Page 18 of Cold Front
“Shut up.”
I followed him anyway. “Follow me back.”
“Do I have to?”
“Yes, obviously. It’s in the roommate contract.”
Niall huffed out a breath. “There was no contract.”
“There is now.”
Niall sighed the sigh of a man who had accepted his fate. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and unlocked it. He opened the app, found my profile, and tapped ‘Follow back’ to return the favor. “Happy?”
“Ecstatic.”
He muttered something under his breath, but there was no real bite to it. And when we headed back down the trail, the silence between us felt lighter somehow.
The day wasn’t supposed to mean anything. But maybe it did.
CHAPTER8
NIALL
Blades scraped against the ice, bodies colliding as sticks clashed in a battle for control. The scrimmage had started out clean, but by the third period, frustration bled into every shift. Micah drilled Roman into the boards, not hard enough for a penalty in a real game, but enough to earn Coach AJ’s sharp whistle.
“Dial it back, Whitmore,” Coach barked. “It’s a scrimmage, not a damn street fight.”
Micah skated away, jaw tight, looking more annoyed than sorry. Roman shoved him for good measure. “Keep your elbows to yourself, asshole.”
Nico coasted between them, grinning like this was all part of the fun. “Come on, boys, save it for the real games. We’re all on the same side, remember?”
Micah scowled, but he let it go.
From the crease, Logan tapped his stick against the post. “Can we wrap this up before I start calculating how many times I have to disinfect my gear?”
Hunter snorted. “Nobody’s stopping you, Hayes. Go ahead, count.”
“Seventeen,” Logan muttered. “And that’s just for the pads.”
I exhaled sharply, pushing off toward center ice as Coach AJ signaled the end of the scrimmage. It had been a mess—bad passes, sloppy defensive coverage, and too much heat when we needed control. I should’ve kept them steady. That was my job. But I’d been off my game all morning.
And I knew exactly why.
By the time we hit the locker room, the tension had mostly burned off, replaced by the usual post-practice banter. The air was thick with sweat and damp gear, the sound of tape ripping and skates clattering against the floor filling the space.
Hunter dropped onto the bench, rubbing a towel over his face. “I’m just saying, if Micah’s gonna throw cheap shots, at least make ’em count.”
Micah flipped him off. “I wasn’t throwing cheap shots.”
“Uh-huh. Tell that to Roman’s ribs.”
Roman yanked his jersey over his head, rolling his shoulders. “I’ll live. But you owe me a beer, Whitmore.”
“Like hell I do.”
Nico grinned, stretching his legs out in front of him. “Team bonding, Micah. It’s important.”
Logan, already halfway through lining up his gear in a precise, methodical order, sighed. “What’s important is getting through the season without someone breaking a collarbone in practice.”
