Page 90 of Nowhere to Hide
Coach doesn’t yell,and that makes it worse.
He just stands at the front of the room with his arms crossed and his jaw working, and when he finally speaks, his voice is low, flat, and measured. It means there’s nothing to push back against. If he yelled, we could burn through it, bitch among ourselves, rally, and heal.
But this is torture.
“Forecheck collapsed in the second, and nobody adjusted,” he says. “Nobody called it, nobody shortened up, nobody changed a single thing until I changed it for you from the bench.”
His eyes move over each player, one by one.
Then he sighs. “We pride ourselves on our toughness and our defense. But the defensive breakdowns out there made us look like some other team, in a rivalry game at home.”
He pauses, scans the room, and his eyes lock on me.
“And I don’t even need to mention the lack of discipline.”
He doesn’t say my name. He doesn’t have to. His eyes are on me, and every other set of eyes decides not to look at me, which is its own punishment. It’s the first time at Halden I’ve experienced this, and it’s well deserved.
Then he’s done.
He picks up his clipboard and walks out, and nobody moves for about five seconds.
Then Theo shifts his weight on the bench, and his skate guard slides off the shelf and hits the floor. The sound it makes in that room is so loud that every head turns, and Theo freezes with his hands half-raised like a man caught robbing a church.
It doesn’t draw a single laugh.
I’m standing near the whiteboard, still in full gear. My legs are heavy, my ribs ache, and my right hand still throbs from how hard I finished the hit on the St. Adrian’s defenseman. I should sit down and take my gloves off, but instead I clear my throat.
“Six a.m. skate tomorrow.” My voice sounds like my voice but it doesn’t feel like mine. “And I mean on the ice at six, not in the building at six.”
I’m looking at Mason when I say it, and I make no effort to hide it, because I’m exhausted and he’s sitting in his stall with an uninterested smirk. It’s exactly how he looked when he batted my hand away, like none of this has anything to do with him.
At practice, I swallowed it. But that was practice, and tonight five thousand people watched him disrespect me, and if I swallow that too, there’s no captaincy left to protect. So I let him have it, even if confronting him risks unearthing something dangerous.
“And one more thing, Mason: commitment to this team means playing within the system, not treating a rivalry game like your personal audition,” I say. “Theo took a hit out there that should’ve put him in the training room, and he finished the shift. Seb blocked, what, four shots?”
“Six,” Luca mutters.
There’s silence. Then Mason lifts his head. “At least I was creating chances out there, which is better than getting two minutes for a hit that handed them a power play.”
The room goes still, because he just talked back to his captain.
But the worst part is he’s right.
“Yeah, I got frustrated for one moment,” I say. “But you skated past three open guys on the same shift, Mason. That’s not creating chances. It’s showboating. And in the second period, when I came over on the stoppage and put my hand out — what was that?”
His eyes come up to mine. I think he’s going to fire back, or say something personal about Sloane, or Sloane and him, but then his mouth sets into a smirk and he looks away, and that’s almost worse.
“Enough,” Niko says, from the far side of the room. His voice is flat and tired. “Both of you, that’s enough.”
I don’t argue. I’ve said my piece and done what I can to regain the room, and any further back-and-forth risks the truth about Sloane and Mason coming out. And that’s a truth I still don’t want to hear.
The guys start moving. Gear comes off, showers turn on, and the normal postgame sounds fill the room. But it’s different. Nobody’s talking about where to eat or whose place to go to, and even Luca, who can fill any silence, just… doesn’t.
Theo gives me a fist bump on the way to the showers, Luca puts a hand on the back of my neck as he heads for the door, and Seb catches my eye and gives me a nod. And it’s not just them; it’s everyone.
They clear out fast. One by one, then in twos, they go with bags over shoulders. Nobody says good night. Nobody makes plans for later. It’s a lot of downcast heads and tired eyes, everyone wanting to be anywhere but here.
Only Seb doesn’t leave. He’s at his stall, moving slowly, taking longer than he needs to. He’s the last one dressed. He sitsthere after he’s ready, bag on his lap, staring at the floor, and I’m not looking at him but I know he’s there.
