Page 84 of The Fall
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 eyeleta 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 thatbeautiful space between motion and thought in longer than I can remember.
That’s not true. Icanremember; 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.”
