Page 35

Chapter 35

Olli

Nat isn’t at practice the next day.

I know he’s around, because I see him on the Zam cutting the ice before, but he doesn’t pop by the locker room to shoot the breeze or ask about skates.

Something’s off. Call it that Nat Taylor sixth sense—maybe honed from all the time and energy I spend trying not to look at him and think about him—that unique and acute ability to read his aura. Mom would love that.

Regardless, I know something had him riled before he stepped out on that ice last night, and I wish he’d tell me what it was.

Which, naturally, leads to Classic Olli Overthinking?. Should I say something? As his friend—but we’re not just friends, are we? Not anymore. And that puts a different kind of pressure on the situation.

We don’t worry about pushing our friends away with concerned curiosity, not in the same way we worry about coming on too strong to lovers. Not that we’re lovers —

Cut it out, Olls.

But if it were Charlie or Dev or anybody else on this team, I’d say something. Granted, I wouldn’t know the same way I know with Nat because it’s not like I have Charlie sixth sense—

Damn. I’m spiraling .

I stand up too fast, nearly knock myself over despite my many, many years of athletic prowess on skates. I don’t even have my jersey on, but it doesn’t matter ’cause I need to get out of here before I overthink myself into a true doom spiral.

I pull my jersey on as I hit the ice, but even from the get-go, I know I’m gonna be off.

Coach’s whistle cuts through my meandering thoughts, and we’re lining up for warm-up suicides.

I’m last.

Every time, last. I’m the guy who strives to be the fastest on the ice, every time—and I usually achieve it. But today, I’m flat-footed. Off.

We run drills with our lines—me with Charlie and Devereaux—and I miss the first pass, forcing Charlie to circle back to retrieve it, then my second pass slides too far behind Dev, so the whole line has to throw on the brakes to avoid an offsides.

Coach’s angry whistle has us all slinking to the bench.

My game doesn’t improve.

The Zam doors open, and we gather up our practice sticks, water bottles, discarded pucks. A few stay behind to help with the nets, and the rest tumble off in a tired, sweaty line of players who’ve been run ragged. The smell follows them down the hall and into the locker room.

But me? I’m the idiot who heads for the Zam door instead. Because that’s where Nat’s gonna be, and I gotta bug him, at least once more.

There he is, beside the Zam, like a beautiful tattooed specter.

At first glance, he looks just like he always does—jeans and leather jacket, backwards hat, mouth pulled into a slight scowl—but as I step off the ice in front of him and his gaze tips up towards me, I know it’s different.

Nat Taylor sixth sense, amiright?

The look on his face is . . . empty. Hollow. Like something that once was has gone missing.

“Olli.” His words sound as hollow as his face looks—resigned .

“All right, what’s up?” I ask. “Something’s going on. Tell me you didn’t put in your two weeks’ with the rink or something nutso.”

His jaw flexes with tension, and he looks away. “No, nothing nutso.”

The coldness of his voice is like a knife, but I remind myself it’s not about me. I know his type—when something goes wrong, he clams up like a fortress of masks and walls and pointy defenses. Impossible to breach.

Maybe that means I should walk away, let him stew. But that’s never been my style.

“Look, I know you didn’t want to talk last night.” I fumble my words. “But if you change your mind . . . I want to listen.”

I expect another scoff, but those blazing green eyes meet mine once again. Hold for an instant—before they drop to his hands. Or maybe the ink etched across them. Or the scars on his knuckles. “Sure. Thanks.”

“I’m serious.” My words hang between us, like bricks tossed onto ice that hasn’t quite frozen through—threatening to crack whatever this thing is between us. “I know what it means to be drowned in darkness.”

Nat regards me with an unreadable expression for a few too-long moments. Is he thinking about when he found me in the dark, dragged me back into the light?

Maybe, because at long last, he sighs. Tilts his shoulders back against the Zam. When he starts to talk, my heart leaps into my throat.

“Jess is back in town,” he says, the words hollow, toneless. “He invited Syd to his house. I reacted—overreacted? I don’t know. But she’s mad, and I’m mad.”

“Oh.” My chest clenches painfully tight with a trippy combination of sorrow and joy. And confusion. And curiosity. And caution. “That’s a lot of . . . feelingsy stuff.”

“Yeah, I guess you could say that.” His mouth twists in a humorless, wry smile. “Clearly I’m handling it well.”

I sidle up to lean my side against the Zam too.

“Can I ask . . .” Caution, Olls. Proceed with caution, lest the walls of Fort Nat slam shut again . . . “What happened between you and Jess? ”

I swear I hold my breath, like the flutter of air moving in and out of my lungs might disturb this delicate balance. I want him to open up. I want to be for Nat what he was to me, when he held me in the dark, helped me find the light again.

But I’m also not about to start poking sticks at his cracked walls.

At long last, he lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “Nothing dramatic. He just . . . checked out of our relationship a long time ago.”

Let it go, Olls , I tell myself. He’ll come to you when he’s ready . But I’m not really a let it go kinda guy.

“When you were kids?” I guess, my voice quiet with caution.

“Yeah.” He scrapes a hand down his face. “Sounds stupid, right?”

“Not at all.” I’m certain there’s more to it than that, but I know better than to pry. So instead, I state the obvious. “Jesse’s basically a stranger . . . who took your daughter to his house.”

Nat swivels towards me, his brows pulled into a low furrow. “Yeah. I guess . . . I hadn't really thought about it like that.”

“Oh.” Not so obvious, then, apparently. “Then how do you think about it?”

“I dunno.” He leans back into the Zam, studying those hands again. “I'm just . . . angry. Pissed. Guilty ’cause I feel like I’m overreacting.”

“You’re not,” I say, and I watch his face soften in surprise. “I’d be pissed if a stranger who used to be my brother took my kid.”

“Shit.” A huffed half laugh escapes his lips. “How do you do that? You know shit about me I don’t even know.”

Ain’t that the truth, buddy. “I overthink everything.”

“Apparently I don’t think enough.” He heaves another sigh, straightens up off the Zam. “I’ll be all right. He’ll leave soon enough. Thank you for . . . ”

He waves a finger between us, like he can’t even find the words to describe our little heart-to-heart.

I take the hint—the conversation’s closed. “Right.”

Not right .

Strange nerves beat against the inside of my veins as I leave the Zam behind, like icy drums, like pieces of my new town embedded in my flesh, pricking at my bones.

Everything’s been going so well. So many things have happened to make me believe that maybe I’m not just living a delusional pipe dream.

So why does everything feel so off-kilter? I know his problems with Jesse have nothing to do with me, but anxiety tells very ugly, very convincing lies.

I was supposed to help him and I couldn’t. I pried too much and now he’s realizing I’m annoying and useless and he doesn’t need me and he’s gonna forget me, ghost me . . .

Shoot. I’m spiraling.

But seriously.

It’s never been about whether he’s nearby. It’s about whether I know I have his smile. If I can text him, and he’ll want to talk. Want to see me. Whether he’s thinking of me, even if I’m not around.

Because anxiety will tell me the reverse—that if I’m not in front of him, I don’t exist. Out of sight, out of mind, right? And that is what terrifies me.

Now, Olli’s Anxiety is convinced something’s about to go very, very wrong.