The Icebreaker

Chapter 2: The Golden Boy Everyone Likes

Ridgeway College's locker room smelled like every other hockey locker room in existence... It smelled like a combination of sweat, tape adhesive, and something faintly like a gym bag that had never once been washed.

But Beckett McCallister had always liked it anyway. He liked the noise. He liked the chaos of twenty guys getting dressed at once, half of them arguing about something that didn't matter, the other half pretending not to listen while 7the other half are absolutely listening.

He sat on the bench in front of his stall, lacing up his skates with the kind of practiced ease that didn't require looking down, while across the room his linemate Julian Vasquez narrated, loudly, a story about a girl from his econ class that nobody had asked to hear.

"And then she just walks away, man. Mid-sentence. Who does that?"

"People who don't want to hear the end of your sentence," said Ferris Coyle, Ridgeway's backup goalie, not looking up from his phone.

"Nobody asked you, Coyle."

"Nobody ever asks me. I offer anyway. It's a gift."

Beckett laughed, mostly to himself, and kept lacing. This was the normal rhythm of a pre-game locker room. This kind of noise is comforting for him, as the sound of twenty guys pretending they weren't nervous by talking about anything except the game they were about to play. Beckett had never minded the nerves much. Hockey was the one place where his brain went quiet in a good way, where the only thing that mattered was the next three seconds, not the six other things he was usually juggling in his head.

"You're quiet tonight, Cap," said Julian, flopping down beside him.

"I'm not the captain."

"You're basically the captain. Everyone likes you more than Foster."

"Foster's the captain because he's good at hockey, Julian."

"You're good at hockey too."

"Foster's good at yelling at people. I'm good at hockey and not yelling at people.

Two different skill sets."

Julian laughed, loud enough that a couple of the freshmen glanced over, and Beckett felt the small, familiar tug of being liked without having to try very hard for it. It wasn't something he thought about often, but it was true, and had been true for as long as he could remember...

In high school, in his dorm, on this team. People just seemed to gravitate toward him. He wasn't sure if it was because he was funny, or because he made people feel like they didn't have to perform around him, or just because he was tall enough that gravitating toward him was structurally convenient. Probably some combination.

What people didn't always notice, underneath the easy laugh and the good-natured ribbing, was that Beckett spent an unreasonable amount of time overthinking things nobody would guess he overthought. Like whether he'd said something wrong three conversations ago. Like whether the guys actually respected him or just liked hanging out with him, which felt, to Beckett, like two different things that got confused for each other constantly.

"You seeing anyone?" Julian suddenly asked, which caught him by surprise.

"No."

"Why not? You're, like, objectively a catch. I've heard girls around the campus talking about you."

"I don't know. Haven't found the right person, I guess." Beckett shrugged, tying off his second skate. "Or the right person hasn't found me. One of those."

"That's very poetic for a guy who once ate a whole rotisserie chicken with his hands in this locker room."

"That was one time, Julian."

"But it was memorable!"

Coach Reyes appeared in the doorway before Julio could say anything else, clipboard in hand, the particular scowl he wore before every game that meant business, not anger. "McCallister. Two minutes. I want to talk zone coverage."

Beckett stood, grabbed his stick, and followed the coach out into the hallway that led toward the tunnel, footsteps echoing off cinderblock walls painted in Ridgeway's colors.

"Cedar Falls' d-corps has been sharper than usual the last few games," Coach Reyes said without preamble, tapping the clipboard. "Somebody over there's been calling adjustments mid-period. Smart ones. We got beat on a seam pass two weeks ago that shouldn't have worked, and it worked because they knew exactly where we'd be."

"You think they got a new assistant coach or something?"

"I think somebody over there's paying more attention than they should be allowed to." Reyes shook his head. "Doesn't matter. Just means you and Foster need to mix up the defensive zone starts tonight. Don't give them a pattern to read."

Beckett nodded, filing it away the way he filed most game information... Quickly, thoroughly, and without much fuss. He liked this part of hockey too, the puzzle of it, figuring out what the other team wanted to do and taking it away from them one shift at a time. It was the same instinct that made him good at reading people off the ice, except on the ice it came with a scoreboard to prove he was right.

By the time he skated out for warm ups, the noise of the crowd hit him the way it always did. It was not overwhelming exactly, just present, a low roar that made the whole building feel alive. Cedar Falls' side of the rink was already half full, students filing into the bleachers in packs, and Beckett let his eyes drift over the crowd out of habit more than curiosity, the way a person scans a room without expecting to find anything in particular.

He didn't notice the small windowed booth above section C. There was no reason he would have. It wasn't the kind of thing you saw unless you already knew to look for it, and Beckett McCallister, gliding through his warm-up laps with the easy confidence of someone who'd never once had to wonder if people liked him, had absolutely no reason yet to look.

"Yo, Beckett." Julian skated up alongside him, matching his pace. "You good? You've got the face again."

"What face?"

"The thinking-too-hard face. You get it before every game against these guys."

"I don't have a face, Julian."

"You have several faces. This is one of them."

Beckett shook his head, half-smiling, he let the conversation drop the way he let most things drop... Easily, without needing the last word, because that was simply who he was. Easygoing, well-liked, the guy who made friends without trying and never had to think twice about whether people wanted him around.

The horn finally made a sound, and Beckett skated back toward the bench with nothing on his mind except the game in front of him... Three seconds at a time, the way he liked it best.