Chapter 4 Cold Wars & Hidden Wounds

~Author’s POV~

Nova sits in the campus athletic clinic the next afternoon with an ice pack strapped to her bruised shoulder, glaring across the room.

Sitting on the opposite exam table, trying desperately to pretend he isn't in pain is Colt Callahan.

"Stop glaring at me, Barbie. You're being too dramatic for a little boo-boo," Colt smirked

Nova's head reared back in disbelief. "Little? You've got some nerve to call getting bodied by a six foot brick wall, little."

"Six foot four actually," he corrects her with a wink. "Get your facts right, firecracker."

Nova scoffs and sits back. "You won't be so smug if I tell your coach that you were being arrogantly stubborn and refused to listen to my instructions."

Colt's smirk drops in an instant. "If you tell Coach Henderson about last night, Arden, I swear to God..." Colt starts, but Coach Henderson’s voice is heard outside before the clinic door opens.

He steps into the clinic, his gaze flicking from Colt to Nova’s iced shoulder. He stops for a moment, studying them both. He doesn’t know what happened, but he can tell something did.

Coach Henderson decides to push that aside and looks directly at Colt. "Scouts from Boston and Vancouver have officially confirmed their box seats for Friday game in for weeks. If Arden tells me you're not taking this seriously, you won't be dressing for the game. You'll sit in the press box in a suit. Is that clear?"

Colt’s jaw clenches so hard his teeth grind. To Nova's surprise, Colt doesn't complain and simply nods.

"Loud and clear, coach. I'll take Arden's drills seriously."

Coach Henderson nods. "I'll leave him up to you, Arden," he says before seeing himself out.

Nova stands and grabs her stuff. "Better be on your best behaviour, captain or you'll be in a suit," she says as she walks out of the clinic.

Back at the dorm, Nova just finished drying her hair after a bath and was heading to the kitchen when Elodie enters. She drops her bag somewhere on the floor as she locks the door behind her.

"If it isn't the best skater in Vancouver," Elodie said with a smile.

Nova couldn't hide her smile at her best friend's antics. "Hi, Ellie. How was class?"

Elodie groans at the mention of school. "It was super boring. I swear I slept for half of–"

Elodie pauses mid-complaint as she notices the bruise on Nova's left shoulder. She goes closer to assess it.

"What the hell? This wasn't there yesterday, Nova." Elodie finds Nova's eyes. "How did you get this?"

Nova laughs it off and moves to her bedroom. "Oh it's nothing serious. I was practicing hard another stunt and fell down," she lied.

"I thought you got into a fight or something," Elodie sighs. "You need to take it easy with those stunts, though. You can't skate well if you're all bruised."

"Alright, mum," Nova jokes and they both laugh.

Nova feels a heavy knot of guilt in her chest. She can't tell her best friend that she’s spending most of her evenings locked in a rink coaching a hockey player.

The next evening session comes quicker than Nova could blink. Neither of them can afford to quit with what's on the line. The atmosphere is tense, quiet, and frosty. Colt shows up without his pads, wearing simple sweatpants and a long-sleeve tee.

They don't talk about their bruises and just go straight to practice. Nova starts Colt with some warm ups before amplifying the drills.

As Colt attempts a series of inside-edge slaloms, Nova watches his lower body keenly. She notices a strange, unnatural pattern in his movements, like the one she noticed when they bumped into each other.

Colt is phenomenal on his left foot, but the moment he transfers weight to his right side there's a switch in his shifts, his torso tilts forward, and he shortens his stride.

"Stop," Nova commands.

Colt comes to a halt and turns to her. "What now, Arden? I'm doing fine."

"No, you're not." Nova skates up to him. "Why are you shifting your weight off your right skate?"

Colt deflects with an easy scoff. "I took a hard check against Alberta last weekend. Just a bruised groin. It's nothing."

"A bruise doesn't lock up your entire sacroiliac joint, Callahan," Nova says sharply, stepping closer. "You're not tight. You're hiding an injury. What's actually wrong with your hip?"

Colt denies it. "Come on, Arden. You're just reading too much into it."

"I'm not 'just reading', I know what I saw," Nova doubles down in her observation but Colt wasn't having it. He suddenly got defensive.

"I said it's nothing. Mind your own damn business," he sparks.

The words land harder than he means them to, and for a second something raw flickers behind his eyes. The fear of a scout, a stat sheet, his father, all of it riding on a hip he can't admit is failing. He turns away before she can see it clearly.

"Fine," Nova snaps, matching his coldness. "Blow out your hip on national television and look stupid for all I care. I'm done here for tonight."

She skates off the ice to the stands to grab her bag and stops dead. Sitting on top of a bench, near her bag, is a small paper cup of hot chocolate from the campus kiosk. It was deliberately placed while she wasn't looking.

It has long since gone cold since they've been practicing for over an hour.Colt must have grabbed it before their session even started  and left it there without a word.

Nova stares at it, thrown completely off balance by the gesture, then turns to look at Colt. He won't meet her eyes, suddenly very interested in his skate laces, ears faintly red.

Neither of them says anything about it. Nova picks up the cold cup, and instead of leaving it behind out of spite, drinks it anyway on her walk out. She couldn't bear to let good chocolate go to waste.