Page 10 of Cold Comeback
Chapter three
Thatcher
Ishowed up to practice at 8:15 again. I'd become the kind of person who responded to Gideon Sawyer's approval like a plant turning toward the sun. Healthy? Probably not. Effective? Too soon to know.
He was already there, of course. Sitting in his stall, working on his stick tape job. When I walked in, his eyes flicked up to meet mine for precisely half a second before returning to his work.
"Morning." I dropped my bag.
"Drake." No warmth. No acknowledgment of last night's text exchange.
Cool. Time to pretend the "yes, Sir" never happened. I could play that game.
I unpacked my gear with more noise than necessary. My skates clattered against the floor. If he wanted professional distance, I'd give him professional distance with a side of fuck-you-too.
The rest of the team trickled in. Linc arrived humming something that might have been music if you squinted yourears. Pluto showed up with what looked like a breakfast burrito wrapped in six napkins.
"Morning, sunshine," Linc said, bumping my shoulder. "You look rested."
"Three alarms. Captain's orders."
Practice started normal enough. Warm-up laps, passing drills, and the usual chaotic disarray of getting twenty guys moving in the same direction. Still, there was something different in the air. Electric.
Every time Gideon and I ended up paired for a drill, the contact lingered. His hand on my shoulder during line changes. The brush of his glove when he passed me the puck.
"You two gonna fight or fuck?" Linc asked during a water break, voice low enough that Coach couldn't hear.
"What?" I nearly choked on my water.
"The sexual tension," Pluto added helpfully. "It's so thick I could tape my stick with it."
I glanced toward Gideon, who was studiously avoiding looking in our direction. "Don't know what you're talking about."
"Right." Linc grinned. "And I don't know what a puck is."
Coach blew the whistle. "Battle drills! Two-on-two down low. Winner stays, loser gets extra suicides."
Of course, Gideon and I ended up matched against each other. Of course.
The first rep, he stripped the puck from me clean and fed Pluto for an easy goal—standard captain stuff. The second rep, I returned the favor, dancing around his stick and tucking one five-hole before the goalie could react.
"Nice," he said as we skated back to the line.
The third rep, things got interesting.
I was cycling behind the net when Gideon arrived like a freight train. The hit stapled me to the boards, but I came up grinning. My parents raised me to avoid backing down from anyone.
"That's all you got, Cap?"
He wet his lips with his tongue.
The next hit came harder. And the one after that. By the time Coach called the drill, we were both breathing hard, and the rest of the team watched the show.
"Showers," Coach barked. "Weight room in twenty."
The gym was where things really went sideways.
Most of the team filtered out after their sets, but the core group hung around. I was doing pull-ups, mainly because they were one of the few things I could still do better than most guys, and partly because Gideon was spotting Knox on bench press about ten feet away.
