I scrolled through various fundraiser photos—dogs in costumes, kids covered in frosting, volunteers laughing in between the chaos.
Then there was a picture of us.
At the gala. Holding me. On the dance floor. Just him, holding me during the slow dance, cheek resting against my hair, eyes closed.
My chest ached. I stared at it too long. Swiped past it. Swiped back.
I turned the screen off and sat up, rubbing my face.
OK, I need to look at something else.
The new dogs—we’d had a couple bad sleepers. I opened the Timberline app to check the security feed.
One of the clips had a yellow timestamp. Yellow means off-hours. The motion sensors shouldn't have caught anyone coming into the rescue.
I clicked it.
Colton.
He was in the rescue. At night. Tossing a ball gently down the hallway. Luna trotted after it. Returned it. Trotted again.
In the next clip, he was crouched by the crates, hand outstretched, letting one of the nervous shepherd mixes sniff his knuckles.
Another—he was refilling the food bowls. Another—folding blankets. Another—laughing when one of the puppies barked at his shoelaces.
I sat there, the blue light washing over my comforter, not even blinking.
He’d been here. Not once. Not twice.
I clicked to the following clip.
There he was again.
Still here.
When no one was watching.
Including me.
Chapter sixteen
Colton: The Headline
Iwas on my third replay. Same shift. Same hesitation. A flick of my eyes left before I shot right—just a second, just enough for any goalie worth his pads to read me like a book.
I leaned back, the vinyl chair sticking to my bare shoulders, the laptop screen flickering like it was tired too. My fingers traced my jaw, scruff catching against my skin. The notepad beside me was a mess. Eye flick? Shoulders? Who was I kidding—I wasn’t just trying to fix a tell. I was trying to figure out who the hell I even was.
Hockey had a formula. Mistakes had fixes. Plays, systems, tape to study. You screw up, you correct. You train until the correction becomes instinctive.
But Riley?
There was no slow-motion replay, no arrows on a whiteboard. No breakdown, no instruction manual. Just me, sitting here, trying to figure out a future with nothing but scattered thoughts and shaky conclusions.
I scrubbed a hand through my hair and let my head fall back against the chair. The laptop screen dimmed—it was in power save mode. It was telling me to shut it down, too. So I did.
Sleep didn’t come. But morning did.
I’d beaten sunrise to the rink. Cold air wrapped around me as I stepped onto the concrete, my gym bag thumping softly against my back. Inside, the ice stretched out smooth, untouched. The hallway lights cast a pale glow, but the rink itself stayed dark, the windows barely catching the earliest spill of dawn.
