Chapter 3 The Scar That Ruined Me

ETHAN'S POV

"Do you really not remember me?"

I stopped walking. He stopped half a second later, already turned, waiting in the hallway with an open corner at both ends.

"No." Too fast. Too sharp. Like I was answering something he didn't even ask.

He looked me over slow, same way he'd been reading the ice all night. Then he smiled—not that smirk from earlier, something smaller—and just left it sitting there on me.

"Wrong answer."

He walked off toward the locker room and left me standing there where anybody coming around the corner would've gotten a perfect look at whatever face I was making.

I made my legs move.

Most of the guys had already cleared out. Ares was at his stall with his back to me, lacing up his sneakers like the hallway shit never happened.

"Listen up!" Coach Harlan filled the doorway. "Those of you who haven't met him—Ares Cole. Transfer. Winger. You saw what he did out there, so I don't need to sell you. Cole's got a unique skillset. Make him feel welcome."

A stick banged off the lockers. Asher yelled, "Kid's got a cannon, Coach!"

Ares stood up and gave the room a lazy two-finger salute. No speech. Nothing anybody could quote later.

Unique skillset. Coach had no idea.

They swarmed him—clapping his shoulders, asking about his last program, about the shot. He handed every answer back easy and smooth, none of whatever he'd aimed at me in the hallway. Worked the room the same way he'd worked the ice.

Asher landed next to me, watching him laugh at something one of the D-men said. "He's good though. Like, annoyingly good. We needed a winger with hands like that."

"Yeah," I said. "Lucky us."

I kept telling myself I was wrong while I watched him. A scar's a coincidence. Anybody can have one. I'd been drunk that night—the basement, the rain, his mouth answering a question I didn't even know I was asking. Faces get mixed up. Could've been anyone.

Could've been.

Then Ares looked at me. Two seconds, maybe three. Didn't nod. Didn't smile. Didn't drop it.

He went back to Martinez's story and nodded in the right places, but his eyes kept coming back. Not staring. Just checking.

Donny showed up at my elbow with his clipboard. Sixty-three, been with the program since before I was born. Whatever Donny knows, the whole building knows by Friday.

"Lucky you, Captain," he said, not looking up from his inventory. "The transfer's your new roommate."

"Coach already told us."

"Coach told you the half he knew. Family housing's full—that part's true." He squinted at me over his glasses. "Your mother signed off on it this morning. Before anybody asked you."

I put my hand flat on top of the stall door and left it there.

"You got that look, Drake."

"What look?"

"Like you just ate bad seafood." He clapped my shoulder and shuffled off toward the equipment cage. "Good luck, kid."

My room was the one door in my life that actually closed all the way.

Nothing about the house on Maple Street had changed since morning. White siding, blue shutters, porch light going yellow against the October dark, Mom's car in the driveway. Next to it, a black Jeep I didn't recognize.

I sat in the truck with the engine idling. Through the kitchen curtains I could see her shape and a taller one next to it. Her hand came up and patted his shoulder the same way she did with everybody I ever brought home. I killed the engine and went in.

Lasagna was already on the table—Mom's version of "welcome" without having to say it. She was pulling garlic bread out of the oven while Ares stood there with a glass of water, one shoulder against the cabinets, in the exact spot I'd stood every morning since I was nine.

"There he is," Mom said, beaming. "Your father's on nights this week and April's at practice till nine, so it's just us. I was just getting to know your new teammate. Ares, this is Ethan. Ethan, Ares."

"We've met," I said.

"Briefly," Ares said, and went back to his water.

"Housing called this afternoon," Mom kept going, missing all of it. "I told them we'd be happy to help. Lord knows we've got the space—half of it empty most nights with the hours this family keeps. Besides, it'll be nice having another hockey player around. Maybe he'll keep Ethan from brooding so much."

"I don't brood."

"You absolutely brood," Mom said, and handed me a plate. "Set the table."

Dinner ran on his answers. Hometown, last program, mom's a nurse, dad's been gone since he was twelve. He gave it all easy, the respectful version, and Mom took it the same way she did with everybody who ever sat in that chair.

"I transferred a couple times," he said, pushing lasagna around his plate. "Last program wasn't a great fit. But I've got a good feeling about Ridgewood."

Mom stopped with the serving spoon halfway to his plate.

"That's a nasty one." She touched her own lower lip to show him where she meant. "How'd that happen?"

The oven fan was still going. Over the sink the tap dripped once, then again.

"Party," Ares said. "Somebody got carried away."

"Ah." Mom slid the corner piece onto his plate—the crispy one she always saves. "She must have liked you."

Ares picked up his fork. "I think she did."

I got up and filled a glass I didn't even want, because standing at the sink meant nobody in that kitchen had to look at my face.

Behind me Mom said, "Well, we're happy to have you. Aren't we, Ethan?"

"Thrilled," I said, back still to the room.

"Sit down and eat," Mom said.

After dinner I took him upstairs, past the family photos and the academic awards Mom never took down. He stopped at one of me at ten, holding a trophy with a front tooth missing.

"Cute," he said.

"Keep walking."

My room was at the end of the hall. Bed, desk, dresser, closet full of gear. The bottom bunk was already made up—the one that had sat empty since I was twelve. Fresh sheets, extra pillow. Mom's work.

Ares dropped his duffel on it and took the room in slow—the Ridgewood banner, the framed jersey from my first season as captain, the window over the backyard.

"Nice room," he said. "Very minimalist. Very 'I don't spend much time here because I'm too busy being perfect.'"

I set my bag down by the door. "I wasn't expecting company."

"Clearly." He gestured at the bare walls. "No posters? No photos? You live like a spy, Drake."

"I live like someone who's never here."

He looked up at that and held it. The radiator ticked once, then again, before he said, "Yeah." Quiet. "I bet you don't."

I found shit to do with my bag. Unzip. Re-zip. I'd never noticed how much sound this room made until somebody else was in it to hear it—the radiator kicking on, his breathing, every noise with a witness now.

He unpacked quick and efficient, no wasted motion, like somebody used to unfamiliar rooms. Shirts into the dresser, charger by the bed, then a paperback with a cracked spine gone soft at the edges. James Baldwin. He set it on the nightstand face-up, not in a drawer—face-up, where anybody standing in the doorway could read the cover from there.

"I'll take the floor if you want," he said without looking up. "The bunk's fine, but I don't want to crowd you."

"The bunk's fine."

"Good." He straightened up and turned. "Because I wasn't actually going to sleep on the floor. Just wanted to see if you'd make me."

"You're already in my house. Why would the floor be where I draw the line?"

That got a real smile out of him—quick, unguarded, gone before it finished landing. "Fair point, Captain."

He pulled off his hoodie while I looked at my desk, and the tattoos moved anyway at the edge of my vision, dark lines over muscle, the scar catching the lamplight. My calculus textbook might as well have been blank.

"You can look," he said. "I don't bite."

"That's not what I remember."

It was out before I could stop it. I turned. He'd gone still with his t-shirt halfway over his head. He pulled it down and found my eyes.

"So you do remember."

"That's not what I meant."

"That's exactly what you meant."

I had nothing.

He sat down on the edge of the bottom bunk with his elbows on his knees and looked up at me. The cocky act was gone. What was left was quieter. Somebody willing to wait as long as it took.

"I'm not going to out you, Ethan. That's not why I'm here."

"Then why are you here?"

He held my eyes a long moment before he looked away first—which he hadn't done once all night.

"Maybe I'll tell you someday," he said. "When you're ready to hear it."

He switched off his lamp. The room went dark except for the backyard floodlight coming orange through the blinds. Sheets rustled while his breathing evened out.

"Night, Captain."