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ERIK

“ Y ou haven’t taken your lock off.” Kayden’s voice sliced through me the next day on the ice.

He didn’t look at me when he said it, just kept shooting pucks at an empty net from the blue line.

After yesterday, it seemed obvious that Kayden and I had gotten off on the wrong foot.

I didn’t fault myself for that and never would.

And I won’t blame myself for sticking to my guns either.

No way am I going to change how I do business because some troglodyte who I’ve never met doesn’t like it.

On the other hand, we would be teammates, even if he came across as a total dickhead.

I might not like him, but we needed to get along.

I’d pushed the idea of being the rational one, so I would try to clear the air.

“Why would I remove the lock?” I did my best to play dumb.

“Because you’re not the team captain. I am. We’ve already been through this. After yesterday, I think I showed you why.”

Let me tell you a secret: I had fun goading him yesterday, especially when I started reciting the Miranda rights.

Oh sure, you could call it button-pushing, and I could’ve said nothing but wouldn’t after the shit he’d pulled.

He was spraying ice shavings all over me, and I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of reacting.

Instead, I fought back with words and put him in his place.

The problem was Kayden wouldn’t stay in his place.

No sweat. Again, I knew which buttons to push.

“You’re right,” I said.

“See? I told you.”

“No, no, it’s not what you think. I was going to say the team decides who’s captain.”

“Then why did you keep your lock on my locker?”

“No sense in moving it. I figured I might as well keep it on there until the team makes the obvious choice.”

He sputtered, laughing a little. What a dork.

“Wait, you really think you’re the obvious choice?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

I stopped myself after that. If I kept going, we would continue to argue in circles and never solve anything.

I would never waste energy, breath, or brain cells on the likes of Kayden Preston.

As it was, I’d only wanted to clear up a mistake and hadn’t gotten very far.

Sure, I could’ve skated away from him, pretending he didn’t exist, but I didn’t operate that way.

He didn’t scare me, so I would address him head-on.

I’d told Kayden yesterday that I’m a communicator, so he should’ve taken notes.

“I think we’ve just had a misunderstanding, that’s all,” I said. “No biggie.”

“A misunderstanding? Is that what you just called it?”

“Yeah.”

“Look, pal, if there had been a misunderstanding, you would’ve done the smart thing and said, ‘Yes, sir, Mister Preston. I’m sorry, I didn’t know this was your locker. I’ll take it off right away and it’ll never happen again.’”

He spoke in his softest, most pathetic voice, holding his clasped hands to his face, taunting me. In addition to being a dickhead, Kayden Preston was also delusional.

“Maybe if you’d asked nicely.” I instantly wished I hadn’t said that. It was my first real misstep in my arguments with him, but that might’ve given him the opening he needed.

“Asked nicely? Like they do in Canada? Holy crap, dude. Attitudes like that have made your country the fifty-first state.”

“Whatever you say, bud.”

“I’m not your bud, number one. Number two, we do things a little differently here in the good ‘ol U.S. of A. For starters, we respect greatness. We don’t take lockers away from their rightful owners.”

Kayden Preston actually talked like that. I’m not joking. He was obviously living on another planet. Again, answering that would land me back in an ongoing argument loop with him. I would also be playing into his hands, which I couldn’t let happen.

“Well, is that it?” he asked. “Or is it the fact that you come from Hicktown, Ontario?”

“Stevensville. Not that you care.”

“Stevensville, a place no one has ever heard of and nobody important ever goes.”

“What about J.L. Kraft?”

“Who?”

“Tell me you’ve eaten Kraft Dinner, dude.”

“Huh?”

“Okay, you call it Kraft Mac and Cheese in the States.”

“Of course I’ve eaten it.”

“J.L. Kraft invented that. He was from Stevensville.”

“Well, la-dee-dah. Don’t you guys have horses and buggies on dirt roads in your town?”

“We did. They were finally paved a couple years ago when indoor plumbing came to Stevensville. We even have a stoplight now. Just one and it goes on the fritz a lot. Oh, and a single gas station where a dog sits out front scratching itself and a guy with a toothpick in his mouth holds a shotgun, also scratching himself.”

“You’re serious?”

“No, of course I’m not serious, you idiot. I said that because you were trying to be funny.”

“I know.”

He grinned, looking so proud.

“You were funny as a heart attack, Kayden.”

Kayden paused, did a double take. His face reddened.

No one had dared speak to him that way before.

I could tell. I would say those things all over again because that’s what you do with guys like him.

When they get a little too big for their britches, you chop them down to size with words, especially cutting humor. Best of all, they can never keep up.

“Isn’t it true that you grew up on a farm there?” he asked.

“Sure did. Proud of it, too.

“You’re proud ?” He smiled hugely and clutched his hands to his stomach like a bellyful laugh loomed. “You’re actually proud of being a farm boy?”

“Nothing else on earth I would rather to be.”

“Good, because you sure as shit aren’t going to make much of a hockey player.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, bud. The two go hand-in-hand. Farming is about hard work. So is hockey. You’ve got to be double tough to work on a farm. Ditto for hockey. There’s nothing in this game that can’t be solved with some hard work and toughness.”

He cocked an eyebrow at me like he found that comment a little corny. It sort of was, but I meant everything I said.

“Are you serious? Hockey takes talent, intensity, and determination. Judging by what I saw from you yesterday, you can throw out the intensity part. And you’re Canadian, so we can forget about talent too.”

“What does being Canadian have to do with it?”

He paused, saying nothing. Of course not. He had no point. He’d taken a dig at my being Canadian because he was an idiot. Period.

“If anything, being Canadian should give me a natural advantage.”“What are you talking about?”

“We did invent the sport, you know.”

“Oh, oh, ohhhhh, you’re one of those guys, huh? You’re gonna give me this whole spiel about how the sport was invented in Canada by a bunch of guys in an igloo, which means Canadians are automatically the better players?”

“I wasn’t, but we can go with that if you want. Especially the igloo part.”

“Pal, that’s total bullshit.”

I shrugged. That was all you could do with neanderthals like Kayden Preston.

“Think about it,” I said. “All the best players in NHL history came from Canada. Wayne Gretzky. Gordie Howe. Bobby Orr.”

He rolled his eyes at me like he knew I could go on about this all day. No need to tempt me.

“And Sydney Crosby too,” I said.

“Oh God, not Sydney Crosby. I think I’m gonna throw up.”

“ Yes , Sydney Crosby. Now, have I proven my point?”

“No way, dude. You guys might’ve invented hockey, but Americans perfected it.”

“Okay, name some American players that perfected hockey.”

I leaned onto my stick, waiting for him to fire off names as readily as I did. He said nothing. I honestly thought steam would shoot out of his ears.

“Can’t think of any, can you?” I said.

“I can so. Just shut up for a second.”

“Did I mention Mario Lemieux is Canadian too?”

He threw his hands up and grunted. Any more of this, and I bet he would scream. Sure, he could argue with me until the cows came home—a farm expression I would never use in front of him—but I had Kayden on the ropes.

“Yeah, that stuff doesn’t mean anything here,” he said. “This is college, not the NHL. Here, you’re at the bottom of the ladder, and you’ve got to work your way up.”

“Ah, the first smart thing you’ve said since I met you.”

He knitted his eyebrows like he would’ve slugged anyone else for that comment. He was one of those hot-headed types with no self-control, remember. But he wouldn’t go off on me. I’d already exercised all the control over him that I needed to.

I realized just then that I’d approached him to address a misunderstanding and that we’d cleared up exactly nothing. If anything, our talk had worsened the problem, and that was on him.

“You’re just trying to distract me,” he said. “I know what’s important. To start with, get the hell out of my locker.”

“That’s ‘get the hell out of my locker please .’”

I grinned, even sticking my chin out a little, in case he wanted to slug me.

“I think we’re past worrying about manners here, dude. I’ll give you until tomorrow. After that, you’d better have all your stuff out or else.”

“Or else what?”

When he fixed his eyes on me, I understood that I was just supposed to know what else, as if he was the most intimidating person I’d ever met.

He didn’t flash me the intense look that you might’ve expected, though.

It wasn’t this ugly look meant to bully me into submission.

That look boasted a cool confidence all its own, like he’d buried a thousand guys like me before.

That look said I would remove my stuff from his locker because he’d commanded me to.

I found something else in that look, though. Something weird. I’d never seen anything like it before. That something captured me, forcing a pause, so I could drink it in. Then I realized I’d seen these things before but had never stopped to soak them up.

At first, I noticed that Kayden’s dirty-blond hair hung over his forehead, looking like a giant comma when he leaned in.

You could get lost in those emerald green eyes.

And then there were his teeth. I’ve heard of the toothpaste commercial smile, but Kayden’s teeth looked blindingly white.

I tried to turn away but realized I couldn’t.

My focus wouldn’t leave him. Was that normal?

I couldn’t keep looking at him like that, and not just because I’d been winning the argument up to that point.

It would seem downright weird, a risk I couldn’t take.

When I finally tore my eyes away, I understood how powerful that look had been.

That image haunted me the rest of the day—and beyond—but why the hell did I care so much?