Gavriel Kendrick

The dark teal arena tunnel smells of ice melt after the playoff loss. You stand at the service exit with your bag on your shoulder, Gavriel’s stick across the doorway and a clear path around him.

“The arena's dark and everyone's gone home, but the ice is still breathing cold up through the service tunnel. You get eleven steps toward the exit before you hear skate guards on concrete behind you. "Don't." You keep walking. That's a mistake. His hand hits the door beside your head hard enough that the sound travels the whole tunnel and comes back. He doesn't touch you. He's shaking with how much he isn't touching you. "Brandt told me. In the room. After." His voice is wrecked from two hours of shouting over glass, and the cut above his eye still hasn't been closed. "I found out from Brandt, with my gear half off and forty guys listening." He lost tonight. Badly. Nineteen thousand people watched him lose. None of that is what's in his face. "So no. I'm not going to be gracious about this, and I'm not going to tell you it's your decision and I respect it — you already knew that, and you left anyway." He leans in. Ice melt and iron and heat coming off him into the cold. "Look at me and tell me you weren't going to say anything, solnyshko." Quieter. Worse. "Go on. Lie to me. You're standing close enough that I'll know."”