I slung my hockey bag over my shoulder and headed out of the locker room. While walking through campus, Braxton flagged me down.
“Where are you going, bro?” he asked.
“Home. Need to get some rest. Didn’t sleep last night.”
“Got a minute?”
I offered a tiny shrug. As co-captain, I wanted to always be available to teammates like a good leader should. The last two days had tired me out, and I definitely wasn’t in the best mood. All I wanted was to collapse into bed, even if Kayden wouldn’t be there to break my fall.
“Sure,” I said.
“It’s about you and Kayden, bro. I’m worried.”
Now there was a name I didn’t need to hear. I couldn’t let on that there were any issues, but Braxton obviously wouldn’t be fooled.
“Why?” I asked.
“Something happened, didn’t it? Like, I can tell. So could the rest of the team. Coach Hardison too.”
“They did?”
“Uh-huh. But if it’s too personal to talk about then…”
“What makes you think it’s so personal?”
“I don’t know. Just a feeling I’ve got. The same as feeling like there’s definitely something wrong. I don’t know what to call it exactly. I just know something’s up.”
That same feeling of nausea deep in the pit of my stomach that always came when I thought someone had caught onto our secret appeared on schedule. Only I didn’t care nearly as much. We’d broken up, remember? We didn’t have to cover anything up. Maybe my teammate would think he’d finally discovered what our story really was, but there was nothing left to uncover.
We were finished. Done. Through.
“Is it that obvious?” I asked.
“Well, just that something obviously happened between the two of you. Maybe it was sudden, maybe it wasn’t. I don’t know. Maybe I missed something. We all know you guys have had a sort of love-hate thing right from the start.”
“I guess so…”
“It’s weird, though. You were doing just fine a week ago and now…”
I paused. How would I cook up a believable excuse on the fly? It’s not like I had to or anything. What’d happened between Kayden and me was none of Braxton’s business. I could brush him off if I wanted to. In fact, I could do the same to any of my teammates. Given the state I was in, nothing seemed to matter.
“It’s personal.” He raised both hands in a stop gesture, like I needed to say no more. “That’s totally okay. I get it.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“Just one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“You two are going to learn to get along no matter what happened, aren’t you?”
“Huh?”
My teammate smiled. “How can you not know what I’m talking about, bro? You might as well have admitted thatsomething happened. I’m cool with you not telling me what. But we’ve got game seven coming up. It means the world to every one of us. We can’t risk throwing away everything we’ve done this season.”
“I know we can’t.”
I realized that breaking up with Kayden didn’t mean freedom from criticism I didn’t particularly want to hear. At least I wouldn’t have to answer to Braxton in any other way, shape, or form.
