Page 65 of Rookie Rules

"Right."

Luca kissed him once more, brief and almost tender, then stepped away.

Rowan's hands remained suspended for a fraction of a second before he lowered them.

At the door, Luca put on his shoes. He glanced once toward the photograph of Rowan at nineteen.

"Tomorrow, Captain."

"Tomorrow."

Luca opened the door. "Don't worry. I know where the line is."

Rowan wanted to tell him the line was not a punishment. That it existed because Rowan knew exactly how much he could lose. The team. The room. The authority required to protect both of them from a mistake Rowan had willingly repeated.

But Luca had not asked Rowan to tell anyone. He had not threatened any of it.

The defense had no opponent except the man building it.

"Good night," Rowan said.

Luca's expression shifted, as if he had expected another instruction. "Night."

After he left, Rowan returned to the kitchen.

Two water glasses stood on the counter. Two plates waited in the sink. Luca's thumb had left a clear mark in the condensation, and his fork-line remained drawn through the last streak of sauce.

The house no longer felt staged. It bore the small disorder of recent company.

Rowan cleaned it until the evidence disappeared.

No one knew. Hockey remained protected. No relationship existed. The season provided an end.

He repeated the rules until they sounded like structure.

They continued to sound like fear.

Chapter 11: Opening Night

Wolf Den Arena knew Luca's name before he touched the puck.

It waited above his stall on the opening-night lineup card, white letters against deep navy. It ran across the back of jerseys in the lower bowl that had not existed two months earlier. When he followed Finn down the tunnel for warmups, the announcer stretched BENNETT across eighteen thousand people and the sound came back from the rafters larger than anything one person could own.

Luca stepped onto regular-season ice and let the noise hit him.

The Wolf Den looked different when every seat was filled. Silver towels moved in the stands. Camera flashes broke against the glass. The center-ice logo seemed sharper beneath a clean sheet of ice, its lines waiting to be ruined by skates.

This was what the screen at the player entrance had promised on reporting day. Future. Energy. Goals.

His grin came easily.

He took his first lap hard enough to feel the cold air catch in his teeth, gathered a puck at the right circle, and snapped it high off Gabriel's blocker. The rebound struck the glass. A group of children behind the net screamed his number.

Luca turned and gave them a tap of his stick.

On his next pass through the line, Rowan sent him a puck without looking.

It arrived flat, exactly where Luca's blade would be.