Cole POV
Theo blows the whistle on the final set and I let myself coast to a stop at the near boards, breathing hard. Around me the team breaks — sticks collected, water bottles grabbed, the low murmur of post-practice talk starting up the way it always does when the structure lifts and everyone remembers they're people again. I stay on the ice a beat longer than necessary, the way I always do. The cold is easier to think in. The noise of the locker room can wait.
It can't wait forever.
I pull my gloves off on the way to the tunnel and follow the team in.
The locker room fills around me — two of the rookies already arguing about something that has nothing to do with practice, steam pushing through from the showers, the clatter of gear hitting the floor. The specific noise of twenty me
