Page 24 of Hearts on Ice
“You’re vibrating,” Jester called. “If that seat levitates, I’m switching.”
“It’s his first road swing with us,” JB said from the front. “Let him vibrate a little.”
Carter flushed, then stared out at the hills. “It’s not the bus. My folks said they’re streaming the games. Sometimes that… gets in my head.”
Miguel dipped his chin. “Pick one thing for tonight. One. Not five. Not a list. Just one.”
“Backcheck, don’t fly the zone,” Carter said immediately, like he’d been rehearsing it.
“That’s two,” Miguel said, mouth curving. “Pick.”
“Backcheck.”
“Good.” Miguel’s fingers found the low E again. “Then when your brain tries to juggle, say it again.”
Carter nodded, knee slowing. Maybe it was the music that was settling him.
Sam leaned into the aisle, voice mild in a way that it never quite was. “Or you could just score early and we can all relax.”
Justin, our twenty-two-year-old center, flicked a peanut at him. “He’ll score when you actually pass it to his stick, Sammy.”
Sam smirked and retreated. I let it pass. Eighty percent of coaching is choosing which fires you actually need to stamp out.
The bus smelled like diesel and coffee and a dozen different brands of gum. The window glass buzzed against its rubber frame. I watched the team arrange itself into habits—Tank’s hoodie and nap, Jester’s chirps. And Miguel… close enough that I could hear the soft drag of his thumb on nylon, close enoughthat his quiet steadied more than Carter. He didn’t look at me. He didn’t have to. Some people take the room with volume. He used gravity.
“Giants will try to outskate us wide,” I said to JB, keeping my voice low. “Let’s tighten the neutral zone and make them come through bodies. PP meeting in the hotel conference room at four.”
“Copy that,” he said, scribbling the reminder on his pad. “You want Tank with Jester to start or split them?”
“Start them,” I said. “Trembley rides right. Carter left. Justin centers. Keep Sam in the extra slot.”
He nodded. “You going to tell him or do I?”
“I’ll do it.” I glanced back down the aisle. Sam had his earbuds in now, head tipped back, probably pretending sleep. “Later.”
San Diego’s arena rose up from the flat sprawl like a shed someone overbuilt, palm trees marching along the lot line. We rolled to the loading dock and the bus sighed in relief. Inside, the air sharpened to cold metal and scraped rubber. The locker room was smaller than at home—two tight rows of stalls, overhead fluorescents humming. The first skate would come fast.
“Drop your bags,” I told the team. “We’ve got an hour to the morning twirl. Don’t be cute—hydrate, stretch, then tape. Meeting at four. Trembley, Carter, get your special teams packets from JB.”
Miguel’s shoulder had behaved since Lily worked it after the Calgary game, but I watched him anyway as he set his guitar down and began the slow armor of layers.
He didn’t glance my way, but there was a tiny shift—the kind that said he knew I was watching, even if he pretended not to.
His mouth stayed relaxed, his movements unhurried. Some days I could read tension in the smallest twitch; today, he gave me nothing.
*****
I’d been sitting in the hotel lobby, killing time before the afternoon meeting, a legal pad open on the table beside a half-finished coffee. Travel days always scrambled my head; sometimes putting things on paper helped straighten the lines.
The elevator chimed, and Miguel stepped out in a team hoodie and a pair of sneakers, hair still damp from a quick shower. He clocked the notes, the pen, the coffee going cold beside me.
“Homework?” he asked, low.
“San Diego,” I said. “They get reckless when they’re short-handed. If we stay patient, there’s room to work.”
He leaned his elbows on the back of the opposite chair. “You want me in that meeting?”
“Yes.” I didn’t bother dressing it up. “You see things from the crease the packets can’t teach.”
