Page 111 of Nowhere to Hide
I look up at the screen and grin.
And she grins back.
“Hale!” Franklin barks from the bench. “Time’s up — let’s go!”
She taps the glass twice with two fingers.Go.
I mouthI love youone more time and go, not knowing what brought her here or why she changed her mind, only that she did.
Suddenly, I can hear the ice again.
Hearing it isn’t the same as having legs. My next pass dies in a Lakehurst skate, and I lose a board battle I should win, because the tank doesn’t refill just because a girl put her hand on the glass.
But the shift after that, the puck finds me, and the first thing I want is not toget rid of itanymore. I put it where Luca’s going to be before he’s there — a pass I have to trust instead of see — and he buries it, crashing into me along the boards, yelling over the goal horn.
Two-one.
I get back to the bench and Luca is grinning at me.
“Don’t,” I tell him.
“I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“Your face was about to say something.”
“My face is an independent operator. I take no responsibility for it.”
Each shift comes a little easier after that. I start reading the ice again, trusting my edges, and the guys feel whatever it is and start putting the puck back on my stick. Niko ties it with six minutes left, a wrister from the circle, glove side.
I get the assist.
Then Luca wins it off a draw with two minutes on the clock — top shelf — and the building shakes. Three-two. We hold it. Thehorn goes and the bench empties and the noise is all the way up now.
After the handshake, I look for Sloane but can’t find her, so I head down the tunnel to the locker room. What greets me is loud and warm and full of the chaos that follows a comeback nobody saw coming — music, gear flying, Luca re-enacting his goal with a tape roll.
Franklin comes in and says something about character and response, and I hear it without needing it. The whole time, I sit in my stall, smiling at the guys who throw praise my way, but mostly trying to process the shift that put Sloane back into my life.
My phone buzzes on the shelf. I square it flush to the edge of the wood without deciding to, because my hands always want something to put in order. Then I catch myself, and I leave it crooked, because I need to get used to the idea.
It’s a message from my dad.
Dad: Call me. We need to get ahead of the media narrative. Fix it before it fixes you.
Every word exactly what I’d expect — direct, efficient, already two moves ahead. It’s the voice I’ve had in my own head my whole life, the one that says there’s always a move and you make it now, before you’ve even sat down.
It’s the voice that ran that morning for everyone except Sloane.
I don’t call him, because not everything needs fixing in the next ten minutes — and that realization is new enough that it sits strange, a lesson that pain taught me that can now be applied to my whole life.
Seb sits next to me. “She’s in the corridor,” he says.
“Are you her assistant or something?” I grin.
“Someone needs to keep things straight for you.” He shrugs. “Go.”
I don’t even bother showering. I pull on some sweats and head out into the corridor, which is the spine of the building. It’s the part that never makes the broadcast: nothing but concrete, equipment carts shoved against one wall, and a trash can overflowing with cups.
And Sloane, leaning against a wall.
