Austin
Practice ran late, because of course it did. Coach decided halfway through drills that we’d “lost focus” and made us run sprints until Lucas was cursing under his breath and even Joey shut up for once. By the time we hit the showers, the sun was already dropping behind the rink.
I felt it in my shoulders as I rolled them. The slow, grinding ache that said I’d worked hard. The good kind of pain.
Dawson was sitting on the bench outside the locker room, binder balanced on her knee, head bent low as she scribbled something furiously.
She hadn’t even noticed me coming out. Which was…weirdly typical. She had a way of getting so absorbed that the world might as well not exist. I watched for a second longer than I meant to. She was chewing the edge of her lip, brows furrowed, hair fall
