Page 65 of Married As Puck
I don’t answer. Because I know he’s right—I know this is bigger than I’m letting on. But the idea of letting anyone see just how much Jack is getting to me? That feels worse than the sabotage itself.
So I shove the fear down, lace it up tight with my skates, and tell myself I’ll deal with Jack the only way I know how.
By burning him on the ice.
Coach’s whistle screams like an alarm and everything snaps into focus. The rink is suddenly a grid of lines and threat; the boards hum; the air smells like cold and metal and sweat. I skate out onto the ice and the world narrows to two things: the puck and the net.
“Gray! Eyes up!” Coach’s voice booms from the bench, sharp enough to cut through the noise. “Harder on the fore check! Don’t let up on the middle lane!”
I push off, blade biting in, lungs burning. Keith’s words keep replaying in the back of my head—watch your back—but out here there’s no room for paranoia. There’s only movement. I skate the pattern Coach yells, over and over: shuttle sprints, tight turns, two-on-ones, breakaways. Every drill is a metronome I set faster and faster until my legs are a blur.
“Crash the net!” someone, I think Tommy, yells, and I drive the slot like a battering ram, shoulder into shoulder with the defense. The puck snaps across to me and I don’t think. I shoot. The puck slams off the crossbar and drops in. Net rattles. For a second there’s nothing but the pure, carved joy of it. The crowd of players whoop, and a few of the guys holler more because it hit the bar than because I scored. Doesn’t matter. It lands.
Coach watches, eyes narrowed. He can tell when a player is different. He walks the length of the ice, never taking his gaze off me for long.
“Keep that aggression,” he shouts between drills. “Focus it. Don’t let it own you.”
I hear him and turn it inward.Focus it. Don’t let it own you.
I skate harder, burying the chaos under muscle memory. The slap of stick on puck, the squeal of skate on ice, the bark of a teammate’s laugh—these are the only absolutes I’ll accept.
Keith’s in my ear sometimes—small adjustments, a nod when I tilt my shoulder right, a quick tap on the shin when I drift. He sees the way I throw my body into contact like I’m trying to punch a hole through whatever’s biting at my throat.
“Good,” he says after one drill, chin up, respect there even under the surface worry. “Channel it.”
We run the board-drill three times, each circuit tighter, more violent. Jack’s shadow is always present in the peripheral, laughing with the other forwards, shrugging like he’s bored. He skates well enough. He’s got speed. But there’s a jolt every time I cut past him, like every muscle in me remembers his words and answers with extra force.
Coach calls for a scrimmage. The bench swaps, and I’m on a line with two kids who are all energy and no fear. My stick moves before my head does. I bait a defender, fake left, open to the seam, and roll through. The puck finds my tape, and I go barreling into the slot. Some part of me—something older and uglier—thinks of Jack’s grin and the half-line he threw at me, and my shoulder explodes into the defenseman. I hear the grunt that means contact landed. Pain—sweet, satisfying pain. The kind that says you did damage and took it too.
The scrimmage is blur and impact. A pass threaded through gets me a breakaway. I wind up and rip the puck home, blade whispering across the ice as I decelerate. Coach slams a fist into his palm, a rare smile cracking his stern mask.
“That’s the Gray I know!” he yells. It’s approval and order and it tastes like something I can hang on to.
Between shifts I breathe and let the burn flood me like gasoline. My hands tremble a little as I grab a water bottle. Sweat stings my eyes. West claps me on the back. “You’re locked in, man. Whatever’s got you, use it.”
And use it, I do. Everything after Coach’s whistle is purpose. The drills become smaller, sharper, cleaner. I don’t skate to escape Jack’s voice, I skate to beat it. To make sure the only story anyone remembers from the game is what I did on the ice, not what some jealous idiot muttered in the locker room.
“You alright?” Coach asks. Simple. No pity. He’s not asking if I’m hurt, he’s asking if my head is in the game.
“Yeah,” I say, but my voice is raw. I don’t tell him about the blade. I don’t tell him about Jack’s taunting, not because I don’t trust him, but because I don’t want to hand Jack the satisfaction of seeing me frayed. “I’m fine. Just want this one. Want it bad.”
He studies me like he’s weighing me up, then gives a curt nod. “Good. Keep that. Use it smart. We need you focused the whole forty—no flash, no noise. Be the rock.”
I nod, and something in me steadies. I plan to keep going until my legs no longer question the motion, until my reflexes are louder than doubt. Until I can turn whatever Jack aims at me into fuel and not fuel into fire.
When we skate off, my limbs ache the right way. My chest is full from exertion and something else—something sharp and disciplined. Jack’s bluffing games haven’t won anything yet. Not today.
Back in the locker room, when I’m stripping gear and peeling off the sweat-sticky jersey, Keith’s voice drops again. “I’ll keep watching him,” he says, matter-of-fact. “You keep doing what you do.”
I look at myself in the bench mirror, face flushed, eyes bright with the focused kind of hunger. Whatever comes, I’ll be ready.
I step into the house, rolling my shoulders to ease out the stiffness. My body’s still humming with the rush of the near-miss with my skates, Keith’s warning echoing in my head.
The smell of something savory hits me before I even make it to the living room, and when I peek into the kitchen, I stop dead.
Brie’s there, swaying to the music blasting from the speaker. An oversized shirt drapes lazily over her frame, paired with shorts that are criminally short. Her hair is messy from a long day, her bare legs catching the light as she dances, and I swear my brain just short-circuits.
I don’t even think. Instinct takes over.
