Page 132 of Power Play
I fucked it.
No excuses. No spin. No cheeky joke to soften the blow. I saw the pain in her eyes and I put it there.
I stop mid-lap and lean my forehead against the plexiglass, breathing hard. I’m skating harder lately. Lifting heavier. Listening more in drills. Not because I want a pat on the back, but because it’s the only place I don’t feel like I’m drowning.
The rest of the team start filing in around seven-thirty, bleary-eyed and yawning. Ollie trips over the threshold, spills his coffee, and swears like a teenager pretending to be tough. Jacko laughs andoffers him one of those weird protein banana muffins he bakes with actual affection.
Coach and Jonno roll in five minutes later with clipboards and the kind of expressions that mean no one’s going to be walking tomorrow.
“Hope you like pain, lads,” Coach says. “We’re starting with suicides and finishing with hell.”
He wasn’t kidding.
An hour later, we’re dripping and gasping through alternating circuits of suicides, sled pushes, and those stupid resistance bands that make you feel like you’ve wet yourself. My lungs are screaming. My legs feel like they’re on fire. And still, I push harder.
“Murph, you trying to win the bloody Olympics?” Ollie pants beside me as we collapse in a heap after the final sprint.
“Trying not to think,” I mutter, wiping sweat off my brow.
“Think about what?” he asks, deadpan.
I shoot him a look. He knows. They all know.
But no one says her name. Not unless I do.
We hit the showers groaning and limping, and by the time we’re out, Coach’s mood has mellowed. A little.
“Good work today,” he says. “Game’s gonna be brutal. I want your heads in it.”
Mine already is. It’s just also stuck somewhere in the hallway outside Sophie’s flat, where she looked at me like I was a stranger.
We end up at the pub that night.
Team tradition. Post-training decompression with too many wings and half the table still wearing compression socks under their jeans. I slide into the booth next to Jacko, who’s already got a plate of triple-cooked chips and is midway through explaining his latest Bake-Off-inspired disaster.
“I tried to do that mirror glaze thing,” he says, tearing open a packet of ketchup. “Ended up with something that resembled a melted jellyfish.”
“That’s hot,” I say.
Ollie grins. “You bake like you fight, messy but entertaining.”
“Say that again and I’ll ice your laces together,” Jacko mutters, but there’s no heat to it. Just the usual rhythm of our back-and-forth.
Mia slides into the booth across from me, already sipping something with a lemon wedge. She raises an eyebrow. “You look like you’ve been hit by a truck.”
“Coach’s idea of fun,” I say. “That, or karma.”
She hums. Doesn’t disagree. That’s Mia for you. No bullshit. No sympathy unless you earn it.
Dylan shows up fifteen minutes later, hoodie up, hat low, carrying the weight of someone who’s spent a lot of time lately inside his own head. He nods at the table, then drops into the seat beside Mia, who gives him a quiet smile.
The conversation shifts. Someone starts a debate over who has the worst taste in music. Ollie gets roasted for his love of early 2000s emo. Jacko admits to crying over Adele once. And I laugh, properly laugh, for the first time in what feels like a month.
But when the banter dies down and the others peel off to the bar or the loo, Dylan stays put. His drink untouched. His gaze fixed on me.
“You alright?” he asks eventually.
I blink. “Yeah. Why?”
