Page 24 of Rookie Rules

If he understood Luca's tendencies, he could contain the damage. Build triggers. Give the line rules broad enough to include instinct without allowing chaos to take over.

He added three more notes.

Hold width until shoulder cue.

Call route changes.

Repeat under pressure.

The instructions looked firm on the page.

Rowan changed the playback to half speed and tracked the four skaters who had not touched the puck. Finn had recognized Luca's delay and widened before the defense shifted. Nolan had stayed high instead of chasing the open lane. Rowan had moved underneath because Luca's shoulders promised a shot that never came.

The goal belonged to the players without the puck as much as the man who finished it.

That was the part Luca did not yet understand consistently. He treated support like an emergency service: useful after danger, irrelevant before it. But in the successful clip, Luca had used Rowan's route before the puck arrived. Not obedience. Leverage.

Rowan opened the telestration tool and drew the same sequence with Luca forced one stride deeper. The passing lane vanished. He moved Finn half a stride inward. Now the weak-side defenseman could close both options. Every adjustment confirmed that the original play had depended on three men reading one another precisely.

He saved the frame under tomorrow's practice folder.

Then he recorded a voice note for Vale.

"Run the entry with the defense changing its gap each repetition. Do not tell Bennett which look is coming. Make him call the support before he attacks."

Rowan stopped the recording and listened back. The instruction sounded like a test designed to expose a rookie.

He added, "Let him change my route if he sees the opening first."

That changed the exercise from compliance to shared responsibility. It also required Rowan to accept correction from the player he had been assigned to control.

He sent the note before he could revise the risk out of it.

On screen, the shared goal waited at the moment before release. Luca's head was up. Finn's stick was available. Rowan's own blade had already turned toward the answer.

Chemistry was not mystery. It was information moving quickly enough to resemble instinct.

Tomorrow they would find out whether it could survive being named.

Rowan played the shared goal once more.

Tape did not lie.

It simply refused to tell him which truth was safer.

Chapter 5: Weather System

By the time the Wolves reached the airport, Rowan had counted the team three times.

Luca knew because he had made a point of changing position after every count.

At the curb, he stood beside Finn. At security, he drifted behind Jace. At the gate, he took the empty seat across from Rowan and watched the captain's gaze move through the group.

One, two, three—

Rowan reached Luca and stopped.

"Lost something?" Luca asked.