Page 174 of Cross Checked
By the time we finish the final conditioning sprint, sweat is running beneath my pads and my lungs burn with cold air. My body feels better.
My head doesn’t. Ryan notices before anyone else.
He always does.
He’s leaning against the boards near the bench, helmet off, dark hair damp from practice, eyes sharp in a way most people mistake for quiet. Decker doesn’t waste words. He doesn’t fill silence because it makes other people uncomfortable. He grew up with enough hard edges that he recognizes them in other people, which is probably why he and I have always worked. Briggs is chaos. Rider is half chaos, half weaponized grin. Easton is control pretending not to be obsession.
Ryan is the one who sees the thing underneath.
He taps his stick once against the ice. “You gonna tell us why you’re skating like you’re trying to dig a grave?”
“Team meeting,” I say.
Briggs groans immediately. “Oh no. Is this about the group chat? Because I stand by calling it Chirp Kings. Democracy happened.”
“There was no vote,” Rider says.
“There was emotional consensus.”
“From you.”
“I contain multitudes.”
“Locker room,” I say.
That cuts through it. The four of them look at me, and whatever they see in my face kills the jokes fast.
Good.
I strip out of my gear slower than usual, not because I’m stalling but because I need the time to put every word in the right order. The locker room smells like sweat, ice, tape, and the industrial cleaner facilities use to pretend hockey players are not a public health hazard. Guys filter out in bursts of noise, towels over shoulders, showers running, music starting from somebody’s speaker before Coach yells to shut it off.
I wait until it’s just my guys.
Easton sits on the bench across from me, elbows on his knees, listening already. Briggs leans back against his locker, still but not relaxed. Rider is beside him, tape half peeled from one wrist. Ryan stays standing near the end of the row with his arms crossed, watching me like he knows whatever comes next isn’t going to be small.
I look at all of them.
Then I say, “Her ex is a problem.”
Easton’s eyes sharpen instantly. “Bliss?”
“Yeah.”
That one word changes the room. Briggs doesn’t joke. Not even a little.
Because Briggs knows Bliss. He knew her before I did, which is still one of the more terrifying origin stories I’ve heard because the idea of those two near chemicals explains half of Kimball Falls’ infrastructure problems.
“What happened?” Briggs asks.
“Enough.”
Ryan’s gaze doesn’t move from mine. “Define enough.”
I pull my shirt on, drag a towel over the back of my neck, and force myself to stay measured.
“Glory Days has been watching her. Controlling her. Hurting her.” My jaw locks hard enough to ache. “His kind of control leaves bruises.”
The room goes colder than the rink. Easton’s hand curls slowly around the tape in his lap. “Aura knows?”
