Page 63 of Lose You Twice

“In the back.”

He glances at the bins. “Do you know where he keeps laces?”

I lift the drawer I just labeled. “I have been training for this exact moment.”

He raises a brow at me, but I cut in before he can say anything. “I’m new. Let me have this.”

The corner of his mouth moves. “Fair enough.” I hand him a replacement pair, and he takes them with a nod. “Thank you.”

Weston appears behind him with a towel over his shoulder and a granola bar in his mouth.

“Hey, Wren,” he says around it.

I point at him. “No food in the equipment room.”

He pauses mid-chew and looks genuinely betrayed. “Donnelly tell you that?”

“Yes,” I say, continuing to fold a few of the lingering towels in my pile.

“He has too many rules.”

That might be true, but I can’t admit that. “Well, he is the one that pays me.”

“You’ve chosen a side.”

Asher takes the granola bar out of Weston’s mouth and tosses it into the trash can nearby.

Weston stares after it. “That was my breakfast.”

“It’s eleven,” Asher says.

“Breakfast is a state of mind, and we all know I hate breakfast foods.”

Asher looks at his friend, completely at a loss. “You truly concern me so much.”

Weston ignores him and turns back to me. “Are you liking the glamorous world of hockey operations?”

I glance at the laundry cart. “Seeing as it’s my first full day, I can’t exactly say it’s been a life-changing experience.”

“Yeah, that happens. First comes the towels, then comes the power.”

“Says the person with no power,” Asher says.

Weston points at him. “You don’t know my life.”

“I wish I didn’t, but I know too much of it.”

Their bickering should be annoying, but instead it loosens something in the room, and I hate that I notice. I hate that this team has a rhythm I can already feel myself learning, because learning something makes it harder to leave.

“Cooper,” Donnelly calls from the back. “If you’re in my room, you better be bleeding or useful.”

Weston winces. Asher gives me a small nod and drags Weston out by the back of his hoodie.

“Rude,” Weston says, but he lets himself be moved.

The door swings shut behind them.

Donnelly reappears, unimpressed by the world. “Don’t feed the animals, especially Cooper.”