I have a meeting with Coach a few days before our opening exhibition to go over progress and lay out expectations, and he tells me I need to put in more effort in the weight room. I have to restrain myself from rolling my eyes. Not like Dad’s been telling me the same thing every single phone call or anything.
I just don’t see any room to improve there. I’m plenty strong for someone my size. Then Cauler skates up to me at practice one day and says, “Y’know, I can bench a hundred pounds more than you.”
I narrow my eyes at him. Has he been talking to Coach or something? Conspiring against me?
“NHL Network,” Cauler explains when I say nothing. “Their latest comparison.”
I squeeze my fingers around my stick and make a point of looking up at him, then down at myself, like, hello? He’s twice my size, of course he can lift more. “I mean … duh?”
Cauler laughs, all dimples and crinkly eyes, and I just about melt into the ice. It’s nice, making him laugh. He can make any emotion look good, but this is my favorite.
As much as I brush it off to his face, though, it still gets under my skin. Dad and Coach pointing it out is one thing. Once the NHL Network and the hottest guy I’ve ever seen latch on to it, it’s enough to get me out of bed on Sunday morning, the only day I have to recover, to go to the gym.
I add more weight to the barbell and lie down on the bench, curling my fingers around the bar. The gym is quiet. Even those people who basically live off protein shakes and post daily locker room mirror pics don’t wanna be here this early on a Sunday. The student worker is falling asleep behind her desk.
I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths, and when I open them again, just as I’m about to lift, Cauler steps into view above me. He looks down at me and frowns. I relax my grip on the bar, but the rest of me stays tense.
“I know you’re not about to lift without a spotter,” he says. He moves to help me lift the bar from the rack, like he actually cares about my safety or something. I’d let myself be crushed under the barbell before admitting it, but he’s right. Lifting alone was a bad idea. Especially with the added weight.
I keep my eyes on the ceiling past Cauler’s head and try to keep the strain off my face as I go through the set.
“Why are you here?” he asks.
“Why not?” I say on a heavy exhale.
“I’m here most Sundays this time. You never put in these extra hours.”
I finish my reps and let him help me replace the bar on the rack. My arms are jelly. I rest my hands on my chest to let them recover. My heart pounds in my fingertips, and I stay focused on the ceiling as I catch my breath. Cauler keeps his hands on the bar, leaning over my face, looking down at me, waiting.
He’s probably expecting me to ignore him. Which is probably why I don’t.
“You know why.”
Cauler’s eyes on me are heavy. I’m distinctly aware of the rise and fall of my own chest, the sweat on my skin showing through the cut-off sides of my shirt, the goose bumps rising on my arms when one of the oscillating fans blows over me. I feel more present in my body than I have in weeks, with him looking down at me.
His eyebrows are thick. Jaw and cheekbones sharp. The hoops in his nose and lip are just as eye-catching as the holes in his earlobes. His face is schooled and calm now, but I’ve seen how intensely expressive he can be in glances at practice and across campus. I get a whiff of that cinnamon gum he’s always chewing, and I swear he could drop the weights right on my throat and I wouldn’t even notice.
When I finally look at his eyes, he is not looking at my face. There’s this split second where I swear he’s actually full-on checking me out, taking advantage of me being laid out like this, but then his eyes are locked on mine, and he’s looking at me so blankly, I must have imagined it.
Wishful thinking and all that.
“Why do you hate it so much?” he asks. I don’t need to ask what he’s talking about.
I tear my eyes off him and look back at the ceiling. “I don’t.”
Even in my periphery, I see his face change. Soften into something almost like understanding. Like for a second he realizes I’m not just some asshole taking his glory from him without earning it.
“Media’s gonna get a riot out of us on a line together,” he says, standing up straight to spot my next lift. He waits till I’m too busy with the weights to respond to add, “First time someone tries to give you credit for my success, I’m putting you on blast.”