Jaysen rolls his shoulders back, standing at his full height so he’s looking down his nose at me. “Just getting to know each other.”
“Save the getting to know each other for when you’ve got a few drinks in you.” Zero heads back toward center ice and motions for us to follow with another head tilt. I don’t move until Jaysen does, skating past me with one final knock of his arm into mine.
I roll my eyes and follow them, watching Jaysen in front of me the whole way. Even after all that, he skates with this kind of grace that could almost rival Mom and my sister Nicolette, and they’re both goddamn Olympic figure skaters with about a dozen medals between them.
Jaysen belongs on the ice. He loves hockey. It’s obvious in the way he tilts his head back and takes in a long, deep drag of cold air, shoulders relaxing like his frustration with me can be cleansed by the smell of the rink alone.
He wasn’t bred to play hockey. He chose it. Absorbed it into his skin, his blood, his bones by his own volition. There’s plenty of others out there just like him who could easily be here on this ice if it weren’t for me.
Jaysen’s right about that, I guess.
Maybe if he wasn’t such a raging asshole, I might even tell him that.
TWO
I’m on my phone in the shower on the first day of classes when I stumble upon a picture Jaysen tweeted last night. And by stumble upon I definitely don’t mean that I specifically went onto his feed to see if he’s talking about the draft. It’s a selfie with him, Dorian Hidalgo, and David Barboza sitting together on a couch I don’t recognize, captioned my two favorite blueliners xoxo.
It’s weird seeing the three of them smiling together when all of us spent the last two years battling it out on the ice in juniors. Dorian and Barbie at least have their lifelong friendship to fall back on. They were both born in Mexico and raised in Wisconsin and chose to come to the same college after their time apart in the USHL. If freshmen had a choice in roommates, they’d definitely be dorming together.
Instead, it’s me and Dorian. Not that I’ve seen much of him this past week. Pretty sure he’s only been in our room to move in and change clothes, spending all his time with Jaysen and Barbie at orientation events.
I swear I’m not jealous. I’ve been actively avoiding the other freshman Royals. They go to orientation during the day and spend their nights drinking at the off-campus hockey house where the upperclassmen live together. I pass the time in my room or at the dock on the lake while Delilah and Jade do their orientation leader duties and hang out with them when they’re done, and that’s the way I like it.
Making friends at Hartland would be pointless when I’ll only be here for a year before the draft. Even beyond that, when Dad was traded to the Hurricanes from the Sabres, he had to leave that same day for a game that night with his new team. Had less than an hour to say goodbye to a team and a city he played for for two decades. That’s what I have to look forward to.
The only reason my friendship with Nova has lasted through distance is because I’ve known her since the day I was born and lived with her after my family moved away from Buffalo. I still have a room at her parents’ house. There’s no escaping it at this point, and I wouldn’t want to.
I scroll through the replies to Jaysen’s post as I head back to my room. There’s plenty from the rest of the Royals, some of the other defensemen being mock-offended by his favorite blueliners comment, Zero saying my sons with a bunch of heart emojis. Then there’s the random hockey fans vying for a little bit of attention by commenting how they hope they’re all having a good time in college.
I’m staring at Jaysen’s infuriating dimples on my phone when I walk into my room.
Jaysen and Dorian are sitting on Dorian’s bed, a laptop open with angry-sounding music screaming from the speakers.
I jump so high I almost fling my phone into the sun, but they’re too caught up in their conversation to notice. They look like budding best friends with their all black clothes and tattoos.
“Dude, I am so relieved,” Dorian says. “I thought I’d be missing out on shows here.”
“Yeah, looks like they don’t got a barricade, either,” Jaysen says, squinting at the screen through black-rimmed glasses. “We can get right up in their faces.”
“I’ve never been to a venue like that. All the ones back home, the stages were shoulder height and barricaded with this huge gap.”
“Once you experience a place like this, those other ones won’t even be worth it to you.” Jaysen nods his head in my direction. “Your Grace.”