OFFSIDE

NADIA There are exactly three things I need to survive fall semester. Coffee, a functioning sound system, and for Cole Hartley to stay on his side of the stadium. I'd managed two out of three by seven forty-five in the morning, which, honestly, was better than most days. "Music up," I called out, and Bex hit play from the bleachers without looking up from her phone. The bass dropped and the squad snapped to attention. Twelve girls and two guys who trusted me enough to be on a cold stadium floor at this hour, which meant I owed them a good practice. I owed them a flawless one. We were three weeks out from the first home game and our opener routine had a timing problem in the second formation that was going to haunt us if I didn't kill it now. I'd been up until one in the morning with a notebook and a floor diagram, and I had opinions. "From the top," I said. "Priya, you're half a count early on the turn. Everyone else, clean lines. Let's go." They went. And for about four minutes it was perfect—the kind of perfect that makes the early alarm worth it, that makes all the summer conditioning and the arguments about costumes and the spreadsheets I definitely do not keep about routine logistics worth it. I was almost relaxed. Then the ice doors opened. The sound was the first thing I heard. Blades hitting fresh ice, that particular hiss and scrape that carries in an empty stadium like nothing else. Then voices. Then the very specific low laugh that I had successfully avoided hearing for two years and could apparently still identify in under a second like some kind of horrible party trick. I stopped the music. My squad lowered their arms and looked at me. "Give me a minute," I said. The Wolves were filing out of the tunnel in full practice gear, around fifteen of them, moving with that easy physicality that hockey players have, like they own whatever surface they're standing on. Skates, helmets under arms, sticks already tapping. Behind them came their captain. Cole Hartley was taller than I remembered. That was the first thought, involuntary and useless. He'd filled out across the shoulders since freshman year, which was information I didn't need and my eyes collected anyway. Dark hair pushed back from his face, jaw sharper than it used to be. He moved differently in skates, like every step meant something. He looked up and found me immediately. I didn't know what was on my face. I locked it down before it could be anything. The ice was his. Fine. The ice was always his. But the floor—my floor—was supposed to be empty until nine, which meant someone had made a scheduling change without telling me, which was a problem for the athletic department and also briefly a problem for whoever was standing closest to me. That ended up being Bex. "Do not," she said quietly. "I'm not doing anything," I said. "You're doing the face." "I don't have a face." "You have many faces, Nadia. This one specifically means you're about to say something in a very calm voice that is not actually calm." She wasn't wrong. I handed her my phone, pulled my hair back tighter, and walked toward the boards. Cole was already at the near end of the ice, talking to one of his teammates; Dom, I recognized, big and loud and currently grinning at something. Cole hadn't looked back at me since that first glance. Which was fine. Great. We were ignoring each other, mutually, and that was the entire plan. "Excuse me," I said. Dom saw me first and his grin changed shape in a way that made me want to turn around. Cole turned a second later. Up close, his expression was completely neutral, not unfriendly nor warm. "We have the floor until nine," I said. "I don't know who changed the booking but we were here first." "Ice was booked at seven thirty," Cole said. His voice was the same. That was also useless information. "You're welcome to check with Patterson." "I'm telling you we have a standing block—" "And I'm telling you Patterson's sheet says seven thirty." He looked at me directly. No attitude in it, which was somehow worse than if there had been. "If there's a conflict, we can sort it out with the department. Until then-" "Until then my team is mid-practice," I said. "So either someone at the department made an error or you decided to just-" "Request an earlier slot?" He tilted his head slightly. "Yeah. I did. It's a new semester. Lots of teams are adjusting." "Without checking who else-" "I checked with Patterson." "Patterson didn't check with me." "Then Patterson is the problem." I looked at him. He looked at me. Behind me I could feel twelve squad members watching this like it was television and behind him Dom had gone very quiet, which for Dom probably required physical effort. "Fine," I said. "We'll run the north section. You stay south." "That works," Cole said. Like it was easy. Like he'd already known that was where this landed. I hated that more than the argument. I turned back to my squad before my expression could do anything additional. "North section," I called out. "Let's reset." Bex fell into step beside me and said nothing, which was its own form of commentary. "Bex, don't," I said. "Still not saying anything," she said. "Keep it that way." We ran the routine three more times. My back was mostly to the ice but I have good peripheral vision, which I usually consider an asset. This morning it was a liability. Cole ran his team through drills with the low efficient rhythm of someone who knew exactly what he was doing—no wasted motion, no noise for noise's sake, just the work. I caught fragments of it without meaning to. The way he corrected someone's stance with a single hand on their shoulder. The way he skated a demonstration lap and the whole team watched him like they were taking notes. I focused on Priya's timing. By eight forty-five the floor routine was cleaner and Cole's team was starting second-half conditioning. I called water break and stood at the boards looking at the ice like that was a normal thing to do. It wasn't him that was the problem. I needed to be clear about that, clear in my own head where it was quiet and honest. It was the unexpectedness of it. The way the semester had a plan and the plan had not included this and I didn't like things I hadn't planned for. That was all. "Good practice," Dom said, suddenly next to me at the boards. I hadn't heard him come over. I looked at him. "Thanks." "You guys are really good. Like actually. That turn sequence thing-" "Priya's still half a count early." "I didn't notice." "You're not supposed to," I told him. "I am." Dom smiled. He had an open, easy quality that I remembered from freshman year. The kind of person who made rooms feel comfortable. I didn't hold it against him. "He requested the early slot two weeks ago," Dom said. Quieter now. "Just so you know. It wasn't…" he stopped. "It wasn't about you." I kept my face even. "I didn't think it was." Dom nodded once. Didn't look convinced. Skated back before I could say anything else. I didn't look at Cole for the rest of practice. I also didn't not look at him, which was a different problem entirely.