Page 8 of Cross Checked
Easton’s grin softened in a way most people wouldn’t have noticed. I noticed because Easton did very few things by accident. He played goalie like he was built out of patience and quiet rage, all calm hands and cold reads, and he handled his personal life with almost the same discipline.
Almost.
Aura was the exception.
She had been the exception since sophomore year, when she’d told him he had the emotional range of a locked filing cabinet, and from that moment forward, she became the reason he woke up every day determined to embarrass himself with dignity. He was down bad for her and Aura knew it, though she couldn’t be bothered to give a single fuck.
“I told her it wasn’t a party,” he whispered.
I blinked once. “You lied.”
“I reframed.”
“You lied to a pre-law student.”
“Future lawyer,” he corrected. “Which means she appreciates wording.”
“She’s going to end you.”
“Probably. But she’ll have to show up first.”
Against my will, my mouth threatened another smile.
Coach Little turned from the board so fast half the room sat up straighter from reflex alone. “Wade, since you’re so chatty today, why don’t you tell me what our defensive priority is coming into preseason?”
Easton leaned back lazily. “Clean exits, tighter neutral zone pressure, no lazy turnovers at the blue line, and if Briggspinches without support, you’re making him bag skate until he sees deceased relatives.”
Briggs lifted both hands. “I feel attacked.”
“You are,” Coach said.
The room cracked open with laughter again, and I let the sound move around me without fully joining it. This was the part people never understood about Hockey House, about us, about the strange social machine KFU had built around the Fury. From the outside, it probably looked ridiculous. A bunch of overgrown boys with scholarships, draft talk, team-issued gear, too much attention, and a house on Athlete Row that had somehow become more myth than residence.
But KFU worshipped winners, and the Fury had been winning long enough for the whole school to start confusing us with tradition.
Hockey House sat at the end of Athlete Row like it owned the street because, in a lot of ways, it did. Football had size. Basketball had flash. Baseball had their loyal little ecosystem. But hockey had the mythology. Frozen winters, sold-out student sections, pink-black-and-yellow Fury merch everywhere, girls in cropped jerseys at games, old alumni with deep pockets, and a campus that acted like our season was a civic religion.
My father hated it.
Not the popularity. Harrison Mercer loved popularity when it could be monetized, polished, framed, and handed back to donors as legacy. He hated the mess of it. The cheap beer, the music, the bodies packed into rooms, the lack of control. He had spent my entire childhood building towers in Manhattan with his name etched into marble and glass, creating spaces so cold and perfect they felt less like buildings and more like warnings. Mercer Development did not do chaos. Mercer men did not do chaos. We did control, achievement, precision, silence, and thekind of success that looked impressive in photographs because nobody could hear how empty the room was.
Hockey House would have made him itch. Which was probably one of the reasons I tolerated it.
“Captain and alternates,” Coach Little said, pulling me back before my thoughts could go anywhere useful or dangerous. “This part is on you. I don’t care how talented this roster is. Talent is cheap if discipline doesn’t come with it. Mercer, Decker, Lawson—you set the standard. I suspect you’ll have Wade and Rider acting as additional alts. If freshmen act stupid, that’s on you. If this team comes in soft, that’s on you. If somebody’s ego gets bigger than the crest on their chest, handle it before I have to.”
Briggs raised a hand. “For clarification, when you say handle it—”
“I mean leadership, Lawson, not whatever felony-adjacent nonsense just formed in your head.”
“Good note.”
I looked across the room at Ryan Decker my closest friend since we were freshmen on the ice together. He sat near the wall with arms folded and a face that suggested he considered smiling a waste of body energy. He gave me one short nod. He understood. He always did. The team could laugh, party, and let the campus turn us into a spectacle, but when we stepped inside the glass, everything narrowed. That was the cleanest part of my life. Boards, ice, puck, bodies, timing. No guessing. No smiling because someone expected it. No pretending warmth existed where it didn’t. Just motion and consequence.
Hockey made sense in a way people rarely did and Bliss Bennett made less sense than most people, which might have been the problem.
Or the appeal.
I didn’t like how quickly the thought of her adjusted the pressure under my ribs. I didn’t like that one casual sentence from Easton had changed the mood of my entire night. Ten minutes ago, I would’ve gone to Hockey House because it was expected. Captain shows face. Captain keeps freshmen from being idiots. Captain makes sure nobody breaks anything expensive, embarrassing, or attached to a donor’s kid.
