Page 6

Chapter 6

Olli

The snow crunches lightly beneath my snowshoe-clad feet.

Slanting morning sunlight catches the soft wrinkles of white, making it sparkle, nearly blinding me when I slip through openings in the trees. Broad ponderosa pines tower up over me, light scrub brush and gentle aspen crouched below like younger siblings begging for attention.

The narrow single-track path slants gradually upwards, though I’ve already climbed a good thousand feet up into the mountains and have earned this slight respite. My lungs heave with the effort of pulling in crisp winter air, drinking in the soft tang of pines, the freshness of snow and arid mountain dirt.

It’s gorgeous, and my heart sings with the joy of being engulfed in nature. Playing pro hockey means I spend a lot of time indoors, but I’ve always been the kind of person who needs to get out, stretch my legs, and taste the sky. Keeps me calm, centered. Keeps the darkness at bay.

Keeps me from remembering any illicit interactions with any boys I definitely should not be thinking about. Who are almost definitely not thinking about me. Because nobody does, after the initial interaction—

Focus, Olls.

Be here, now. On this hike.

The best part of my little pre-practice dawn hike? I walked here from my house. That’s correct; a quick Google search last night led me to the Day River Urban Trail System—DRUTS, terrible acronym—which begins a block away from my lovely new cottage.

The city sits right on the edge of a small mountain range. This unassuming little path cuts diagonally between houses, through tumbles of trees and tangles of underbrush, right out of the city . . . and into the mountains.

Ten minutes from my house, it started to climb and climb and climb, switchbacking through pines and aspen and ragged jumbles of rock.

The exertion feels good, the burn in my legs and lungs, the crisp air, all of it so very needed after days in the rink, in the car, in Miami. After the guy at the bar.

Too much time inside and alone, and the darkness starts to knock. It’s always there, like a quiet beast curled up on the doormat of my soul.

Sometimes it makes for great poetry.

Sometimes, it makes me unable to get out of bed.

Today, I’m just trying to walk fast enough that I don’t have to think about it, hoping the burn of exercise keeps it all at bay. But it’s still there, tugging, stretching its little paws like it’s thinking about whether it wants to raise its big ugly head.

Keep moving, Olli .

This is why I need the ice. Need to feel like I’m moving forward, working towards a dream. The time between when I get off the ice and when I next climb back on, that time hardly exists at all.

My snowshoes crunch, crunch, crunch, back down the mountain. Through the urban trail. Right up to my back yard.

Then I’m in my truck, sliding through the city, the buildings a blur around me as I circumnavigate downtown Day River towards the rink on the north side of town.

I scoped the place out yesterday, of course. But this will be my first time at the rink at the same time as the Dingoes. My new team.

I swallow down my nerves, hop out of the truck, and grab my bag from the bed. I get halfway to the door before a mid-fifties white guy with a full beard and an even fuller head of classic hockey-flow hair jogs up beside me. “Oliver James?”

“Olli, yes.” I pause to let him catch up. “Coach Douglas?”

“Ethan.” He doesn’t bother with a handshake, waves me towards the doors instead. “You got in okay? Got settled?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.” He holds the door for me, and I follow him into the rink. “We’re just doing some conditioning and stuff today, figured I’d break you in easy.”

The air’s a solid few degrees warmer than the frigid bite outside, and blissfully free of wind. My hiking boots pad against the rubber matting as I follow Coach through a wide hallway behind the bleachers.

He leads me down another hall, through a padlocked door, and into a roomy office space playing host to four desks. A door on the far wall declares Captain Ethan Douglas , and likely closes off his personal office from the rest of the staff.

“Associate coach, defensive coach, goalie coach, second assistant, and your desk.”

My desk. Jesus. I mean, it’s just a barren little strip of wood with a very uncomfortable-looking chair wedged behind it, but still. What the heckola made me think I could do this?

And when Coach starts talking, holy Hera. Captaining a professional sports team is more than a full-time job. Training schedules, meetings with the team, practices, speeches—the list goes on.

“I think Cap might have some notes on his techniques . . .” Coach says as he stoops over the desk to unearth several looseleaf sheaves of paper covered in chicken scrawl I wouldn’t even attempt to decipher on my most wildly optimistic of days.

Today? The doubt is a niggle in the pit of my gut, a cold finger poised at the base of my spine. Not quite there, but not ignorable either. Ready to rear its ugly head at a moment’s notice.

Do I really have what it takes to do this ?

Sure, the Dingoes aren’t exactly top of their game right now, so I probably can’t make things worse . But it wouldn’t be good for my career. At all. There’s been talk about moving or even dissolving the team.

Which means, this ship goes down, as captain, I sink with it. Hand on the wheel. Ya know?

But on the flip side, if I somehow manage to eke out a couple of wins? That’d look darn good. High risk, high reward.

Heck, though. My passion is hockey, not spreadsheets.

“You’re sure I need all this?” I ask, trying to keep my eyes from crossing as Coach adds yet another schedule-looking thing to the pile stretched across his—nope, my—desk.

A desk. Me. Look at me now, Ma.

“There’s a lot to keep organized.” Coach shrugs, then turns towards the door. “C’mon. I’ll introduce you to the team.”

Which makes a wave of nerves roil through my belly.

Meeting a new team isn’t anything I’m a stranger to—when you’re as much of a mess as I am, you’re always on the move, running from the last failure, hoping the next opportunity will be, you know. The One. I meet a lot of new people, skate with new people, befriend new people—as much as someone like me ever really makes friends, anyhow.

But I gotta wonder who did their research. Do they pay attention to the speculation, the social media gossip? How many of them know why I bounce around from team to team, can’t hold down an active roster spot?

At least most of the guys on this team are transients too. Maybe they don’t care.

“Don’t look so nervous.” Coach slaps at my arm. Clearly, I’ve let my emotions splay out all over my face. “They’ll love you. Let’s go.”

Welp, I’m here now. I follow Coach out of the office and right up to the keypad-accessed door printed with a giant dingo head.

This is it.

Coach jabs at the buttons, and I follow him inside. It’s like any other locker room I’ve seen in my career—and as a college player, high schooler, kid. Wide space lined with sit-in cubbies, rubbery black flooring, open showers at the back, stalls for toilets and urinals to the left, couple of doors to the right that probably house equipment and the skate sharpener.

The team’s already arrayed around the benches, and every single man in the room looks up as I walk in. I recognize a couple of faces—I studied the roster before I accepted the trade, of course. Had to know what I was working with.

Most of them are strangers, their profile photos too far removed to be identified in person. Great.

However, the lanky white guy fresh out of Cali is a pretty obvious match to second-line center Andy Everton—hard not to ID the solo locs-sporting hippie in both the major and minor leagues. And I’ve skated with Paul Devereaux before—big, broad, kinda has a Rock-ish look about him.

Coach doesn’t bat an eyelash. “Guys, shut up and meet your new captain.”

I lift a hand in a halfhearted wave. Which in hindsight is lame, right, like I should be giving some kind of rousing captainship speech or something. “Olli. James.”

Fabulous intro, Ol. Really gonna woo these boys.

“Ah, Miami, right?” somebody asks; the shoulder-length blond locks mark Charlie Holland, I think.

I nod. “Yep. Formerly. Cause now I’m a Dingo. Hope you’re ready for hell—nah, I’m kidding. Mostly.”

Couple of the guys chuckle, and I relax a bit, let some of the tension unwind from my shoulders. Maybe I can—

One of the rear doors pops open and someone steps out.

A tall, built guy who immediately draws my gaze.

Black T-shirt, backwards black baseball cap. Two sleeves of black-and-grey tattoos, cheekbones to absolutely die for, and my God he’s got the most beautiful green eyes I’ve ever seen. Short-circuits my brain a little, because nobody should be allowed to be that beautiful .

Not if they’re straight-ish anyway.

And definitely, definitely not if they kissed me . . .

Holy crap.

I almost choke on my own spit. It’s the guy from the bar. You know, the guy. The. Gorgeous. One. The straight guy I should not have been looking at, let alone flirting with, let alone kissing.

That guy.

That guy is here. In my new locker room. Holding a pair of skates.

“Oh good.” One of the men pops off his cubby seat towards Hottie McHotstuff, hands extended to take the skates. “One last sharpening before I head to Minnesota.”

“Right, ’cause after this, you’re going to have to rely on whatever plebian the Wild’s got,” Hottie says, his voice a low purr of sound that hits me square in places it should definitely not be hitting me. Oh, I remember how beautiful his voice was . . .

Remember other parts of him that touched other parts of me . . .

His tongue in my mouth. My hips against his, pinning him to that wall—

“Oh, have you met the new captain yet?” The former captain takes his skates from the dark-haired hottie, and then they’re both turning towards me.

And Hottie’s beautiful, big green eyes round into beautiful, big green quarters because he recognizes me. Of course he does. How many other adorable, awkward, half-Black guys built like pro athletes just rolled into town?

“Olli, right?” Cap says, jarring me. I pull my head out of my ass with almost physical force that hopefully isn’t too noticeable.

Me, that’s me. He’s talking about me.

I force a smile, or what amounts to my best approximation of a smile.

“Yeah. Right,” I hear myself saying, like it’s coming from a distance. And like I’ve rolled outside my body to watch from afar, I see myself stride across the room. “Center for the Dingoes. And I guess Captain now too. ”

I try not to inhale the sweetness of his cologne.

“Nice to meet you, Olli,” he says. “I’m Nat. Taylor.” Both his voice and his face are so carefully neutral, I can’t even guess what he might be thinking. “Equipment manager. One of them anyway.”

He certainly doesn’t seem twisted out of sorts over a silly kiss like I do. So I give it my all, to pretend like I’m not either. “Good to meet you, Nat.”

I turn my attention back to the departing captain. “I’m obviously the new guy here so . . . got any final words of wisdom for me? Any parting insights?”

“Yeah. For sure.” But his eyes slip sideways towards the clock on the wall—like what, he’s eager to get on the road? Hit up Minnesota?

Because that’s better than here?

Wow.

Could it really be that rough here?

“You’ll be taking my locker, I guess.” Cap waves me over to the cubby at the end of the row beside an unoccupied slot, Charlie Holland on the other side. He reaches into the back of the locker to extract a battered glove. “Huh. Was wondering where these went. Anyway. I already took my gear out. So you should be set.”

He really is ready to get out of here. Damn.

“Right,” I say, because what else am I supposed to say? I drop my bag onto the ground in front of the cubby, shoot Holland half a smile. Won’t be the first time I’ve unpacked it into a new spot, probably won’t be the last.

I crouch beside my bag to start unloading my gear and getting dressed. Let the wash of conversation offer a meditative background lull. I’m just pulling open the zipper on the oversized duffle when someone plops down onto the seat of the empty locker beside mine.

I look up, mouth half open to introduce myself to the new arrival—

My gaze catches scabbed knuckles clutched over jean-clad knees .

A curling line of ink on the back of a hand between thumb and forefinger. Black ink wrapped around two wrists. The softest brush of sharp spice and sweet vanilla.

Crap.

It’s him.

Why is he sitting next to me? He’s not on this team, is he? Nat Taylor . . . and why the hell does that name suddenly sound familiar, like something I should know? Taylor . . . Taylor . . .

My head snaps back down to my bag, because what the hell am I supposed to say? Sorry I kissed you, even though you started it? . . . Yeah, so that was fun, and I’d be down for a repeat anytime, but actually no I wouldn’t . Shoot.

Hi, you’re mega-hot, so can I just, like, look for a couple of minutes?

Obviously, I cannot say any of those things. Or any of the next dozen or so follow-ups my brain invents. Like how I can’t stop remembering it, or looking at him, or thinking about him and wondering why the hell he even did it in the first place . . .

But it strikes me.

If he’s an equipment manager and I’m the team captain . . . we’re gonna have to work together. On like, a professional level. He’s not just some guy I happened to kiss in a bar and now have to look at a day later.

I know what I have to say.

I really don’t want to say it.

I shift up onto my seat, turn to him with my hand outstretched. “Hey, I’m Olli. I . . . probably should’ve started with that.”

He huffs out a laugh. “Nat.”

His hand curls around mine. Hard and callused and soft, all at the same time. Not that I’m noticing. Not that his warm skin against mine is making it hard to breathe or anything, like a burn of electricity, or maybe a nip of static shock that lasts too long, that lingers against my skin long after we let go .

“So.” I do the mature thing and take off my shirt, because we’re changing for practice and definitely no other reason. “Um. About. You know.”

I make the mistake of turning towards him, and hell. He is exceedingly, unfairly beautiful up close and in the bright lights. This close, I can trace the thorns beneath the rose inked into the side of his neck behind his ear.

Damn, did I notice those at the bar?

“About what?” he asks, drawing my gaze from ink to lips—no less distracting a target, let me assure you.

“About . . .” Crap. What was I talking about before this? It was me talking, right? Saying . . . something. About . . . something. And stuff. Right? Or . . . Oh. Right.

I was being the mature adult who let himself get a little too hopeful and horny the other night. Took advantage of a coworker.

I take a deep, steadying breath, and start again. But I suddenly realize why his last name sounds familiar.

Taylor. As in Jesse Taylor? Captain of the Dingoes Jesse Taylor, from back when they were actually good? Is there a relation there?

But it’s not really my place to ask. Besides, I’m supposed to be focusing on being the mature adult and all that fun shizz.

“So, about the other night . . .” I opt to keep it simple. “We are technically coworkers.”

“Right.” His mouth curves in a halfhearted smile. “And I was drinking.”

“Right.” I exhale a gust of breath, definitely not feeling disappointed by that admission. I mean, I knew he was drunk. Totally knew that. Was not expecting this to be some kind of big love connection or anything.

Totally not. “So, do-over?”

He chuckles. “Sure. Yeah. Do-over. I’m Nat Taylor. Royal fuck-up, equipment manager, Zamboni driver, and repo guy. That should be a pretty big turn-off, right?”

“Right,” I agree, even though I don’t agree .

I should, though. Bad-boi is really not my type. I mean, I appreciate bad boys the way I appreciate a lot of men. Like fine art. Something to admire, but not to want.

So, why’s he feel different?

Dunno, but I can’t afford to feel it. If I so much as start to imagine something might be there, I’ll hyperfixate. Overthink almost to the point of obsession. And just . . . no.

I tug a practice jersey over my shoulder pads and head for the ice. I’m first out—always—skate a couple of practice laps while I wait for the rest of the boys to join me.

The others pool onto the ice. Skates scrape, sticks slap, pucks crash against boards. Voices call out and laugh and jeer. More than a few sets of eyes turn towards me, like they’re already sizing me up.

Fair.

Coach’s whistle cuts through the noise, and we’re lining up for warm-up suicides. Adrenaline pulses through my veins in a steady drumbeat.

Another whistle shreds the quiet.

I leap, an instant before anyone else. My skates tear through that smooth ice, and the volley of answering scratches indicates the rest of the team’s joined me.

Muscles instantly burning with exertion, I fight to keep my place at the front of the pack.

Stride-stride-stride . . .

Heart racing. Lungs burning. Legs pumping. First, first, first.

I beat Devereaux to the blue line by a nose. My edges cut hard as I reverse direction. Skates scraping, muscles burning, lungs heaving—

Stride-stride-stride— because I won’t accept anything less than first. When you have a dream, when you want something so badly it overshadows everything else in your life, you’ll accept nothing short of perfection.

Every skate is high pressure, a test, a quest to gain some kind of minute edge over the Olli of yesterday. That’s how dreams work, right? You keep pushing to be a better version of yourself, to inch a little closer, until you get there or you break.

Another whistle tears through my ragged breaths and wayward thoughts, drawing us all to a heaving halt.

“Passing drills!” Coach roars, jabbing a finger at the air to direct me towards—“James! Holland! Devereaux!”

My new linemates. A froth of nerves and excitement churns my stomach as we line up. Dev snatches up a puck, sends it sailing towards me, and the play begins.

I catch the pass, redirect it towards Holls’s tape as we soar over the blue line. A quick flick of his wrist, and our goalie’s cursing and Coach is grinning.

I bite down on my own grin of relief.

When we climb onto the bench to make way for the next line, only then do I let my eyes wander. Into the stands, the shadows beneath the bleaches, the locker-room hallways.

Not that I’m looking for him.

Not that I’m expecting him to be here, watching.

Nope, nope, nope.

I don’t have time for wayward thoughts like that. Not now. I’m not about to let such meandering sentiments throw off my game.

Not when I’ve got players like Devereaux and Holls making me look good, not when there are so many hopefuls out there, across the country, waiting to take my spot.

Not when Coach seems hell-bent on running us ragged into the ground. I wouldn’t want any less.

I live for that ache of exhaustion.

I wasn’t born with ice-god talent. I’ve worked for it, worked for it every minute of my life. With every breath. With every thought and dream. Hockey is my world, and everything else is just something that happens when I’m not on the ice.