Grayson slammed his truck door harder than necessary and headed into the facility. His legs still felt heavy from yesterday, but he pushed through it. Camp wasn’t going to wait for him to get his shit straight. Neither was Keaton. He should’ve been locked in. Instead his mind kept replaying that flat “Reset” from yesterday like it was on loop.
The ice felt good under his skates once practice started. Sharp. Cold. Real. Guys were chirping, sticks clacking, the usual noise bouncing off the boards. Keaton moved through it all like he ran the goddamn show. Laughing with the vets, bumping shoulders with Millsy after a solid breakout, roasting Jenkins for looking slow on the backcheck. “Pick it up, princess, or I’ll make you buy breakfast for the whole fucking line.” The locker room energy followed him onto the ice and the guys ate it up. Laughter. Shoves. Easy captain shit.
Grayson kept his head down and worked. Hard.
Every time he won a puck battle or threaded a nice pass, he waited for it, the clap, the “Good work, Sully,” anything that said Keaton saw him.
Nothing.
“Sully.” Keaton’s voice cut across the ice during a drill. Flat. All business. “Gap’s too big. Again.”
Grayson reset without answering. No grin. No extra word. Just the correction and Keaton already skating toward the next group like Grayson was another body on the ice. It stung more than it should have.
He dug in deeper on the next reps. Longer shifts. Harder hits in the corners. He started throwing his body around more than usual, winning battles that didn’t need to be wars. Every time he made something happen, a big pinch, a solid backcheck, a pass that sprung someone, he glanced toward Keaton.
Still nothing. Just the same professional mask. “Reset. Next.”
The silence started to feel louder than any yell.
Halfway through practice, Keaton pulled Rodriguez aside during a break in forecheck drills. Grayson watched from across the ice as Keaton demonstrated the right angle, sticks moving quick and sure, voice low and focused. Rodriguez got it on the second try. Keaton clapped him on the shoulder, that easy laugh rolling out again. “There it is. Keep that edge and you’ll be dangerous.” A couple guys nearby chuckled. Rodriguez grinned like he’d just been knighted.
That laugh. That clap. That scrap of praise. It shouldn’t have mattered, but it fucking did. It burned. He hated how much he wanted it. Hated that he was standing there jealous over a goddamn shoulder pat like some pathetic kid. He looked away fast, cheeks hot under his helmet, and told himself to get a grip.
It didn’t work.
The longer practice went, the worse it got. Every interaction Keaton had with someone else felt deliberate. Grayson started hunting for contact. Bigger plays. Riskier gaps. He was playing angry now, competitive fire mixing with something uglier underneath. He wanted a reaction. Praise. Anger. Hell, even annoyance would’ve been something. The nothing was eating him alive.
Later, during a quiet moment between drills, Grayson looked up and found Keaton staring right at him from across the ice. Their eyes locked. One of Keaton’s eyebrows lifted, just barely. The tiniest smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. Then he turned away like it never happened and started talking to one of the assistants, voice carrying easy across the rink.
Grayson’s grip tightened on his stick. Heat flashed low and fast before it twisted into something sharper. That hadn’t been nothing. The timing was too clean. Keaton had seen him. He’d chosen that moment. And then he’d pulled back just as easily.
He wasn’t being ignored. He was being managed.
Not shut out completely. Just… controlled. Enough to keep him off balance. Enough to keep him looking. Waiting. Reacting. Grayson’s grip tightened on his stick again, something hotter than frustration pushing up under his ribs now. If Keaton was doing this on purpose, if he was deciding when Grayson got attention and when he didn’t, then this wasn’t distance.
It was control.
By the time they moved into battle drills near the end, he was coiled too tight. He rolled his shoulders, trying to bleed off some of the tension crawling under his skin. Keaton skated past him on the way to reset the drill without so much as a glance. That absence hit harder than any check.
A veteran finished his shift and peeled off. Grayson stayed on an extra second, dropping his shoulder with real weight into the next guy barreling through the neutral zone. The hit was legal but nasty, pads cracking, bodies colliding with a grunt. The veteran staggered, then shoved back hard, gloves grabbing Grayson’s jersey.
“The fuck, rook?”
They were chest to chest fast, sticks tangled, voices rising. The veteran’s breath was hot against Grayson’s visor. Guys slowed down, circling, sticks tapping boards in anticipation.
Keaton skated over quick.
Grayson braced for the explosion.
Instead Keaton wedged between them with calm authority, one big glove planted firm on each chest, shoving them apart. His eyes settled on Grayson. No fire. No raised voice. Just quiet, heavy disappointment.
“You’re better than that, Sully.”
Four words. Then Keaton was already calling the next drill, voice steady, moving on like it was nothing.
Grayson finished practice feeling scraped raw. Every muscle burned. His skin felt too tight. The absence of anything real from Keaton sat in his chest like a bruise he couldn’t stop pressing.
The locker room was the usual chaos afterward. Keaton in the middle of it all, towel slung around his neck, roasting everybody in that effortless way. “Millsy, you looked like a fucking traffic cone out there today.” Laughter exploded. Towels snapped. Jenkins got called a virgin for the third time that week. Keaton moved through the noise like he was made for it, loud, relaxed, completely in command. Charming asshole captain shit. The kind of guy everyone wanted to be around.
Grayson sat on the bench lacing his shoes and watched from the outside. The laughter rolled over him but didn’t land. Keaton didn’t glance his way once.
He drove home in dead silence.
Mia was in the kitchen when he walked in, stirring sauce that smelled damn good. She turned and gave him that warm, easy smile. “Long one?”
“Yeah. Camp’s brutal.” He dropped his bag by the door.
She came over, slid her arms around his waist, and kissed him. Soft at first, then deeper. Her hand rubbed up his chest. Grayson kissed her back. Tried. Her mouth was familiar. Her body fit against his the way it always had. But his head filled with Keaton’s voice instead. That flat correction on the ice “You’re better than that.” The way Keaton lit up for everyone else and went cold the second he looked at Grayson.
He pulled away after a minute, breathing a little off.
Mia studied his face, concerned but gentle. “You okay? You seem really wiped out.”
“Just tired. New system’s kicking my ass harder than I expected.” The lie slid out easy. She bought it, rubbing his arm the way she always did when he was in his head about hockey.
They ate. Talked about normal shit. She laughed at something stupid he forced out. He smiled back on autopilot. Later she curled into him in bed, warm and trusting, and fell asleep fast. Grayson stared at the ceiling for hours, the fan spinning uselessly overhead.
Sleep never came.
Around two he got up. Paced the living room like a caged animal. Made coffee he didn’t touch. Stood at the window staring at his truck in the driveway, keys heavy in his hand.
Don’t be fucking stupid.
His pulse hammered in his throat. His palms were sweating. He told himself to go back to bed. Instead he grabbed the keys and walked out.
The drive across town felt endless and too short at the same time. Streetlights blurred past. His hands kept flexing on the wheel, knuckles white. By the time he pulled up to Keaton’s house, truck in the driveway and lights still on, his gut was in knots and his mouth was dry.
He sat there for a long minute, breathing hard, sweat cooling on the back of his neck despite the AC blasting. This was insane. Career suicide. He should turn around right now.
He got out anyway. Walked up to the door on legs that felt disconnected from his body. Knocked before he could talk himself out of it.
The door opened.
Keaton stood there in sweats and an old shirt, looking genuinely surprised for half a second. Then the surprise disappeared behind that controlled captain mask.
Grayson’s swallowed once. His voice came out rough and raw.
“In the gym. You... you told me to figure out what I wanted.”
He met Keaton’s eyes, heart slamming against his ribs.
“I figured it out.”
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