Page 36 of The Fall

Twenty

You’d think everything here would echo with memories—good ones and bad ones—but all I feel is cold.

The air is thicker than I remember in the Mutineers’ locker room. Well, I never remembered it at all.

The layout is close to my sketches, but not exact.

The benches are off, and the stalls aren’t in the right order.

There’s no broken hockey stick nailed to the wall.

In my memories, I used to replay the sound Axel made when he’d laugh himself hoarse, or imagine the ridiculous questions Hayes would throw into the room.

Would you rather be an ant or an elephant?

It’s different.

I knew it would be. I knew that, I did.

Blair’s not here. His clothes are dumped in his stall, and his gear is missing, which means he’s already been here and left.

Hawks and Hollow are laughing as they do up their skates. Mikko’s checking his stick blade, his back to me. Hayes, off to the side, is taping up his socks, head bent and deep in it, not giving a fuck about the new guy who waltzed into the room.

None of this belongs to me.

Hayes looks up, finally. His eyes slide over me like skimming water. “Hey.”

“Hi.” I dump my bag in the empty stall beside him. My number, 17, and my name are written on tape, easily removable, easily scraped away. I clear my throat. “How’s Erin?”

Hayes stills. He lifts his head, his roll of tape halfway up his calf. “What?”

“Your wife? How’s she doing?”

He stares. “How do you know my wife?”

So much for skating beneath the radar. Hayes’s voice isn’t hostile, but there’s an edge to it I wasn’t expecting, not from him. If anyone here was going to offer warmth, I thought?—

Fuck. I shouldn’t have said it. It’s not like I stalked her; I … remember . Except there’s nothing to remember, is there?

“I—” My words falter. “I saw online—on your Instagram. You had pink ribbons. I was wondering…”

“You must’ve been scrolling a while.” His voice is flat.

“Yeah, yeah, I was.” I try to let out a chuckle—oh, silly me, going too far, you know how it is, too late, lose track of time, lose track of your mind. “I was curious about the team. I wanted to get to know you guys before I came in.” I shrug. I lie.

He doesn’t even glance in my direction; he keeps winding tape like he’s got all the time in the world, but the way his jaw locks tells me he’s not buying it. Of course he’s not. I sound insane.

Well.

Hayes unrolls the last stretch of tape down his shin and tosses the remnants toward his bag. “Yeah.” He stands, shoulders squaring. The air between us ices over fast.

Hayes gives me one last look before turning away. He grabs his helmet from the shelf above his stall and slides it over his head. “You might want to hurry up. Coach doesn’t appreciate tardiness.”

Hayes’s footsteps fade behind me as he walks out. A fist squeezes my ribs, but I focus on tightening my laces, each eyelet a reminder to breathe. This is my one chance, this last fraying thread, and I’ve already started pulling it apart.

“New guy!” someone calls from down the tunnel. “You coming or what?”

The first time I see Blair, he’s a fucking vision standing in the middle of the ice.

My skates catch. Only for a second, but long enough that I have to grab the boards to keep from eating shit right there in front of everyone. Real smooth, Kendrick.

He’s stretching, one arm pulled across his chest, head turned toward the far goal.

The overhead lights catch the sharp line of his jaw, the dark sweep of his hair where it curls out from under his helmet.

Even from here, even with half the rink between us, I can see the Captain written in every line of his body before you even spot the C on his jersey.

—the noise of the fans, skates scratching against the ice, refs shouting, pucks bouncing off the half-wall, Blair’s scent lingering on me, our kisses like ghost touches on my lips, flickers of maybe memories flashing through my mind like old film reels stuck on fast-forward ? —

He hasn’t seen me yet. Or maybe he has and doesn’t care. The thought burns all the way down.

There’s always a small shock on a new rink when you take that first stroke, when your legs bend, your knees tilt in.

You push, and your blades cut small scars into a trail behind you.

You lift off, let the next movement pull you further, and in that millisecond, you forget every fuck-up, every bad pass, every moment when you weren’t enough.

I haven’t felt that beautiful space between motion and thought in longer than I can remember.

That’s not true. I can remember; it was here, in Tampa.

The problem is, that wasn’t a memory. It never happened.

I push off from the boards, trying to make my body remember how to move naturally and not like I’m waiting for him to turn and see me.

Then Blair turns, and our eyes meet for the first time.

Time doesn’t stop. The world doesn’t shift. There’s no recognition in his gaze, no warmth, no history, only the cool assessment of a captain sizing up a new guy.

His eyes drift over me and then away, and that’s it. That’s all.

What did I expect? That he’d take one look at me and remember something that never happened? That he’d feel what I feel—this impossible ache for someone I’ve never actually touched?

No, of course not. So this is how it begins. Again. For the first time.

“Bring it in!” Coach’s growl breaks over the rink, tempered from decades in the trenches. We huddle around him at center ice.

“Anyone can lace ‘em up, boys, but not everyone can make ‘em matter. There’s no room for passengers on this team, and if you think you can coast on what you’ve done before, you won’t make it to the first cut.

If you think the vets are here to baby you or are gonna hold your hand through drills? Wrong again.”

His gaze sweeps over us, and for a second, it stops on me.

“Every year, we start fresh. The core—” He gestures to Blair, to Hayes, to Hawks, to Hollow. “They’re here to evaluate you. So you want to play for the Mutineers? Prove it. You got talent? Show it. You’re fast? Show us. You can hit? You better make it stick.”

He strips us clean of excuses before we’ve even uttered them.

Blair stands apart, his eyes cold shards of blue. Hayes is at his shoulder, so close there’s no daylight between the two men.

He hasn’t looked at me once.

Coach’s tone softens. “Make sure this isn’t where it ends for you. Put your ass on the line, every drill, every rep. Don’t give me a reason to make the cut.”

I swallow.

“You’ve got two weeks,” he says. “Make ‘em count.” He rounds his speech off with a smile. “Good luck.”

I drop the first pass.

The puck bounces wrong. My stick should’ve caught it and dragged it into cradle-smooth control, but no.

Coach’s whistle shrieks. “No time for that shit out here, Kendrick!”

God, I know this drill. I’ve done it a thousand times.

This shouldn’t be a riddle, but the puck ricochets off my stick and spins away like it’s got somewhere better to be.

These missed plays should shake off the dust and push me back into gear, but all they do is reveal the rift between the Torey I thought I was and the Torey I am.

This place holds expectations I can’t meet, and the ice is the world’s most unforgiving mirror, showing me exactly what I never want to see.

We change drills.

Blair splits the ice like he’s cutting a river’s core in two. The agility of his glide, the push and pull of his body, how he marries grace beneath force. He cuts in as I’m supposed to lock my defensive position down, but I’m late, and he’s around me before I can blink.

He slaps the puck bone-crushingly hard into the net.

The drill whistles to a close, and Blair heads straight off the ice.

Day Six

Today the ice feels like sandpaper, and my blades seem to dull with each stride. Or maybe that’s the vodka from last night. My hotel’s mini-fridge has protein shakes and bottles of vodka, and I down one and then the other every night for dinner. It’s not the best training diet I’ve ever been on.

The ice tugs at my blades, slowing me down when I need speed the most. When I should accelerate, I hesitate. When I should pivot, I’m still thinking about the last move.

“Move your feet, Kendrick!” Coach barks from the boards.

But between the lack of sleep, the vodka, and the emotional crater I’m circling, my body refuses to function.

I’m chasing the puck like it owes me something, but it keeps slithering away.

I hit the corner, pivot too late, cut too slow.

Blair shoots past me, disappearing into the blur of bodies moving up ice.

Behind him, Hayes cuts in and cuts out, the puck floating between them.

“Again!” Coach’s whistle slices the air. “Pick it up, Kendrick!”

My quads ache, my ankles fold, and my breath comes short and harsh through clenched teeth. Focus .

Skate wide. Pull tight. I don’t know how many times we’ve run this drill, but gravity’s turned up on me today. I’m dragging. My edges catch wrong as I cross over, and the ice bites back.

The next rush forms around me.

Hayes circles back, collecting a loose puck, and for half a second our eyes meet, and?—

There’s nothing there. He snaps a pass to Blair without looking at me again.

The puck comes my way again. This time I’m ready—or I tell myself I am. I wheel around the defenseman, feeling that old rhythm return, that sense of the game opening up before me. Then Blair charges the crease, shoulders square and stick gripped white-knuckle tight.

His body coils before the shot, every muscle wound spring-tight, and when he releases, the puck screams off his blade. The sound it makes hitting the post rings through the arena like a gunshot, and Axel stumbles back even though the puck never touched him.

Blair wheels hard, ice spraying in an arc that hits my shins.