Page 144 of Jaded

But if it were Charlie or Dev or anybody else on this team, I’d say something. Granted, I wouldn’tknowthe same way I know with Nat because it’s not like I have Charlie sixth sense—

Damn. I’m spiraling.

I stand up too fast, nearly knock myself over despite my many, many years of athletic prowess on skates. I don’t even have my jersey on, but it doesn’t matter ’cause I need to get out of here before I overthink myself into a true doom spiral.

I pull my jersey on as I hit the ice, but even from the get-go, I know I’m gonna be off.

Coach’s whistle cuts through my meandering thoughts, and we’re lining up for warm-up suicides.

I’m last.

Every time, last. I’m the guy who strives to be the fastest on the ice, every time—and I usually achieve it. But today, I’m flat-footed. Off.

We run drills with our lines—me with Charlie and Devereaux—and I miss the first pass, forcing Charlie to circle back to retrieve it, then my second pass slides too far behind Dev, so the whole line has to throw on the brakes to avoid an offsides.

Coach’s angry whistle has us all slinking to the bench.

My game doesn’t improve.

The Zam doors open, and we gather up our practice sticks, water bottles, discarded pucks. A few stay behind to help with the nets, and the rest tumble off in a tired, sweaty line of players who’ve been run ragged. The smell follows them down the hall and into the locker room.

But me? I’m the idiot who heads for the Zam door instead. Because that’s where Nat’s gonna be, and I gotta bug him, at least once more.

There he is, beside the Zam, like a beautiful tattooed specter.

At first glance, he looks just like he always does—jeans and leather jacket, backwards hat, mouth pulled into a slight scowl—but as I step off the ice in front of him and his gaze tips up towards me, I know it’s different.

Nat Taylor sixth sense, amiright?

The look on his face is . . . empty. Hollow. Like something that once was has gone missing.

“Olli.” His words sound as hollow as his face looks—resigned.

“All right, what’s up?” I ask. “Something’s going on. Tell me you didn’t put in your two weeks’ with the rink or something nutso.”

His jaw flexes with tension, and he looks away. “No, nothing nutso.”

The coldness of his voice is like a knife, but I remind myself it’s not about me. I know his type—when something goes wrong, he clams up like a fortress of masks and walls and pointy defenses. Impossible to breach.

Maybe that means I should walk away, let him stew. But that’s never been my style.

“Look, I know you didn’t want to talk last night.” I fumble my words. “But if you change your mind . . . I want to listen.”

I expect another scoff, but those blazing green eyes meet mine once again. Hold for an instant—before they drop to his hands. Or maybe the ink etched across them. Or the scars on his knuckles. “Sure. Thanks.”

“I’m serious.” My words hang between us, like bricks tossed onto ice that hasn’t quite frozen through—threatening to crack whatever this thing is between us. “I know what it means to be drowned in darkness.”

Nat regards me with an unreadable expression for a few too-long moments. Is he thinking about when he found me in the dark, dragged me back into the light?

Maybe, because at long last, he sighs. Tilts his shoulders back against the Zam. When he starts to talk, my heart leaps into my throat.

“Jess is back in town,” he says, the words hollow, toneless. “He invited Syd to his house. I reacted—overreacted? I don’t know. But she’s mad, and I’m mad.”

“Oh.” My chest clenches painfully tight with a trippy combination of sorrow and joy. And confusion. And curiosity. And caution. “That’s a lot of . . . feelingsy stuff.”

“Yeah, I guess you could say that.” His mouth twists in a humorless, wry smile. “Clearly I’m handling it well.”

I sidle up to lean my side against the Zam too.

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