The arena was completely empty, bathed in the harsh, bright white light of the practice overheads. The only sounds were the hollow echo of pucks hammering against the end boards and the vicious scrape of carbon steel carving into the ice.
Finn Mercer leaned on his stick, his lungs burning behind his ribs. He wiped a line of sweat from his forehead with the back of his damp glove.
"Again," Finn said.
Luca, standing near the blue line, slammed his stick onto the ice. He was breathing heavily; his dark hair plastered to his forehead inside his helmet. "We've run this defensive transition drill twelve times, Mercer. I got it."
"You ran it twelve times like a winger who only cares about the breakaway," Finn corrected, his voice echoing off the empty plastic seats. "You're leaving the defenseman exposed. If you turn over the puck there, we get odd man rushed. Again."
Luca muttered something harsh in Spanish under his breath. He skated back to the starting position.
Finn watched him. It had been four days since the trade. Four days of forced proximity. Finn had built his entire career, his entire life, on control. He believed that leadership meant suppressing chaos, and Luca Serrano was walking, breathing chaos. The kid was reactive, defensive, and undeniably brilliant with the puck. But his talent was wild. Finn's job was to cage it.
"On the whistle," Finn said.
He blew the whistle. Luca exploded forward.
Finn passed the puck hard, a heavy, flat pass meant to test Luca's reception. Luca caught it on the backhand without breaking stride. But instead of pushing forward into the offensive zone like he usually did, anticipating the glory, Luca suddenly slammed on the brakes.
He pivoted flawlessly, his blades tearing a violent spray of snow into the air. He dropped his shoulder, shielded the puck with his body, and executed the exact defensive drop-pass Finn had been drilling into him for the last hour. It was sharp. It was disciplined. It was perfect.
Luca caught the return pass and fired a wrist shot that pinged off the crossbar and buried itself in the back of the net.
Silence fell over the ice.
Luca coasted to a stop near the hash marks. He was panting, his chest heaving under his shoulder pads. He looked at Finn, his dark eyes wide and challenging, waiting for the criticism. Waiting to be told it wasn't good enough.
Finn stared at him. For a fraction of a second, the armor slipped. Finn felt a sudden, sharp jolt in his chest—a spark of pure, unfiltered admiration. When Luca stopped fighting the system, his talent was terrifyingly beautiful.
Finn didn't say anything, but he didn't have to. Luca saw it.
The kid's posture shifted. The defensive, aggressive tension in his shoulders melted away, replaced by a sudden, intense stillness. Luca's eyes tracked Finn's face, catching the momentary widening of his pupils, the slight part of his lips before Finn clamped his jaw shut.
Finn immediately looked down at the ice, tapping his stick against his skate. He felt a hot flush creeping up the back of his neck. He was losing his grip on the situation.
"Better," Finn said, his voice was a little rougher than he intended. "Hit the showers. We're done."
Luca didn't move right away. He just stood there on the ice, watching Finn with a new, dangerous curiosity. The contempt between them had just fractured, and whatever was bleeding through the cracks felt infinitely more threatening.