Page 127 of Rookie Rules

Rowan could not answer without proving that he wanted reassurance more than honesty.

"Privacy," he said.

Luca recoiled by half a step.

"No."

"Luca."

"I am not going to sleep with you so you can convince yourself I'm different from the man who left."

"You don't know why he left."

"No. You won't tell me. I know what you do when I ask for something you don't want to name."

Rowan turned away.

"Did you love him?" Luca asked.

The question required no public risk and exposed no one. It asked only for a true sentence in an empty parking level.

Rowan had loved Graham in the careful portions of himself he permitted another person to touch. Enough to remember blue ink and cold dinners. Not enough to change when love required inconvenience.

"It was a long time ago," he said.

Luca closed his eyes once.

When he opened them, he seemed less angry. Rowan would have preferred anger.

"That's an answer," Luca said. "Just not to what I asked."

He got into his car and drove away.

Rowan remained until the red taillights vanished up the ramp. On the passenger seat lay the event schedule Claire had revised after he missed the demonstration. His absence had required three people to adapt: Luca, Claire, and a coordinator whose name Rowan had not learned.

At home, the empty hook held no jacket. The refrigerator contained one portion of food. A heat wrap waited in the second drawer.

He found a message from Claire asking him to approve the foundation photographs. In the first image, Graham stood a careful distance away. In the second, Luca occupied the space beside Rowan without touching him.

Rowan approved both.

Then he opened the team schedule and moved recovery earlier the next morning. He sent the change to the line group without explanation.

A time. An instruction. Something he could enforce.

He had recognized the pattern.

Recognition did not stop him from repeating it.

Chapter 20: Rival Ice

Kaito Sato won the opening faceoff so cleanly that Finn swore before the puck reached the boards.

The rival crowd heard none of it. Noise rolled down from the stands, sharpened by Northstar's 4-3 loss on the previous trip and by a decade of public history between Finn and Kaito that no one in the Wolves lineup seemed able to explain.

Kaito moved through the first shift with exact economy. He delayed at the blue line, drew Nolan toward him, and slipped the puck into the space behind. Gabriel stopped the first shot. The rebound produced a second chance before Mateo swept it into the corner.

At the bench, Finn leaned toward Rowan. "He's opening earlier."