Page 3 of Locked & Loaded

I sigh. “How, exactly?”

“You could be stuck with me. I snore.”

“I’d take your snoring any day,” I say.

Sam makes an aww sound. “I love you too, man.”

The boarding announcement comes, and we file onto the train, a funeral procession in team jackets. I hang back as long as I can, watching Rodriguez move ahead of me down the narrow corridor. He walks with the same annoying restraint he brings to everything—no wasted motion, like using one ounce more energy might kill him. Jesus, even the way he walks annoys the fuck out of me.

Our compartment is at the end of the car. Rodriguez reaches it first, slides the door open, and steps inside. By the time I get there, he’s already letting it slide shut in my face.

Asshole.

I open it again and step inside. He drops his bag onto the right-hand bunk, claiming it. I toss mine onto the left and shrug out of my jacket.

The compartment is smaller than my walk-in closet at home—two narrow bunks facing each other, a tiny folding table, a strip of floor between them, and a small sink tucked into the corner like an afterthought. The air already feels too warm. Rodriguez unpacks with the same annoying efficiency he puts into everything, his face blank as he sits, sets his bag on his knees, and starts pulling out clothes and toiletries, as if spending eight hours within kicking distance of me after the clusterfuck of tonight’s game is an inconvenience he’s already decided not to dignify with a reaction.

I throw my bag onto the shelf above my bunk and sit down, suddenly hit by the fact that I’m about to spend the night in this tiny space with the one guy on this team who makes me want to commit a crime.

The train hasn’t even started moving, and I’m already counting the hours to Copenhagen. Maybe I should go find Roman, Sammy, Rami, and Johan. After a loss, those guys like to huddle together over drinks and poker, marinating in their own misery, and I usually avoid them like the plague. But tonight, even their whining sounds better than this.

Rodriguez pulls out a pair of team-issued sweatpants and a plain T-shirt, setting them on the edge of his bunk with too much care. I barely stop myself from rolling my eyes, and that’s when he glances up at me.

“What?” I ask, the word coming out harsher than I mean it to, considering the whole point is to show the asshole that I don’t give a fuck about him.

“Nothing,” he says with a shrug, zipping up his bag and standing to put it on the shelf above his bunk.

That’s how it always is with him. Nothing. No reaction, no rise, no crack in the perfect composure. The guy is weird as hell. He gives away so little I want to poke at him just to see if he’ll finally make a face.

I reach for the small vent above the window and tug at the handle before the compartment turns into a sauna. It gives a useless little click but doesn’t open. I try again, harder this time, then shove at the frame with my palm. Nothing. It looks welded shut and probably hasn’t been opened since the train was built.

“Great,” I mutter. “No air.”

Rodriguez, predictably, says nothing.

I sit back down on my bunk, look around, and spot a small grille in the ceiling doing almost nothing to stir the dead air. With two grown-ass men in this tiny room, it’s going to feel like a torture chamber in an hour. I should probably find Assistant Coach Han and ask if there’s another bunk with a window that opens, because at least that sounds like a maintenance problem instead of me trying to escape Rodriguez five minutes after Toledo announced no swaps.

Finally, a whistle blows outside, and the train gives a slight jerk as it prepares to leave. I could go looking for Han now, but if Toledo catches me wandering the corridor before we’ve even left the station, he’ll assume I’m trying to trade with somebody. After a loss, that old man is not the person you want to piss off. He has a sick sense of humor and an actual talent for finding new ways to make people suffer.

Case in point: last season, after we lost the Cup to the Wraiths, some of us decided to get revenge for them trashing our cabins at the resort. Long story short, Toledo teamed up with their hard-ass coach and somehow made the whole thing our problem, which is how we ended up working remote rescue stations with the assholes who’d just beaten us. It was a nightmare. Although Roman did hook up with one of their guys, who I’m pretty sure is now his secret boyfriend, so I guess Toledo’s meddling occasionally has positive side effects.

Anyway, I need to wait until the old man goes to sleep. I take out my phone to text Sam and ask what they’re up to, but the service is barely working, which means killing time on Reels isn’t on the menu either.

I sigh, put my phone away, and decide to make my bed so I can sleep, or at least lie down. I know I’m probably going to spend hours staring at the ceiling, dissecting every one of those four missed goals, but I’ve got nothing else to do.

As I take the mattress down from the upper shelf, along with the clean bedding, the train finally pulls out of the station. I don’t look at Rodriguez while I do it, but I’m aware of him standing up behind me. When I glance over my shoulder, he’s making his bed too.

Copycat.

Once my bed is done, I pull a fresh T-shirt and a pair of shorts out of my bag and start changing. Rodriguez finishes with his own bunk and sits down, and for a minute the only sounds are the low rattle beneath the floor and the steady clack of wheels over track.

Then, as I’m peeling off my undershirt, I feel his gaze on me.

I glance over and catch him watching me above the screen of his phone, eyes unreadable. He has this way of staring that doesn’t look curious, exactly. More like he’s collecting data. Filing something away.

I hold his gaze for a beat, waiting for him to say whatever’s on his mind, but he doesn’t. By the time I’ve got my shirt halfway over my head, he’s already looking away, attention back on his screen.

Typical. He looks, says nothing, and leaves me standing there feeling like I’ve been scanned by a machine. Honestly, for his own sake, I hope there’s something going on in that robotic head of his. I hope he’s pissed about tonight’s game. I hope he’s pissed at me, even, because at least that would be something. For a second, I imagine him finally letting it out—snapping, raising his voice, telling me exactly how he thinks I fucked up.