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The other guy groans from the ice, already nursing his mouth, but I don’t look at him again. I skate to the box like a ghost, ignoring the boos from the crowd and the disappointment bleeding from the bench.

My hand’s fucked. Split knuckles and red dripping through the tape, and I still don’t care.

Because she’s not here.

***

The locker room’s dead silent when I walk in.

No music or chirping, just the low hum of the vents and the wet drag of my skates across the tile. My gloves are still in the bin, and my tape’s soaked through. My hand is absolutely fucked. Everyone sees it, but no one says a word.

Coach is standing near the whiteboard, arms crossed over his chest, waiting for an excuse.

“Sit,” he says, gesturing to the bench in front of him. “Now.”

I don’t. I just stand there, blood still dripping from between my fingers, chest heaving.

“Fine.” He steps forward, voice low. “You wanna throw away a season because you’re off your game? You wanna take yourself out of the lineup completely?”

“I’m fine.”

He snorts. “You’re not even pretending anymore. You think I didn’t see you out there tonight? You were playing like someone handed you a fucking death wish.”

Someone across the room coughs, and the boys pretend to be going about their business. Jake stays stone silent, but I feel his eyes burning a hole into the side of my face.

“You’ve got one of the best contracts on this team,” Coach says, voice low and cutting. “You’ve got the ice time, the leadership expectations, and a goddamn Stanley Cup window opening in front of you.”

He takes a slow step toward me, eyes locked.

“And you’re out there playing like you’d rather get benched than pass the puck. So, I’ll ask you once. What the hell is going on?”

I clench my jaw but say nothing.

Another beat of silence passes, and then Harris, a dumb rookie, mutters under his breath, “Guess we all know who wears the pants in his relationship.”

I snap.

“Say that again,” I bite out, turning fast.

I lunge forward before the words have fully landed, rage hitting faster than a sniper. Jake shoves a forearm across my chest, hard, dragging me back fast.

“Not happening,” he growls under his breath. “Don’t make it worse.”

Harris mutters a half-assed apology, but I barely hear it.

Coach’s eyes don’t leave mine, and I can tell he’s not surprised I snapped. He’s watching and assessing. Clocking the tension in my fists, the wild behind my eyes, the way my whole body flinched the second Zoe’s name was even vaguely mentioned.

His jaw ticks once, and I can feel it—that shift in the air. He’s putting it together. The tension, Zoe’s absence, my unraveling.

His frown deepens. “She’s out with the flu, right?” he asks offhandedly, but his voice is razor sharp.

No one answers, not even Jake.

Coach glares at all of us, then drags a hand down his face before turning back to me.

“I told you back in pre-season,” he says, quieter now. “If she helps you settle, lock it in. But if you care about her—and I know you do—then get your head on straight. Because this?”

He gestures to my bleeding hand.

“It’s not just bad for you, it’s bad for her, and it’s bad for the team. I’m not here to babysit, Walton, but I’m also not gonna stand by while you self-destruct.”

He looks at me one last time, eyes scanning the blood on my tape, the bruises on my face, the nothing in my expression.

Then he mutters, almost like he’s talking to himself, “Jesus. If this is how you’re doing… I hope she’s okay.”

And he’s gone, clipboard clattering into the bench behind him.

I don’t move for a second, just try to regulate my breathing—or try to. Jake claps a hand against my shoulder, just enough to anchor me.

“You done?”

“No.”

“Well, get there,” he mutters. “Because if Zoe knew you were out there fighting with your shooting hand, she’d kick your ass herself.”

He starts to walk away, then stops and turns.

“She’s not mad at you,” he says, voice lowering. “She’s just scared… and hurting. Which is funny, because that’s exactly how you look right now, too.”

I don’t answer him because I have nothing left to say. Instead, I head for the showers.

The hot water stings when it hits my skin, and I just stand there for a long time, letting it burn down my back, over my busted hand, into the cuts I’m not sure I deserve to feel.

I brace one hand against the tile and bow my head. I see her face, the way she flinched when I reached for her. The way she suggested that she was just another notch in my PR circus.

I could’ve fixed this. Should’ve fixed it before she walked out.

But I didn’t, and now I’m standing here bleeding and bruised, waiting to hear back from my fucking condo security about the elevator footage, and all I want is her.

Not just her body or her mouth.

I want Zoe. Her fire, her chaos, her quiet. Her everything.

And I want her to want me back.

***

The condo is quiet when I get in. Too quiet, the way it’s been for days.

I kick off my shoes, then sit down hard on the couch, staring at nothing. My knuckles throb under the tape, but I don’t bother unwrapping them. The pain’s good. It gives shape to everything else.

I’m still sitting there twenty minutes later when my phone lights up.

Incoming call: Mom

I stare at the screen and almost let it go. She doesn’t call often because she knows I hate it, but she still tries sometimes, especially when I’m spiraling in public. I think about the game—me flying off the handle, blood on the ice, Coach screaming behind the bench. She would’ve been watching.

“Hey.”

There’s a pause, like she wasn’t sure I’d answer. “Hi, sweetheart.”

Her voice is soft. Careful.

“I, uh…” she clears her throat. “I saw the game.”

I shut my eyes and wait.

“You okay?”

I blow out a sigh. “Define okay.”

She hums. That soft, familiar sound that always came before a hug or a mug of cocoa or a long drive with my favorite music.

“You wanna talk about it?” she asks.

“No,” I say, then pause. “Yeah.”

She doesn’t rush me, never has. It’s something she does instinctively—leaves space for the things I don’t know how to say.

“You were fighting,” she says eventually. “Hard. Not hockey-hard. Something harder. You were fighting a ghost out there and losing.”

My throat tightens. “It’s not about the game.”

“I know.”

Silence settles between us, warm and weighted. I shift in my seat, pick at the tape around my wrist.

She speaks again, soft as ever. “You’ve only ever looked like that once before.”

I don’t ask when, because I can still see the fluorescent lights of that hospital hallway.

My mom standing there with a too-big coat over her shoulders and tears drying on her face.

Holding me like I wasn’t the reason Jordan was in a bed down the hall with frostbitten toes and a future he’d never get back.

No one ever blamed me, not once. Not when I fell through the ice. Not when I screamed his name, not when I ran barefoot across frozen gravel and dirt to get help.

But that’s the thing about guilt—it doesn’t need permission to stay.

“I’m not ten anymore.”

“No, you’re not. But you’re still my kid and I can tell when you’re not okay.”

I exhale a breath and let the moment sit.

“You remember that night?” I murmur.

“I remember you crying in my arms,” she says. “And I remember thinking you’d never cry like that again unless something broke you.”

My voice is hoarse. “I’m not broken, Ma.”

“No,” she agrees. “But something’s cracked you open. And whatever it is… you don’t have to carry it alone.”

My jaw clenches. “I don’t know how to let it go.”

“You don’t have to, just don’t pretend it’s not there.”

I nod even though she can’t see me, throat burning and hand aching.

“She’s not here, and I want her to be,” I eventually whisper.

Mom doesn’t ask who she is, I’ve never spoken to her about Zoe in much detail. But she would’ve seen all the press like everyone else.

“Sometimes love shows up like a storm. But when it leaves, it doesn’t take the weather with it.”

I frown. “What the hell does that mean?”

She laughs, low and tired. “It means you’ve always been good at surviving the chaos. You just have to figure out how to survive the quiet, too.”

I close my eyes, soaking in her words. Relishing that she still knows me so well, even though I’ve been such a bad son to her recently. And I listen.

There’s water dripping from the kitchen tap. My knuckles are still bleeding. My heart’s in the hallway somewhere, waiting for a voice that hasn’t come back.

“I’m trying,” I say finally.

“I know you are,” she says. “And I’m proud of you.”

The words land heavy, the kind that make you breathe deeper.

I don’t say goodbye, just eventually murmur something about getting sleep. But when the call ends, I stay on the couch for a long time, listening to the quiet. Letting it rise around me, trying to welcome it.

And for the first time in days, I don’t want to punch through it.