Page 57 of Melting the Ice

Gina nodded. “Then we’ll do the final lab report, with our findings. That’ll be the most work, for sure.” She winced. Nodoubt she was thinking of Brody’s tight schedule, but even the prep work for the lab had convinced him that the sacrifices he was making to take his major were worth it.

He enjoyed the classes too much to call it quits.

“We’ll make it work,” Brody promised.

“Alright.” But Brody could see the worry lingering in his friend’s gaze.

“And in three weeks it’s the midterm,” Gina reminded him.

“Yeah, but we got this,” Brody said, shooting her the cockiest smile in his arsenal.

She rolled her eyes, but he could see the rest of her concern melting away, and that was good enough for him.

If Gina thought he could tackle all this, surely hecouldactually do it.

They’d been skating for nearly forty-five minutes, Coach B rattling off formations and drills like he’d been a boot camp instructor in a former life, when Elliott missed the shot.

It was an easy pass from Mal, and should’ve gone right in, but Elliott juggled the puck a second longer than he should’ve, and instead of decisively taking action, he hesitated, and that was all the time Ramsey needed to steal it, skating quick and darting in between Ivan and Elliott then shooting it to Brody.

“Shit,” Mal exclaimed loudly, a frown plastered across his face.

“Sorry,” Elliott muttered, and the whole play fell apart, Coach B skating up and neatly plucking the puck away from Brody.

Rather, Brodylettheir coach take it.

Well, at least that was what Brody told himself. It was less of a blow to his ego, considering he was a player entering the prime of his abilities and Coach must be forty now, and acoach.

Now it wasn’t just Mal frowning, but Coach too, Zach joining him and stopping next to him with an abrupt shower of ice from his skates.

“What’s going on?” he asked mildly.

Coach B did not look mild at all. He looked frustrated, shoving a hand through his dark hair.

“Elliott, what the hell was that?” he demanded.

Elliott just shrugged. He famously hated practice. Brody got that. He hadn’t really been enjoying ithimselflately, which wasn’t really fair, because the team was good and getting better. Probably because of all these brutal-ass practices. But with each practice, Brody felt himself sliding to the edges, struggling to give a shit about what was even happening on the ice.

He was existing in the space between the locker room and the rink, present but not as present as he should’ve been. It wasn’t fair to his team. It wasn’t fair tohim.

So far nobody had called him on it, because he was making as much effort as he could to pretend on the surface that everything was normal.

But everything wasn’t normal.

Hewasn’t normal. Not anymore.

It didn’t help that Coach Blackburn was a stickler and demanded every ounce of effort from his players. So far, Brody had managed to slide under his radar—probably because he’d decided that Elliott, with his famously bad lack of practice dedication, had garnered most of his attention—but he had a feeling those days were numbered.

“Why didn’t you take the shot?” Coach’s voice softened a fraction, but considering the look on his face, it wasn’t much of an improvement.

“I don’t know,” Elliott said, his jaw sticking out. “I’d have taken it in a game. This is just a practice.”

“You should be treating every practice like a game, and every game like a practice.” Brody hadn’t even realized he’d said it out loud, until every eye on the ice swiveled in his direction.

He felt a twinge of guilt that everyone looked so fucking surprised that he’d spoken up. He should be better than this. Heusedto be better than this.

“Exactly,” Coach said with an approving nod in Brody’s direction. “You take that shot, Elliott. You gotta. If you don’t, how will you be sure you’ll do it during a game.”

“I’d do it,” Elliott said. He turned to Malcom. “Come on, Mal. Back me up.”

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