Page 60 of The Last Inch Of Ice
He thinks about Kai’s explosive speed, his hockey IQ, the way he reads plays before they develop. The foundation of his hatred—the bedrock on which he’d built the last years of his life—begins to crack.
“You weren’t worse,” Nazar says after a long silence. The admission feels momentous, like physically shifting the weight of the world. “That’s true.”
Something flickers across Kai’s face—relief, maybe. Or just exhaustion.
The confession seems to break whatever trance held them. Kai pulls his wrist free and yanks his sweater down properly, covering the pale skin that Nazar wants to keep looking at.
Kai turns toward the door without another word, without a backward glance, every line of his body communicating that this encounter is over.
“Kai—” Nazar starts, but he doesn’t know how to finish that sentence.
The door closes quietly behind him.
Nazar is left alone in the wreckage of his hotel room—sheets twisted, his own clothes half-off, the muted television still replaying their loss on loop.
He sinks onto the edge of the bed, head in his hands.
He believes him. Deep down, in a place he doesn’t want to examine too closely, he knows Kai told the truth.
But if that’s true, then everything is different.
If Doyle Callahan actively hates that his son plays hockey… it explains so much. Why Kai publicly announced he’d never play for Toronto. Why he seems to deliberately court controversy, as if daring his father to be disappointed in him.
The thought should be a relief. Should leave Nazar’s path clear, his endgame intact. He still needs to get to that team. Still needs to make Doyle Callahan pay for what he did to Derek.
But all Nazar can think about is the stark, empty space where Kai Callahan had been kneeling just moments ago.
All he can think about is that he’s spent years hating Kai for something he didn’t do.
And now he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s supposed to feel instead.
18
Chapter 18 Nazar
The pre-game warm-up is a circus—especially during this late-season push when every team is desperately selling “fan experience” packages to justify ticket prices.
The lights are down. Strobes flash in patterns that probably violate some epilepsy warning. Music thumps loud enough that Nazar can feel the bass vibrating through the ice into his skate blades. Players move in lazy circles, their movements broadcast on the Jumbotron overhead in that slightly delayed way that makes everything feel surreal.
Every camera is on them. Phone cameras in the stands. Broadcast cameras along the boards. The FHL’s obsessive documentation of every moment, cataloging it all for content that’ll be sliced up into fifteen-second clips for social media.
Nazar focuses on the mechanical aspects of warm-up.
He will not look at Kai. It’s a pointless impulse. Self-destructive.
He lasts approximately twenty seconds.
His eyes find Kai across the ice like they’re magnetized. And Kai is already looking back—of course he is, because apparently they’re both equally pathetic.
There’s no smirk on Kai’s face. No questioning tilt of his head. No performative indifference. His expression is stripped bare. Just quiet, intense focus that still hits Nazar like a physical blow to the sternum.
The cameras, the crowd, the music that’s probably that Imagine Dragons song they play at every sporting event—it all dissolves into static. There’s only two hundred feet of ice between them and this heavy, charged silence that Nazar can feel in his bones.
He breaks the contact first, forcing himself to join a passing drill with Miller and Vyachovsky. Takes a pass, fires a shot on net. The satisfying thud of puck against blocker barely registers through the noise in his head.
When he turns back, Kai is still watching him. His gaze is a physical weight that settles deep in Nazar’s chest and refuses to move.
This is going to be a long game.
