Not Doing

Chapter 3: The Captain's Problem

On Friday, Leo Moretti was not twenty-six minutes late.

He was not late at all, because he never showed up.

I waited until 3:52, seventeen minutes past the point of dignity, with my highlighters lined up in rainbow order. Mr. Okafor eventually lowered his newspaper.

"If you're waiting for Mr. Moretti, I'd suggest checking the ice. Practice started at three. The Warriors have a game tomorrow night."

"He knew that? When he said Friday?"

"I imagine he did."

I gathered my things with great, controlled calm. I was not angry. Anger was inefficient. I was simply going to give a certain hockey captain a very clear, very reasonable piece of my mind.

The Westbrook Ice Arena sat at the far edge of the school grounds. I'd never gone inside.

The cold hit me first, clean and sharp as a slap, smelling of metal and rubber. Then the sound: blades hissing, a puck cracking against the boards, and a gravelly voice barking, "Again! Reyes, you're sleeping out there, wake up!"

I climbed the concrete steps to the stands and stopped at the top, one hand on the railing.

And I forgot what I'd come to say.

Twenty players moved across the ice in a pattern so fast and precise it looked choreographed. And in the center of it, unmistakable even under a helmet, was Leo.

He didn't skate like other people walk. He skated like the ice had been waiting for him. A defender lunged, and Leo just wasn't there. A flick of his wrists, a twist of his shoulders, and he'd slid through a gap I couldn't even see, and the puck was already sailing to a teammate who hadn't finished asking for it.

He wasn't smiling. That was what got me. His face, through the cage, was calm. Focused. Almost peaceful.

It was the first time I'd seen him not performing. No smirk. No one to prove anything to.

I sat down without deciding to.

"He's good, isn't he?"

I jumped. A freckled boy in a Warriors sweatshirt sprawled across two seats a few rows below, water bottle in hand. "Danny Reyes. Left wing. Leo's best friend, unfortunately. You're the tutor."

"How do you know that?"

"Leo's been complaining for two days. 'The girl with the highlighters.' 'The girl with the plan.' You're all he talks about."

"He talks about me?"

"He complains about you," Danny corrected.

Heat crept up my neck. "He skipped our session."

"Yeah." The grin slipped. "Honestly, I don't think he forgot. He's been weird all week. He gets like this when he's scared, which he'd murder me for saying."

A whistle shrieked. The players glided to center ice, where a broad-shouldered man in a windbreaker stitched COACH BRENNAN was waiting. He gave a few quick notes, and then his eyes landed on one player and stayed there. "Moretti. A word."

Leo took off his helmet, hair plastered to his forehead, looking more tired than I'd ever seen him.

They crossed to the boards, close enough that the sound carried up to where Danny and I sat in the empty quiet.

"I got a call from Mrs. Alvarez."

Leo said nothing.

"I know you've got a 1.6. I know you need a two-point-oh by the end of the quarter. And I know you've been to one tutoring session out of two this week."

"I had practice."

"You had tutoring during practice hours. Which I moved for you, so you'd have no excuse."

"It's one session."

"You've been coasting on 'one session' since freshman year. You're the best player I've ever coached. Probably the best I ever will." He said it without softening it, and Leo flinched like it hurt. "And that won't be enough. There are scouts coming in January. Every one of them will pull your transcript. They'll cross your name off, and I'll have to watch it happen. If you fail this quarter, you're off the roster. Do you understand me?"

A long pause. Then Leo shrugged, slow and careless, one shoulder, like an invitation to be hit.

"Yeah. Noted."

"That's not what I asked."

"I get it, Coach. I'm not an idiot."

"Then act like it."

"Sure."

He said it exactly the way he'd told me absolutely not. Like there was a wall between him and the words.

Except I was watching his hands. They gripped the boards so tightly the leather of his gloves had bunched. They didn't shake. They didn't have to. He was holding himself up.

Brennan clapped him once on the shoulder, gruff, almost tender, and walked away. Leo stayed where he was, alone, staring at the ice. And I understood why the whole school looked at him the way it did. Everyone who watched him skate could see how much of him lived out there, and how little was left when he stepped off.

He'd spent his whole life being told he was someone's best player. He'd never once been told he was anything else.

"See?" Danny whispered. "Scared."

"He didn't look scared."

"That's what scared looks like on him."

Leo turned, lifted his eyes, and found me at the top of the stands.

For a second, neither of us moved. Then his mouth curved, not quite a smile, wry and tired and a little embarrassed, like he'd been caught with his guard down.

By the time he climbed the stairs to my row, the mask was back in place, though a little crooked.

"Hart. Slumming?"

"You skipped our session. Practice starts at three. Our session was at three-fifteen. You knew that."

"Time zones are confusing." He dropped onto the seat beside me, close enough that I could feel the heat coming off him. "You came all the way out here to yell at me? I'm honored."

"I came to reschedule. I don't care if you don't like me. But you heard your coach. You're one bad grade away from losing all of this." I gestured at the rink, at the banner with his number stitched in the middle. "And I just watched you, and I..."

I stopped.

"You just watched me, and?"

And you're the best thing I've ever seen on ice, I thought, absurdly, and shoved it so far down I nearly choked.

"And you're good," I said. "Really good. It'd be a waste."

The teasing slid off his face. He studied me as if looking for the trick in it. I don't think anyone had ever said that to him and only meant that.

"Yeah," he said, so quietly I almost missed it. "I know."

He reached for his enormous black hockey bag, spilling tape and gloves and mismatched socks. Sticking out of the side pocket, its spine cracked, was a paperback.

Macbeth.

Leo saw me look. "Don't."

"I didn't say anything."

"It's Mr. Hale's book, and I'm returning it, and it doesn't mean anything." He yanked the zipper, and a scrap of paper fluttered to the concrete.

I picked it up first. A strip torn from a chemistry worksheet, with a single line in slanted, impatient handwriting.

Act 1, Scene 7. Evidence.

I handed it back without a word. He snatched it, scowling, cheeks flushed. "I looked at it one time, during warm-ups. So you don't get to gloat."

"I'm not gloating."

"Your face is gloating."

"Fine." I bit the inside of my cheek so I wouldn't smile. "Maybe a little."

He huffed out a laugh, then dragged a hand down his face, and I saw how thin the whole act was: the smirk, the shrug, the careless noted. A boy holding a building up with two hands and pretending it was a joke.

"Tuesday," he said. "Reschedule. I have a game tomorrow and film on Sunday, and then I'm all yours." He hesitated. "If you still want to."

I looked at the ice. At Brennan, watching from the bench with his arms folded. At the boy beside me, trying so hard not to seem like he cared.

For the first time since Mrs. Alvarez slid that folder across her desk, this was not a favor. It was not an assignment.

It mattered.

"Tuesday," I said. "Three-fifteen. Bring your book."

"Bring your rainbow?"

"I'll bring two."

He grinned, tired and crooked and real. "God. Okay."

He left to change. I sat in the empty stands, listening to the ice settle, thinking about the boy who skated like no one was watching, and the boy who'd stood at the boards holding on with both hands, and how neither of them was the person I'd been warned about.

Danny cleared his throat. "You're not going to give up on him, are you?"

"I don't give up on people. I make plans."

Danny laughed so hard he nearly dropped his water. "You're going to be so much trouble."

I didn't ask what he meant. I had a feeling I already knew.