(Max’s POV)
"Scrimmage, five-on-five." Lucian’s voice cut across the ice once the passing drills wound down, already dividing players with a jerk of his stick. "New kid’s in. Right wing, low pressure. Just move when the play moves."
I skated out to the spot he pointed at, heart hammering harder than the skating itself warranted, painfully aware of every set of eyes that flicked toward me and away again.
The puck dropped. It moved fast — faster than anything I’d tracked from the boards — and within ten seconds I understood the difference between watching hockey and being inside it.
Bodies cut past me at angles I couldn’t predict. Someone shouted a play I didn’t understand.
I skated toward where I thought I was supposed to be and got there a full second too late, useless, out of position, watching the puck sail past exactly where I should have been standing.
"Cover your man!" someone shouted, not unkindly, just urgent.
I tried. My skate caught an edge I didn’t see coming, and the ice came up fast, slamming into my hip and shoulder hard enough to knock the wind clean out of me.
Laughter. Not everyone — but enough, scattered and careless, the kind that didn’t need malice behind it to still land like one.
"Smooth," someone called.
"Is that what your brother’s got, Cross?" Another voice, louder, grinning. "Thought you said he was trying."
I pushed myself up slow, cheeks burning hotter than the impact had, and caught Lucian’s face from across the ice — jaw tight, eyes narrowed, something dark moving behind them that had nothing to do with the play itself.
"Your brother sucks," the same guy added, laughing, clearly enjoying himself now that he had an audience.
"Run it again." Lucian’s voice cracked across the rink like a whip, flat and absolute. "Whole line. Now."
The laughter died fast.
"Cross, come on, it was just—"
"I said run it." He hadn’t raised his voice, but something underneath it had gone sharp enough that nobody argued a second time. "You want to laugh instead of skate, we’ll skate until nobody has breath left to laugh with."
They ran it again. And again after that, the whole line gasping by the third rep, nobody looking my direction this time, too busy trying to keep their own legs under them.
I got back into position for the next scrimmage rep, determined not to fall again, focus narrowed down to nothing except the shape of the play in front of me.
I didn’t see the hit coming.
One of the defensemen — not the one who’d mocked me, someone else, bigger — caught me full on the shoulder with a check that had no business happening in a drill, sent me sprawling hard into the boards, pain flaring bright and immediate down my whole side.
The whistle came fast, sharp, and Lucian was already moving before the sound finished.
"What the hell was that." His voice had dropped into something low and dangerous, aimed straight at the guy who’d hit me.
"Contact drill, Cap. My bad."
"That wasn’t contact. That was intent." Lucian skated closer, close enough that the guy actually took a step back. "You do that again, you’re off my ice for the season. Understood?"
"Understood."
Lucian turned toward me, expression shuttering back into something flatter, more controlled, before he even finished the turn. "You’re done. Off."
"I’m fine—"
"I said off." No room in it, no negotiation. "Bench."
I skated off slow, shoulder throbbing, humiliation sitting heavier in my chest than the actual pain did.
Knox pushed away from the drill line, already starting toward me. "I’ll check—"
"Ashford, stay on the ice." Lucian didn’t even look at him when he said it. "We’re not done."
Knox hesitated, glancing between me and Lucian, clearly weighing whether this was a fight worth having in front of the whole team. "Cap—"
"Stay." Flat. Final. The kind of word that didn’t invite a second opinion.
Knox’s jaw worked once, but he stayed, because it wasn’t really a request and everyone on that ice knew it.
I made my way to the bench alone, dropped onto it, and started working the laces of my skates with hands that weren’t as steady as I wanted them to be.
My shoulder had already started stiffening, a dull ache blooming under the pad. I told myself it was fine. I told myself worse things had happened to me in gym class back home, which was true, and somehow didn’t help at all.
Out on the ice, the drills kept running — shouted instructions, the scrape of blades, the hard, rhythmic sound of a team working through something under a captain who clearly wasn’t going to let anyone slack off after what had just happened.
I watched Lucian call the next set, sharp and controlled, correcting angles, barking at anyone who drifted out of position.
But his eyes kept finding me. Every few seconds, quick, almost involuntary — a glance toward the bench between reps, gone again before anyone else would have caught it. I caught it every time.
When the whistle finally blew for the water break, the team scattered toward the boards, breathing hard, grabbing bottles off the rack.
I stayed where I was, skate half off, watching the chaos of it from a slight distance, the way I always seemed to end up watching things.
Lucian skated straight toward me.
He didn’t say anything at first. Just crouched in front of the bench, close enough that I could see the sheen of sweat at his temple, and reached for the strap of my shoulder pad without asking permission.
"Let me see."
"It’s fine."
"Let me see, Max." Quieter this time, less an order, more something almost careful, and I let him pull the pad aside enough to check the skin underneath.
A bruise was already forming, dark and spreading under my collarbone, tender enough that I flinched when his fingers brushed the edge of it.
"That’s going to hurt tomorrow," he said, low, almost to himself.
"I’ve had worse."
Something flickered across his face at that — not quite anger, not quite anything I had a name for — and he didn’t answer it.
He just reached down, grabbed a water bottle off the bench beside him, and held it out toward me instead.
"Drink."
I took it. Our fingers brushed for half a second in the handoff, and neither of us acknowledged it, though I felt it anyway, sharp and out of proportion to something as small as a water bottle changing hands.
"You didn’t have to bench me," I said, quieter now, mostly because the rest of the team was too far off to hear. "It was one hit."
"It was a cheap hit." His jaw tightened again, gaze cutting briefly toward the guy who’d thrown it, still stretching near the far boards, oblivious. "And you don’t know how to protect yourself out here yet. Until you do, you’re not staying on the ice through something like that."
"So you were protecting me." I said it carefully, testing the shape of it out loud.
He didn’t answer that directly. He just straightened up, expression sliding back into something more careful, more controlled, like he’d caught himself leaning too far into something he hadn’t meant to show.
"Ice it when you get home," he said instead, already turning back toward the rink. "And stay off that shoulder until it settles."
He skated back toward center ice without waiting for a response, whistle already lifting to his mouth, voice snapping back into command before he’d even fully turned around. "Water’s over, let’s go! Back in lines!"
I sat there a moment longer, water bottle still cool in my hand, shoulder aching, and something warmer sitting underneath the pain that had nothing to do with the bruise at all.
Across the ice, Knox caught my eye from the boards and gave me a look I couldn’t quite read — somewhere between amused and thoughtful — before skating back into position without saying a word.