bruise against my cheekbone. I threaten to end the fight with a nasty left hook to the ribs—

But then his voice cracks across the arena. “You open, Forty-Seven?”

And I’m skating. Tearing across the ice like a horse out of the gate, my blades carving crescents into the surface as I push harder to accelerate, to reach him in time.

The puck hits my stick. I’m moving so fast I barely have to turn to sidestep the second defenseman, and I’m around. Twenty-Three cuts in.

Like we’re two magnets connected by some otherworldly scientific force, my pass finds his stick. He swirls in a mindbending deke he handles like a neat party trick—skates curving one way, arms the other, blade lifting puck.

He tosses it up over the goalie’s shoulder. Lacrosse-style.

The crowd goes haywire.

Twenty-Three swoops away from the net, hands lifted in the air, intentionally riling up the crowd. Stirring them into a frenzy. “You want more of that?”

I notice the rampaging opponent before he does.

The biggest guy in their lineup barrels towards Twenty-Three like a charging bull seeing red. Like he plans to tackle him to the ice, not even bother with a fight .

My feet are already moving. But I’m too far. Twenty-Three’s between me and the attack, and I won’t reach him in time.

The crowd’s frenzy nearly raises the roof, and Twenty-Three has no idea—

“Look out!” I roar as the Bull dives.

Twenty-Three turns—spins neatly aside, pirouetting out of the rampager’s path with the breathless grace of a ballerina. Which leaves nothing between me and the Bull.

The Bull skids, trying to keep his feet as he reassesses. His head swivels, gaze redirecting towards Twenty-Three—who’s still waving at the crowd like an offending player didn’t just try to kill him—but I slide my body between the two.

My gloves hit the ice. “Wanna play, motherfucker?”

He growls, lunges.

My fist swings, knuckles taste blood.

His teammates drag him, slobbering, off the ice.

“No mercy for the dumb, eh?” Twenty-Three asks, scooting up next to me. This close, there’s a soft smell beneath the typical ferment of sweat masked only lightly by heavy laundry detergent. Familiar? I can’t tell.

“Not for jackasses like that,” I agree, and then three new players step onto the ice.

Twenty-Three and I make quick work of this game too. Our third teammate bumbles around behind us, occasionally knocking somebody out of the way or starting a minor fight in our wake.

We ricochet passes between us, fast enough no one can keep up. We leave defenders and goalies alike in our metaphorical dust. We rack up goals so fast we run out of competition before the night’s over.

Without warning, we’re standing in the middle of the arena, the crowd a riot around us, watching our last beaten opponents stumble from the ice. But this time, no one comes to replace them.

It’s just the three of us, staring out over a frothing ocean of people .

“Holy shit,” says my second teammate, his voice raw with surprise. “We won. We won the Ice Out. We just won the fucking Ice Out .”

“Shit.” My voice matches his for bald-faced awe. “I’ve never made it to the end before. Nice job, man.”

We bump fists. I turn to congratulate Twenty-Three, but he’s already skating away. His hands lifted—riling the crowd up again.

“Yeah, you like that?” he roars, holding his arms wide. “You wanna see more?”

The crowd’s roaring its approval. Screaming and stomping and banging on the boards. And I can only watch, transfixed. How could I not? Someone who skates like he does, who has hands like his, someone like that was born to be watched.

My breath catches as I realize—

“You wanna know who I am?” Twenty-Three hollers, and I want to scream at him, no, no don’t do it , because obviously a newcomer like him wouldn’t know how things are done around here.

But he’s already lifting up his jersey to reveal another beneath it. Sky blue and navy, with a dingo’s head plastered across the front. It’s just a practice jersey—no name or number—but the meaning’s clear enough.

“You wanna know who I am?” he roars again, and the crowd screams its approval.

Of course they want to know. They want to break this one rule, the single rule of the show, because he’s a Dingo . . . but he’s also here. One of us . One of the people—not just another California transient.

He’s one of us. And one of us is a Dingo. And fuck if they don’t crave to know where the crossover lies.

“Come to the Dingoes game tomorrow night,” Olli James says, his voice like a bird on wing through that crowd. “Come watch one of your own.”

And then, he turns towards me, and even through the mask, it’s so easy to identify his bright smile. He slings an arm across my shoulders, like we’re teammates, best friends .

Which of course, the crowd will assume . . . That I’m another Dingo lurking amongst their ranks. Us and them, we . . . all of it more twisted up than they realized.

His words are a low murmur against my ear. “I won’t talk if you won’t.”

I follow him back to the holding pen. My heart beats too fast, mind racing, and I’ve no idea what I’m going to say until the door closes behind us. The words that escape my lips are simply, “Are you fucking crazy?”

Before he can so much as open his mouth to reply, we’re surrounded.

“Yo, you really play for the Dingoes?” Our no-longer teammate’s up in Olli’s face, and on instinct, I shove him off.

But there’s already someone on my other side, peering into my face— “Which one are you?”

I shove him away too, only to find myself face to face with another. “You gotta be Holland—”

“Devereaux—”

“No, he’s too big—”

“Who’s the new guy—”

“We know it’s not Everton. No dreads!”

“Too long since I been to a game—”

“What makes you think it’s just us?” Olli’s is the voice that cuts through the chaos. The room stills, and his grin tilts beneath his mask. “You think we’re so different from you? Maybe the whole team’s here.”

It’s quiet enough to hear a pin drop; the man certainly knows how to command a crowd. I know he’s full of shit, but I’m still drawn into his act. Eyes flicker around the room. Anyone still masked becomes a target of attention. A few hold up their hands, shake their heads.

Couple of others laugh, crack jokes. “Hell yeah, man. I’m a Dingo! ”

“Dude, yeah, we’re all undercover.”

Olli’s gaze swivels towards him. “Right. Looking for recruits. Sussing out talent, you know?”

Whispers travel around the room in a fast-bleed diffusion like black ink in water, staining the whole crowd in an instant. “Ice Out . . . Dingoes . . . ?”

“Maybe you’ll just have to come to the game and find out,” Olli says. “Take bets on the crossovers . . . Heck, maybe I’ll even let you fight me after the game. See who can hold their own on topside ice against a pro.”

He pushes through the crowd to a bag in the far corner. I hustle to find my own shoes, because I’m not letting him vanish off into the ether.

I still haven’t processed the emotions fizzing my blood, so I trade my skates for Converse with thoughtless motions born of a lifetime of practice.

When I look up, he’s gone.

“Dammit.”

“You really a Dingo, Forty-Seven?”

I shove past the faceless man and into the back hallway. The faint, distant tap of tennis shoes tells me someone’s running up the stairs. Fuck.

There’s no way I’m in as good a shape as Olli, but I shoulder my bag and race after him anyway. My lungs heave as I take the stairs two at a time—really should smoke less—but when I finally duck into the frigid winter air, I’m surprised to find Olli standing halfway down the sidewalk.

Waiting.

“Figured you’d find me,” he says as I approach. “Might as well get this over with.”

I nudge him sideways, leading him down a side street, then into a narrow alley. The cold cuts through all the layers of clothes I’m wearing—my sweat-drenched jersey probably isn’t helping—but at least we’re protected from the wind here .

“Are you fucking crazy?” I ask again. I yank my mask up so he can see my face, read my expression. I don’t touch him, but the force of my presence drives him back against the wall of the apartment building comprising one side of the alley. “You could get arrested!”

Maybe he could tell me what’s written on my face. What I’m feeling. I still don’t know.

He leans his shoulders against the worn brick wall, lifts his mask to expose his face. Tilts his chin to meet my eyes.

“Nobody has any proof.” His voice is quiet, firm. Certain. “But they’ll be curious.”

I hesitate, suddenly aware of how close I am to him, how a narrow margin of mere inches separates our legs, hips, torsos.

Then his meaning hits me. “You mean, curious enough to go to the next game?”

“Everybody loves a good scandal.” He shrugs, the cloth of his jersey snagging on the brick. “We’ll see if it actually works.”

“You’re insane ,” I say, my voice almost shaky. I don’t step backwards, because I’m too busy trying to wrap my mind around the magnitude of what he’s done.

He put his career on the line. His future. Hell, his freedom.

He’s still looking at me, eye to eye. His jaw twitches into a firm line. “I want to save this team.”

More words to befuddle my brain. More words that just don’t make sense . “Why do you care?”

For the first time, I think I see something in his gaze crumble. A break in the endless confidence that is Olli James—or at least, that Olli James presents to the world.

“I didn’t come here to watch my career crash and burn,” he says, voice still soft, eyes still fixed on mine. And there’s something so fierce and determined and yet so broken in that gaze, it breaks something in me too.

“You think that’s what’ll happen here? ”

“I think,” he says, the words just the ghost of a whisper, “if we don’t start winning, the team will move or go under and the players will get shuffled off under various rugs and poof, there go Olli’s NHL dreams.”

I don’t know why the words strike like darts. It’s not uncommon for a minor league player to dream of going all the way—I’d say it’s more uncommon not to dream of that. “If you get this team winning, scouts will notice.”

“Damn straight.”

“Seems like a massive risk.”

“Kinda my MO,” Olli says with another careless flick of his shoulders. “Go big or go home.”

“Right.”

“And I know you don’t want to see this team go under.” Olli’s dark eyes meet mine. Unblinking. “Lose the job you actually like.”

There he goes again, reading me way too deep, way too easily.

I sigh. “I don’t want to repo cars. And I don’t want to see the team leave. So yeah, I’m kind of upset when Coach finally gets somebody on the bench I think can make a difference . . . and he’s at the fucking Ice Out .”

Olli’s gaze doesn’t waver. And when he speaks, his voice doesn’t either. “I think I’d like to see some of these fans watching Dingoes games instead of illegal fight-hockey.”

I study him for a long moment. I’m still standing too close, so I get a front-row seat to the smooth arch of his brow, the curve of his nose and lips, the cut of his jaw. The way the street light turns his eyes to caramel, sets his skin aglow, making me wonder what it would feel like to slide my fingers along the curve of that cheekbone—

“You really think this will work? Really?”

“Honestly?” His brown eyes go wide. “People love a good scandal, especially when they don’t know what it is. But really? I’ve no idea.”

And there it is again, that soft broken side I never would have guessed exists beneath all his light. Something so desperate, so wanting—something I understand the way I’ve never understood anybody .

Something, I’d bet, that understands me too.

And maybe that’s what’s holding me here. Inches from his warmth. Staring into his eyes. Inhaling his butter-soft scent.

But before I can say anything, Olli speaks. “Did you hear that crowd?”

Silence falls as we remember that roar. The people of Day River, calling for more. Screaming for blood, for violence. For passion .

“You’re like . . . their hero,” Olli says, his voice low. The corner of his mouth flicks upwards in half a smile.

“What?”

“They love you,” Olli murmurs, gaze holding mine. “You are the representation of Day River.”

“No, I’m not.” My gut churns uncomfortably. “You’re thinking of my brother.”

Jesse is Day River. The golden boy of the people, who came from dirt and darkness, same as the rest of us, but shone so much brighter.

Got out.

Not me. Never me. He was always so much better, and I lived in his shadow. Even before Syd came along, something in me knew hockey was never more than a pipe dream.

Jesse bet on himself. Olli bets on himself every day.

I’ve never had the balls.

“No, I’m not.” Olli shakes his head slowly. “Because you’re the one who’s still here. Still fighting.”

My breath snags. My eyes slide down the sharp curve of his cheek to the soft bow of his lips. And without warning, I’m remembering how it felt to have those lips pressed against mine. To part them with my tongue.

I want to do it again. To taste him, to breathe the scent off his skin. To drag my lips down the column of his throat, press his hard, warm body between mine and the brick—

I lean in, so his breath whispers against my mouth. So I hear the catch in his sharp inhale. So I smell strawberries—

My phone buzzes against my thigh .

“What the—” Olli jerks in surprise.

I stutter backwards. “Shit.”

We both laugh. Awkward. Olli’s eyes aimed at a fire escape over my head, mine at the ground as I dig my phone out of my pocket. It’s a text. From Syd.

What’s going on with the Ice Out?

My brows furrow tight in confusion.

“Everything okay?” Olli asks, and his hand half lifts, then drops back to his side.

“Yeah. I think?” I’m already typing back to Syd. What does that mean?

Syd: C’mon. I know you were there. What happened?

My heart beats too fast, but I’m not sure if it’s the text war with Syd or what occurred immediately before it. Almost occurred.

Me: Really don’t know what you mean.

Syd: People are saying there were a bunch of Dingoes there!

Me: Who said that? How do you know?

My eyes narrow in suspicion.

Me: Who do you know who’s at the Ice Out?

Syd: It’s all over social media. I don’t have to know anybody.

I look up at Olli, and the way he’s looking back at me, brows furrowed in a comical inverse arch of confusion, I know I’m giving him some kind of terrifying look. “Well, I don’t know what you did, but you did something.”