Chapter 1
Simon was already half-asleep, more than ready for his first road trip with Rivermill to be over, so he jumped about a mile when someone crashed into the airplane seat next to him and sighed.
"This seat is not taken?" Baranov asked, making himself comfortable.
Simon wondered if he'd ever asked permission before doing something, even once.
"It is now," he said, and yawned.
Baranov blinked at him.
"By you," Simon explained, sort of waving one hand at him.
"Because you just sat there?"
Yes," Baranov said after another moment, and rubbed his face.
"Sorry, is late."
It was almost midnight, and they were finally leaving C.R. after two hours of weather delays because the minute it started snowing here, everyone acted like they'd never experienced precipitation before.
"Good game," Simon offered, because he was polite, and Baranov snorted.
"Not good enough."
"It's a rebuilding year."
"What are you, some sort of hockey fan?" Baranov asked dryly, and Simon laughed.
"Something like that," he said, and Baranov slouched back into the plane seat and gave him a narrow-eyed assessing
"Why did they hardly play you in Bellwood?" he asked, after a moment, and Simon had to turn away, pretending like something in the front of the plane had caught his eye.
"I was the backup," he said lightly, and shrugged, as if it was something he'd barely considered and not the question that had nearly eaten him alive his first few years in Bellwood.
Were they stupid?"
"This is really how you are, huh?" Simon said.
He instantly wished he hadn't, especially when Baranov raised on eyebrow and folded his arms over his chest.
Pissing off the team's star player was not, like, the greatest start to his Rivermill hockey career.
"What is really how I," Baranov said, and paused for a split second.
"Am?"
Simon took a deep breath and collected himself: he was tired as hell and he hurt everywhere and he couldn't stop replaying every time the puck had made it past him tonight and he wanted to already be in bed, warm and snuggled against Zoe, except she was still in Bellwood because it had fallen to her to dismantle practically the entire life they'd built while he stayed in a furnished apartment with an enormous TV and absolutely no soul and played hockey and tried not to think that the trade to Rivermill was the beginning of the end, that he should probably start figuring out
what he was going to do with the rest of his post-hockey life but he didn't want to because what he wanted was to cling to this one stupid thread of hope like it was a lifeline.
"Nothing," he said, and smiled so Baranov would drop it.
"You want gum?
I've got spearmint."
"Thanks," Baranov said, and he took a piece but gave Simon another
, like he wanted to keep talking about Simon's hockey feelings, which Simon very much did not.
"You watch
Throne of Bones
?" he asked instead, pulling out his NovaTab.
"I've got a headphone splitter and the first season downloaded.
As long as you pretend it ends after the sixth or seventh season, it's worth it."
"Is this some nerd shit, Ferris?" Baranov asked.
Simon thought he was teasing.
Who could fucking tell?
"Yeah, but there's also a lot of naked people and bloodshed," Simon said, holding up the headphone splitter.
"You in?"
Baranov shrugged and pulled out some tangled earbuds.
Simon was not, like, nosy.
For sure, he was
interested
He was
curious.
He engaged with people, obviously, because most people were interesting and engaging and had cool thoughts and said neat stuff once you asked.
He passed out about ten minutes into the first episode, and when he blinked awake again, his NovaTab was closed and the whole plane was dark except for Baranov, who was texting someone.
Texting someone and smiling about it.
And laughing, sort of?
And chewing on the inside of his lip and hanging onto every text that came in?
Like he was fourteen and writing notes to his crush and his crush was writing back, all smitten and infatuated and
gooey
and shit?
Baranov was nice enough, for a certain value of
He was friendly.
Personable, even.
Outgoing when he wanted to be.
But also:
Baranov was odd.
He had a talent for talking nonstop and never saying anything about himself.
He seemed like he was buddies with everyone and friends with no one, which: he'd been here for a couple of months, so, understandable.
But Baranov seemed like he played his cards so close to his vest that the cards were actually inside his vest, whatever, Simon was tired and metaphors were hard.
Point being: everyone else was asleep and here was this unknowable enigma, looking all blushy and wistful and shit.
Unexpected, to say the least.
And Simon wasn't nosy, but he wasn't stupid, either.
Baranov has a girlfriend?
Simon thought, and then he pulled his hood around his face and went back to sleep.
"Ferris!" The shout rang through the parking garage, and Simon didn't need to turn around to know who it was.
There was only one loud Kavarian in the building.
"Baranov!" he shouted back, turning in place and smiling back.
It wasn't like Baranov made him nervous, but Simon had dealt with enough hockey players who were complete and utter dicks that he was still... cautious.
Baranov always gave Simon the feeling that he was looking at one of those magic eye 3D things where, if you looked the right way, an elephant or whatever would pop out at you.
Simon had never been much good at them, but Baranov made him feel like there was an elephant he couldn't see and maybe wasn't going to like.
Metaphorically.
"Where are you going?"
Simon glanced at his Trailcrest, four spots away, then back at Baranov.
"Is that a trick question?"
"Come get lunch with me," Baranov said, turning away to unlock his car like he was so sure Simon would follow him that he didn't even need to check.
And—that was
Simon had been in Rivermill for three weeks after years and years in Bellwood, and it
sucked
He missed Zoe, and his friends, and the city, and all he really had to make up for the life he'd left behind was the promise of actually playing hockey on a team not made up of idiotic, smirking fuckmuppets, but so far the hockey was grinding him down because it was game after game of desperately trying to prove he wasn't old and washed up, and Baranov was currently looking a little fuckmuppety and a lot smirky.
Also, he needed a nap, so no, he was not going to follow Baranov into his car like some star-struck rookie.
"Can't today," he called, and put a smile on his face because he wasn't a fuckmuppet either.
"I gotta run some errands."
Then he ignored whatever Baranov shouted back, got into his Trailcrest, and drove off.
It was the end of practice, and Simon was thinking about stamps while everyone took shots on the goal before heading into the locker room, because he'd read somewhere once that
technically
stamps were interchangeable with legal tender since they were both issued in monetary amounts by the government, so he was wondering what would happen if he tried to buy a donut with stamps.
No way, right?
He gloved a puck down and it thunked satisfyingly to the ice.
And what was the deal with stamp
collectors
That had to be some kind of scam that had worked spectacularly well for one guy who'd convinced everyone else that an upside-down airplane was worth a shit-ton of money, and then because they were all convinced it
worth that much money, sort of like bitcoin but for—
He lunged right at the last second and just barely gloved another one down.
Seconds later Baranov skated past, and of course he had the temerity to look surprised.
"Nice," he said as he went past, and yeah.
It
nice, thanks.
"You can try again, if you want," Simon called back, and he wasn't really trash talking but he wasn't
trash talking, mostly because Baranov had been playing with him for weeks now and had still looked surprised and, like, what the fuck, dude.
Baranov didn't respond, just scooped up a puck, looped around, and took another shot.
Simon got that one too.
This time Baranov didn't look surprised, he just grinned.
"Again?" he called, already off.
"You can try it," Simon shouted.
A little while later, one of the trainers leaned over the boards and waved.
"Hey," she called.
"I think the zamboni guy wants to get started."
"The zamboni guy?" Simon said, blinking sweat out of his eyes, his brain still ninety-five percent hockey and five percent
what's the deal with stamp collectors
, which left zero percent for the zamboni guy.