Chapter 1 New Teammate

ETHAN'S POV

I kissed him like I was starving, and then I made myself forget his face on purpose.

It was raining hard that night. There was music playing, we were both drinking, and his hands were cold when they went under my shirt. He tasted like mint, and right before everything went black he whispered something about maybe next summer.

The ref's whistle snapped me back to the present.

My name is Ethan Drake. I'm number 19 and the captain of the Ridgewood Wolves. There were three thousand people in the building, and every one of them knew exactly where I was the second I stepped out of the tunnel.

The student section started chanting my name right away—Drake, Drake, Drake—and the sound hit my pads hard. I didn't look at the Jumbotron because I already knew my face was up there. Half the jerseys in the stands had my name on the back, and when that many people are staring at you, you can feel it.

I took a cold breath of rink air and dug my edges into the ice. Everything else in a place like this can mess with your head, but the cold never does.

"Eyes up," I said in the voice Coach likes. "We finish the way we started. Nothing sloppy."

Asher Kane tapped his stick against mine. He's our right wing and my best friend since freshman year. "You good, Cap?"

"Always," I said. Then, because he would notice if I sounded too perfect, I added, "Ask me again after we close this out."

The whistle blew. I won the face-off clean and sent the puck back before their center even moved. We pushed forward and the crowd came up out of their seats. Everything felt sharp and alive. My stick was out and I already knew where the puck was going half a second before it got there.

We had six minutes left in the second period and we were up 2–1 on Eastern Michigan. The score didn't mean much though. One bad shift and the scouts upstairs would start writing about my leadership instead of my play.

One messed-up line change and the letter sitting on my desk at home—the one I'd already read eleven times—would turn into a polite no. I'd built the whole season around that letter. I couldn't lose it over one shift.

I passed the puck to Asher tape-to-tape. He carried it over the blue line, faked twice, and shot. The goalie kicked it wide. I was already crashing the net and put my shoulder into their defenseman. The rebound sat loose in the crease. My stick found it before I even thought about it, and I jammed it under the bar.

The goal light went on and the horn blasted. We were up 3–1.

The whole building lost its mind.

I didn't give them the big smile that hangs on the poster outside the athletic center. I just skated to the bench, tapped gloves down the line, and kept my face exactly where the cameras wanted it. I was already thinking about the next shift. Keeping the machine running was the job.

What if they knew?

I pushed the thought down hard and sat. There was the scholarship. There was the letter I'd read eleven times. And under all of it was the thing some guy in a stranger's basement figured out about me last summer in under a minute because I let him.

"Drake," Coach Harlan called through the noise. "Line change. Stay sharp."

I came over the boards with legs that felt heavier than they should. Asher put a water bottle in my hand without saying anything. He always knows. I drank half of it, wiped my mouth on the back of my glove, and looked out at the ice.

The PA system crackled.

"Entering for the Wolves—number 7, Ares Cole!"

The crowd gave him more of a confused "huh" than a real cheer. His name had been floating around the locker room all week. He was a transfer from some program out west who showed up mid-season. There was some situation nobody would talk about. Coach called him talented and difficult and left it at that. I decided it wasn't my problem.

Then he stepped over the boards.

He didn't jog. He glided like the ice had been waiting for him. He was about six-two, maybe taller, built for contact but still light on his edges. Dark tattoos ran down both of his forearms under the sleeves. His helmet was buckled tight. He didn't look at the bench and he didn't look at the crowd.

Three thousand people were watching him and he moved like none of them had any claim on him at all. He took center ice like the spot had always been his.

The puck dropped. He won the draw before their center finished thinking about it, spun, and carried it straight through our defense before they even set. Two strides into the slot, with no look and no hesitation, he ripped a wrist shot top shelf on the glove side. It was clean. The goalie's blocker barely moved.

The goal light went on and the horn sounded. We were up 4–1.

The arena completely lost it.

Ares skated back at the exact same pace he'd left at. No fist pump. No helmet tap. Nothing. He'd just scored on a ranked team in his first forty seconds wearing a Wolves sweater and his face didn't change at all—not for the ice, not for the noise, and not for the goal.

He passed our line. His eyes came up once and held mine for less than a second.

I looked away first. This was my rink. My name was on the back of every jersey in the stands. And I still looked away first.

"Cole!" Coach clapped hard over the noise. "That's the standard right there!"

The bench cheered. Asher elbowed me. "Kid doesn't mess around."

"No," I said. It came out a little off, so I fixed it. "He doesn't. Good for us."

I sat down. My knees wouldn't stay still under the pads. The scar on my lip—the one that had been healed smooth for months—pulled tight in the cold. I pressed my tongue against the inside of it. It was an old habit I thought I'd stopped.

Ares dropped onto the far end of the bench. Sweat was already dark at the edge of his helmet. He peeled off one glove and flexed his hand twice, first the knuckles and then the fingers. The tattoos moved with it. They looked like sharp black lines, maybe a constellation. It was hard to tell from where I was sitting.

Then I saw it.

There was a scar. A thin white line running through the curve of his lower lip.

The rain. The basement. The mint taste. That same scar catching against my mouth right before everything went black last summer.

No. That wasn't possible.

He glanced up. I hadn't looked away fast enough. The corner of his mouth twitched—not quite a smile—and then it was gone before the crowd finished roaring about a goal that was already thirty seconds old.

I turned back to the ice, tightened my gloves, and watched the puck.

The whistle blew for the next face-off. I pushed off the bench and kept my voice exactly where it needed to be.

"Let's go, Wolves."

I vaulted the boards. My skates bit into the ice. I had forty seconds until the puck dropped and I spent every one of them repeating the same three lines I always used. You're fine. You're in control. The armor holds.

Ares Cole had been in a Wolves jersey for under a minute and the game already felt different.

I wasn't going to look into it. I was going to skate harder, hit cleaner, and keep every part of the picture I'd spent two years building locked down tight. The golden boy didn't crack. Not under these lights. Not in front of three thousand people who thought they knew exactly who they were looking at.

The final horn sounded. We won 5–2. The locker room filled with shouting and shoulder slaps and music turned up way too loud. I barely heard any of it. I sat at my stall unlacing my skates with hands that kept fumbling the laces and watched the steam come off my pads.

"Drake," Coach Harlan called through the noise. "My office. Bring the new guy."

I looked up.

Ares Cole stood by the door with his helmet under one arm. His dark hair was damp and messy. The grin finally showed up—small and private and aimed straight across the room at me and nobody else.

"Welcome to the team," Coach said, clapping him on the shoulder.

Ares's eyes found mine.

"We've met before."

Three words. Half the room was close enough to hear them and not one person was looking our way.

I stopped breathing.