Page 3

Caleb

“Did you hear something?” Reid twists toward the arena’s ground-floor fire exit.

“No. Pass me a puck.” I wait two feet from the goal, stick in hand for him to tap more from the rink’s entrance.

Reid, the best left winger on the team, passes me five from the open bag beside him.

As the center, top scorer, and captain of the Lamont Wolverines, I drive each one into the goal. “Again.”

“Dude. You can make the shot.”

Reid isn’t just the best left wing. He has a positivity that earned him a nickname so ridiculous I can’t believe he takes it on the chin. If anyone gave me his nickname, they’d be getting an uppercut to the chin. Not Reid Graves.

There is laid back and easygoing. Then there is Reid.

“If I could make it, I would have made it.”

Javier, my other friend and teammate, currently leaning against the plexiglass, checks his watch, calling out, “You realize I have better things to do, Boucher.”

“No, you don’t.” I nod at Reid when I’m all out of pucks.

Javier is Brazilian-American. Between his good looks and his accent, the girls love him. I’m happy to take advantage by ducking behind him so they can focus their attention on him, and I can focus mine on the only thing that matters—hockey.

Reid mutters something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like hockey and the Terminator.

“What did you say?” I pause my practice.

He raises his voice. “I said you’re like a hockey Terminator machine. Dial it back already. You can make the shot. I’d like to go home.”

“Nothing is stopping you.”

“Something is.” He taps another five pucks my way. “The thought of you half frozen to death as you pleaded again .”

I lift my eyebrow.

“It’s not dramatic if it could actually happen. You are training too hard.”

“There’s no such thing.” I slam the puck in the back of the net to drown out the memory of Coach McIntyre, who we all call Coach, saying the exact same thing.

So did Terrell Andersen, our physio, when I went to see him about muscles so tight I was hobbling.

And Zach Palinsky, our trainer, when he found me hitting the gym at six o’clock on a Sunday morning.

But the big game is coming, and nothing is more important than being the captain who leads the Wolverines to victory. The last time that happened was seventy years ago.

This year is ours. Not only because all three of us are seniors, and we graduate at the end of this semester, but I feel it in my bones.

Javier sticks his hand in his pocket, pulling out his cell phone with a sigh. “She texted me again.”

Reid has the patience of a saint, which is why he’s the one passing me the pucks. Javier Duarte, aka Casanova, the right wing, saves his patience for the girls. Two pucks and he was done. On the ice, he’s as hungry to score as I am.

Reid shakes his head. “I told you to flush that phone down the toilet, Jay. Get a new one with a new number. Let her do whatever the fuck she dumped you for with the vet.”

“Doctor,” Javier corrects him, tucking the phone in his pocket. “She has a thing about doctors.”

I slam the puck into the overflowing goal.

It goes in like it’s supposed to. Every time except the one time I needed it to, it goes in.

So why the fuck did I miss?

“Maybe she heard about you being drafted,” I say, drawn into their conversation when I told myself I would stay out of it.

We’re all being drafted when we finish up our last semester. Not sure where we’ll end up. No one gets a say in where they go. You get drafted, and you go.

Javier’s ex has done everything but show up, and the way she’s been texting the guy, it’s only a matter of time before he walks in to find her in his bed.

We’re Division 1 athletes, which means we’re busy.

If we’re not in the gym, we’re at class, and if we’re not in class, we’re here practicing on the ice.

The one place we’re rarely in is our dorm.

“She doesn’t care about hockey. Thinks all athletes stink of sweat.”

“Ah.” Reid nods firmly. “She heard about the money. She wants a bigger engagement ring than you got her before.”

“Well, she’ll be waiting forever. I am not…” Javier’s voice tails off as he squints at the fire exit. “I think you’re right. There is a strange noise.”

“It’s just a cleaner,” I say.

“Nope.” Reid walks away. “They left an hour ago, you know, back when we were on our first bag of pucks. Might not have heard them with the way you were growling at me. I’m checking it out.”

“Maybe this place is haunted,” Javier says thoughtfully. “Might explain Cap missing an easy shot.”

“It wasn’t that easy,” I snarl.

A smile stretches across Javier’s face, and I kick myself for letting him provoke me. “Dude, you are one of the best players I have ever seen. You need to loosen up. It’s not usually this easy to rile you.”

That’s why it’s so hard to stay angry at him.

We don’t just play together, we’ve formed a brotherhood. The only points we score against each other are the ones that don’t hurt or aren’t meant to. At least, not for long.

“Something isn’t right.” I frown.

Javier frowns back. “What do you think forcing it will do? It’s like straining to take a dump. All you’ll end up with is a torn?—”

“ That is a subject you have taken way, way too far,” Reid interrupts, wincing. “I don’t need to hear about any of Boucher’s parts being torn. Least of all his ass.”

I consider Javier as my mind returns to the goal I shouldn’t have missed.

He didn’t miss any shots.

Because for every game, he wears his special boxers. Maybe he’s onto something.

“Maybe I should get a pair,” I mutter.

“Is the ice freezing your brain?” Reid calls, pulling the door open as he twists to face me.

I scowl at him. “It is not?—”

Aaah!

We all stare down the long, black hallway, dimly lit by security lights.

The mournful, haunting echo of a distant scream sends shivers down my spine, and my fingers instinctively tighten around my stick.

Don’t know what the fuck that was, but I’m not going anywhere near it without this stick in my hand.

“You heard that, right?” I ask, still staring.

“Yup.” Reid hovers at the door, not taking a step forward or back. “So…”

“I say we ignore our resident Casper and see if we can still make it to the party,” Javier suggests.

The rest of the team is at the big Friday night frat party.

Usually, the arena is locked up tight after game day, but I convinced Coach to let us have a couple of hours of practice after everyone had gone home.

He told us to leave through a fire exit before midnight.

At midnight, security would throw us out.

Coach knows me too fucking well.

We won tonight. Barely. But we won. Not that anyone would have known it with the way I growled at everyone to move on my way to the locker room for the post-game celebration. Everyone celebrated. Reid put a beer in my hand. I set it down and hit the showers.

I don’t miss that shot.

It’s the Captain Caleb Boucher Special, served up when we’re winning, so why not make things easy by opening a bigger lead on a team we’ve already beaten?

I put it away every time.

It’s the safe bet.

Except tonight.

Tonight means something is wrong. I’m off my game. And whatever it is, I need to fix it before the championship game, and I fumble the biggest bag in my entire hockey career.

Again.

“You’re thinking about that shot again, aren’t you?” Reid mutters, rolling his eyes.

“No,” I lie.

Reid raises an eyebrow.

I skate to the side of the rink and step off, resting my stick against the plexiglass to change out of my skates and into my sneakers. “But if I were thinking about it…”

“You need to get out of your head,” Javier says. “That’s what this is. You are taking it too seriously.”

“It’s hockey. How the fuck am I supposed to take it?” I snarl.

“Nope. He needs to get laid.” Reid grins at Javier. “Casanova, you have to hook him up with one of the girls who likes to throw their panties at your head.”

Javier laughs. “That was one time, and I went home alone.”

“That can come after the big game. Once we’ve won,” I say, grabbing my stick.

Javier and Reid stare at me.

I can’t help but notice Reid mouthing each word as I spoke.

Have I really been saying it that often?

I open my mouth.

“This is important. It’s what we’ve all been working toward.” Javier drops his accent and deepens his voice, speaking with a gruffness that sounds familiar.

I glare at him. “I don’t sound like that.”

Javier claps me on the shoulder. “You sound exactly like that. Let’s go check out Casper and get out of here. I need a drink.”

“Maybe it’s an owl,” Reid says as we creep down the hallway.

“An owl ?”

“Yes, scoff at me for suggesting an owl got in the building, but eagerly embrace the possibility we might have a resident ghost in the arena. That makes perfect sense,” Reid says sarcastically.

“You hear anything?” Javier whispers.

“No,” Reid whispers back. “Why are we whispering?”

Contractors closed off this entire section of the arena so they could remodel, ready for the championship game we’re hosting at the end of this semester.

All the new sponsors are eager to throw money at the team, wanting the arena to be perfect for a historic event when we win the championship after a seventy-year drought.

If we win it.

No one should have been in this part of the stadium. Most of the lights are off, and security blocks this hallway every game day.

So what the fuck is making those strange noises?

A muffled, growling whimper comes from behind a closed restroom door.

My fingers curl around my stick, and I lift it, ready to swing. “You hear that?”

Now, I’m the one whispering. What the fuck happened to my ability to lead the team with a roar of, “Let’s do this, Wolverines!”

Javier gulps. “Heard it.”

I motion to the door with my stick. “Open it.”

Both of them twist to face me.

“Why me?” Reid demands.

“I have the stick, and I’m the captain. One of you push it open, and I’ll swing.”

Reid nods at Javier. “You do it, Jay. You’re wearing your lucky pants. I figure we need all the luck in the world not to get eaten.”

“You think lucky pants are going to save me?” Javier backs up a step. “Nah, my man. You do it.”

“ Eaten ? What the fuck do you think is in there?” I shake my head. “Doesn’t matter. We need to figure out what it is, deal with it, and then I need to get back on the ice. Kick the door open.”

Reid glares at me. “I say again, why does it have to be?—”

The door flies open.

Someone screams.

It sure as hell wasn’t me, that much I know.

I leap aside to avoid the door, running into Reid when we both go in the same direction. Our heads crack together, and the stick flies out of my hand.

I’m diving to get it when it hits me that we’re not dealing with an owl, an evil spirit, or a ghost.

It’s a girl.

Beautiful. Short. Lush curves, soft-looking curly brown hair, holding a pair of shoes in one hand, and rubbing the back of her head as she squints at us.

“Who are you?” Javier demands from halfway down the hallway.

Impressive. The only time he moves that fast is when he’s on the ice.

“I know I’m not supposed to be here, but please don’t kill me.”