Page 17 of Locke

There are never words between us.In the nine years of playing against each other in this league, we have never spoken a single word on the ice.

Not one.

I don’t know if that’s his choice or mine or if we simultaneously arrived at the same decision, but it holds like an unspoken agreement.

I watch as the Wild break away, bearing down on Crosby in goal.I can feel his focus radiating across the ice, and I watch in absolute amazement as he plucks a blistering shot right out of thin air.I think Rowe’s done a lot of things right in putting this team together, and getting Crosby Hale as our goalie is at the top of the list.As an expansion team, we’re not considered competitive this year, but I think we might just have a good chance of making a name for ourselves.

Current ass-whipping excluded, of course.

I become aware of movement to my right and I don’t want to look, but I do anyway.

Livia Cross is four bodies down the bench from me, standing with her tablet tucked under her crossed arms.She’s watching the game with an intensity that makes me think she’s not watching the game at all but rather the people in it.

She’s purportedly here to make the players better, but I’m not buying it.

The rest of the team though… they’re getting on board.I’ve heard them talking about it.Sure, there’s typical locker room talk about how hot she is, as if any of these guys would ever have a chance with her.But for the most part, the guys are curious about what she brings to the table, and I know a handful have already met with her.Arch Hewitt even stopped me in the hallway to tell me that whatever Livia had talked him through about his pregame visualization routine he felt the best he had in two seasons.

The enthusiasm is the thing that gets under my skin.Not because I think they’re wrong but because enthusiasm for Livia Cross is enthusiasm for the idea that I might be fixable, and I stopped believing in fixable a long time ago.

My eyes roam over her.She’s in full Wildfire staff gear with her hair pulled up into a ponytail.She tracks the action with laser attention, an expression I saw the other day at the hotel gym in San Diego.Fucking five forty-five in the morning and she asked me if the Eisenhower book was any good.I somehow fell into a discussion with her about Roman infrastructure.Admittedly, I was engaged and found myself kind of enjoying such a benign conversation.Just two people talking and it had nothing to do with my penalty minutes, behavioral history or whether I was a manageable asset or a liability.

And then she asked me a question I didn’t like.

I closed off and locked tight like a bank vault door.

That was the day before yesterday and I hate that I’ve been thinking about her question since.Not because I intend to answer it but because she got close enough to ask it, and that’s a gnawing irritation that doesn’t seem to be lessening.

I look back at the ice and away from her because looking at her while thinking about that conversation is an exposure I don’t need while sitting on a hockey bench with eight minutes left in a game we’re losing.

I look back at the ice.

I look at the Calgary bench.

I look at Adam.

He’s bigger than he was at seventeen.We both are.

I think about the kid who used to steal my pregame protein bars.The kid who could make me laugh in the middle of the worst days just by existing in the same room.The only person who had ever made me feel like I was someone’s first choice rather than an afterthought, the way my parents made me feel.

We were absolute best friends.Hell, Adam was really my only family.

And then I think about his face in that doorway.

I think about the seven minutes left in this game and the fact that my line is about to go back out there and Adam’s will probably meet us on ice, putting us in the same twenty feet of space again whether either of us wants it.

“Donovan.”

I’m over the boards before Coach Monahan finishes saying my name.

The shift starts clean.I pick up my defensive assignment, move through my coverage reads, do the work.This is the part that never fails me—when the game is happening and my body knows what to do.The noise in my head goes quiet because there’s no room for it.Fifty-three minutes of knowing Adam Belleau was on this ice and I’ve played sound, controlled, professional hockey.

Just shy of six minutes left now.I can do it.

I don’t see Adam take the ice but suddenly, we end up in the corner together.We battle hard for the puck that’s rattled into the boards, both of us holding opposite angles.His shoulder hits mine, my hip drives into his, and we’re scrabbling for possession with fury.I try to muscle the puck back along the boards and his stick comes in and ties it up, locking together.We both lean our full weight in, neither giving ground.

Normal.

This is normal hockey.