Page 3 of Power Play

“No way,” Cole said, shaking his head. “This day is spectacular.”

“Run the drill, Westbrook,” Coach yelled.

Iris surveyed the ice with evident satisfaction and then held the whistle out to Calloway at arm’s length. He gestured for her to keep it without comment and pointed at the ice with two fingers. Practice resumed. We’ll probably all regret that decision.

Maren Callahan arrived somewhere in the middle of the practice. I knew before I saw her because Griffin’s posture changed, a fraction of ease moving through his shoulders. Ryan skated lazily to the boards without hurry. He leaned toward Maren and she said something low and he exhaled through his nose, the short, compressed version of a laugh he kept on a tight leash, and she looked up at him with easy warmth and adoration. Ryan grabbed her by the back of the head and kissed her. A kiss that wasn’t meant for an audience. A pang of jealousy ran through me quickly and then went out.

Griffin skated up next to me.

“Every single time,” he said, not to anyone specifically. He gestured at Ryan and Maren with his stick. “Every time. In front of everyone.”

Maren turned. Her hair was down today, loose past her shoulders, her skin the deep Arizona tan she’d probably carried since childhood. She looked at her brother with the flat patience she’d been reflecting toward him for her whole life, I assumed.

“If that’s your idea of making out,” she said, “I genuinely understand why you’re still single.” Then, she scratched her nose with her middle finger.

The laugh from the ice was collective and immediate, all of us, including me, recognizing a perfect burn. Ryan barked out a laugh and shrugged his shoulders at Griffin, who was going to have to live with it. Ryan and Maren had come clean about having been together most of last season, and Griffin had been handling the news about as well as any man handles finding out his best friend has been dating his sister in secret. But they’d all come to terms with it. Ryan lazily skated away from Maren backward and winked at her. They were fucking cute and I’d clocked it long before anyone said a thing and truthfully was glad it all worked out and now they were engaged.

Calloway, in his chair next to Iris, didn’t smile. The corner of his lips twitched once. I was certain it was a tell that he wanted to laugh.

Iris blew the whistle.

Griffin pointed at her. “Don’t.”

Iris looked at Calloway with my dark eyes, direct and unmoved, and placed the whistle into his outstretched hand with ceremony. She folded her hands in her lap and returned to the drawing.

Maren reached Iris and crouched down to her level, relaxed, like she had nowhere else to be.

“What are you drawing?”

“A dragon,” Iris said. “His wings are orange because orange is the best. Coach said. Also, Gerald is orange.”

Maren looked at Calloway, who had apparently endorsed orange.

Her eyes found me on the ice.

“She can hang out with me,” Maren said. “It’s too cold to be in here all morning.”

“Are you sure? She’ll be fine there with her bag of…stuff.” Maren was right though, I forgot to pack the one thing she’d need for a couple hours at the rink, and it was a sweatshirt or jacket. It was so hard to remember when it was a hundred degrees outside and I made a mental note to keep one in the car for her.

“I’m totally sure.” She turned back to Iris. “Would you like to come hang out with me? We can give Gerald a checkup in my office.”

Iris looked to me. I gave her a nod.

She stood up, collected her dragon and her coloring book, and put her hand in Maren’s without hesitation. Maren grabbed the backpack, and the two of them headed for the stands, Iris already explaining something at volume.

“See ya, boys!” Maren called over her shoulder.

“Yeah, see ya boys!” Iris parroted.

I huffed out a laugh. She was something. I was less worried about her spending the rest of practice with Maren than about her hanging around in here.

Calloway put his whistle to his mouth and gave it a sharp blow. “Back to work.”

Griffin went first, but not without glancing back twice, once at Ryan and once in the direction Maren and Iris had gone. I hadn’t expected how much it would affect me. Iris’s hand in Maren’s, the easy way she’d gone, like she was used to finding the person who would take it. I wished that for her with her own mother.

Cole dropped into position beside me for the next drill.

“She ran that practice like it was hers,” Cole said. “Like she’s been watching and knew exactly what to do.”