Page 72 of Gap Control

When we finally pulled apart, his voice was low. "You're keeping it?"

I patted my pocket. "Locker shrine. Right next to the chipped mouthguard I've been carrying since October and the puck from that goal I scored where I technically tripped."

He laughed, full and real. "You're impossible."

"Don't I know it?" I said, already walking backward toward the exit. "See you tomorrow, sketchboy."

He flipped me off, but he was smiling when he did it.

Back home, after a long shower and the kind of dinner you eat standing up over the sink—cold pasta and leftover rotisserie chicken—I started digging through the drawer in my nightstand.

The sketch had been sitting on the coffee table all evening. Out in the open, not hidden. Quiet. Like it was waiting to see what I'd do with it.

I picked it up again. Unfolded it. The lines were rough, quick, but somehow still got everything right. The set of my shoulders.The curl of my mouth. The parts of me that only come out in motion, in the noise and blur of the game.

Heart of the Forge.

Mason had seen something I didn't always see in myself. And he'd put it on paper like it deserved to be remembered.

I didn't have a trophy shelf. I wasn't that guy. I did have a little box in the nightstand drawer—old wristbands, a puck from my first junior league goal, and a matchbook from a dive bar in New Hampshire with a weird jukebox and the best grilled cheese I'd ever eaten.

I pulled the box out and opened it.

There it was: a napkin from the Thai place Brady dragged us to for a fake PR date. It still had a faded ring from Mason's iced tea and a grease mark from egg rolls. I'd meant to toss it, but I hadn't.

I wrapped the sketch in it. Folded them together, careful as hell, and placed the bundle inside.

No ceremony. No deep breath. Just a quiet click as I closed the drawer.

I didn't put it there because I was hiding it. I put it there because I needed to keep it.

Chapter sixteen

Mason

Some games didn't feel like contests. They felt like bad karma wearing a jersey. We were in Augusta, the hockey city where optimism went to die.

The rink was colder than ours, but not in a crisp, energizing way—more like the heat had given up halfway through warmups and decided never to return. The lights were harsh, the ice was bumpy, and the fans had that special kind of hometown bloodlust that meant they would boo us during the national anthem.

By the end of the first period, my ribs were screaming from two clean hits and a not-so-clean elbow that the refs somehow missed. By the middle of the second, the scoreboard read 3–0. And by the start of the third, we all resigned ourselves to the kind of night it was.

The hit came at center ice as I reached for a loose puck. I saw number 22 too late—he was built like an oversized refrigerator. I didn't fall, but I spun, tasted blood, and knew instantly my lip was split.

"Fuck," I muttered when I got to the bench, voice muffled by the towel TJ pressed against my mouth.

"That bad?" His brows pinched, like maybe he'd felt it, too.

"You should see the other guy," I lied, hoping TJ might relax.

He smirked. "Just say the word, and I'll skate over and insult his dog."

"Tempting."

The rest of the period ground on like a slow death. Our passes were sloppy, the sticks felt heavy, and every whistle seemed to come a second too late.

We didn't even pretend it was a good game when the final buzzer came. After a few stick taps in the handshake line, we quietly trudged to the locker room.

Coach MacPherson didn't yell. That's how we knew he was pissed. He walked in, hair a bit wild under his backward cap, and clapped once, loud and sharp.

---