MY HOCKEY SECRET

Maybe You Already Do

Six a.m. conditioning wasn't a drill.

It was a punishment, and everyone knew exactly who it was for.

Riley had barely slept. Every time she'd closed her eyes she'd heard Jackson's voice through the wall, low and even, on the phone with someone at some hour that made no sense for a phone call. She hadn't caught the words. Just the tone, careful in a way it never was with her.

By the time her alarm went off, she was already exhausted, and the rink hadn't even opened yet.

She'd pulled on her gear in the dark while Jackson was still in the shower, grateful for once that the walls of Room 314 were thick enough to buy her a few minutes of privacy. By the time he came out, towel around his neck, she was already laced up and ready, like she hadn't spent half the night wide awake listening for a voice on the other side of the wall.

"Sprints. Now."

Riley's lungs already burned from the last set. She skated to the line anyway.

Jackson stood at centre ice with his arms crossed, stopwatch in hand, expression carved out of stone.

"Again."

She went again.

Her legs screamed. Her chest, wrapped too tight beneath her gear, screamed louder.

"Again."

Around the rink, the rest of the team had stopped pretending not to watch.

"He's been at this for twenty minutes," someone muttered.

"Rookie's gonna throw up."

"Rookie's gonna quit."

Riley crossed the line, gasping, and Jackson clicked his stopwatch without even glancing at it.

"Slower than last time."

"I'm not slower."

"I have the time."

"Then your watch is broken."

The words came out before she could stop them, sharp enough to cut through the whole rink.

Silence dropped over the ice like a lid on a pot.

Jackson skated toward her, slow, deliberate, the same way he had that first day.

"You want to run it again and prove me wrong?"

"Fine."

"Fine."

Behind her, she heard someone mutter that Jackson had finally lost it, that no rookie should be pushed this hard this early in the season. Nobody said it loud enough for the captain to hear. Nobody ever did.

She dropped into position without waiting for his whistle and launched herself down the ice, legs burning, lungs on fire, refusing to let this man see her break.

She crossed the line and collapsed against the boards, chest heaving.

Jackson skated up beside her, close enough that nobody else could hear.

"Better."

"What?"

"That time. Better." He almost, almost looked like he meant it as a compliment. "Why couldn't you do that the first four tries?"

"Because the first four times I wasn't angry yet."

Something flickered across his face. Not quite a smile. Something more careful than that.

"Then maybe I should make you angry more often."

"Maybe you already do."

"Good," he said, and for once it didn't sound like an insult. It sounded almost like he meant it as something else entirely, something neither of them had a name for yet.

For a moment neither of them moved. The whole rink had gone quiet, watching, though neither of them noticed until Coach Reynolds's whistle cracked through the air.

"Enough! Showers! We've got weights in an hour!"

Marco skated past, bumping Riley's shoulder with his.

"You good?"

"Never better."

He glanced between her and Jackson, who hadn't moved from beside her, who was still standing closer than a captain needed to stand to a rookie he claimed he couldn't stand.

Marco's easy grin faltered, just slightly, like he was seeing something he hadn't expected to see.

"Right," he said slowly. "Sure."

He skated off toward the locker room without finishing the thought out loud.

Jackson watched him go, jaw tight.

"Is he always that friendly with you?"

"Jealous, Captain?"

"Don't push it."

"You're the one who won't stop standing here."

Jackson opened his mouth like he had a comeback ready, then seemed to think better of it. For once, he didn't have anything to say.

But he didn't skate away either.

Not for a long moment.

Later, in the weight room, Riley caught him watching her form on the bar, correcting her grip without a word, adjusting her stance like it was just part of the job. It didn't feel like part of the job. Not the way his hand lingered a half second longer than it needed to.

"Elbows in," he said, low enough that only she could hear it over the clang of weights around them. "You'll hurt your shoulder doing it like that."

"Since when do you care if I get hurt?"

The question came out sharper than she meant it, and for a second she thought she'd overstepped, thought the wall would come back up between them the way it always did. Instead something almost like amusement crossed his face.

"I don't," he said. "I just don't want to spend the rest of the season carrying you."

It wasn't kind. It wasn't supposed to be. But it also wasn't the same voice he'd used with her that first day on the ice, the one that made it clear she didn't belong. Something in it had shifted, quiet and small, easy to miss if she hadn't been paying such careful attention to every single thing this man did.

And Riley, despite every reason she had not to, found herself hoping he wouldn't stop noticing her at all.