Page 2 of Locked & Loaded

I don’t.

Somehow, with him in front of me, I make more mistakes. But it’s not because I’ve suddenly forgotten how to stop a puck. The guy is impossible to play with. Reading him is like trying to crack The Da Vinci Code while six ounces of vulcanized rubber tries to take your teeth out.

Tonight, he spent sixty minutes proving my point.

From the first period, we were off. It came in stupid little pieces: late decisions, calls that went nowhere, the kind of silence that makes you start inventing answers because the guy in front of you refuses to give you any. When I did call for something, Rodriguez would wave me off and move the puck half a beat late, like my voice had gotten lost somewhere between his helmet and his brain. When I waited for him to make himself clear, I got the same blank nothing. He kept leaving me to fill in the gaps, and every time I had to guess what he was doing, I got more pissed off. After enough of that, I wasn’t reading the rush anymore. I was waiting for Rodriguez to make me guess, which is a great way to look like the only idiot on the ice.

They were tiny moments, maybe invisible from the stands, but not from my crease. He didn’t trust my calls. I didn’t trust his reads. By the third period, I was snapping at him after every whistle, and Rodriguez kept answering in that flat, infuriating tone that made me look even more unhinged. Instead of using the stoppages to reset, I was coming out of them more pissed off than before, and once a goalie starts fighting his own defenseman, the other team doesn’t need much help. Three goals later, a close game had turned into a 4–1 embarrassment, and I already knew which one of us everyone would blame.

“Line up, gentlemen!” Coach Toledo’s voice cuts through the noise on the platform. He stands by the train doors, clipboard in hand like he’s taking attendance at elementary school. The team shuffles forward, nobody wanting to be first. I stay back, Sam beside me. Roman moves to the front, because apparently that’s the captain’s burden.

“Compartment assignments are final,” Toledo continues. “And I don’t want to hear any bitching once we’re moving. No trades, no swaps, no creative interpretations.”

I close my eyes briefly. The train to Copenhagen is an overnight, eight hours in sleeper compartments built for people considerably smaller than professional hockey players. Usually, on the road, we sort ourselves out—friends bunking with friends, rookies with rookies, everybody finding their comfort zone. But Toledo’s face says comfort isn’t on tonight’s agenda.

He starts reading off pairs, and the expected patterns emerge. Roman with Sam, which makes sense. They’ve been roommates for three seasons. The rookie wingers together. Defensive pairs mostly kept intact. I wait for my name, expecting Jensen, maybe Eriksson—guys I’ve bunked with before.

“Holm,” Toledo says, his eyes finding mine over the clipboard, “you’re with Rodriguez.”

My stomach drops.

What the fuck?

“Who?” I say, staring at him, because I’m sure I’ve misheard.

“You deaf, Holm?” Coach says, one unimpressed eyebrow lifting. “You’re with Rodriguez. Compartment eleven.”

I stare at Coach. He stares back at me.

“Coach—” I start, trying not to let my frustration show.

Toledo’s expression doesn’t change, but his voice gets that edge I know too well. “Problem?”

There are a dozen things I could say. That Rodriguez and I just proved on international television that we can’t work together. That putting us in a two-by-three-meter box overnight is asking for trouble. That there are plenty of other guys on this team I could share with without wanting to throw myself onto the tracks.

Instead, I say, “I don’t think that’s the best arrangement.”

“No?” Toledo’s lips twitch. “You got a better idea?”

“Anyone else,” I say, knowing as I say it that I’ve already lost.

Toledo turns his gaze to Rodriguez. I look at him too. He’s standing two feet from me, completely unbothered.

“Rodriguez, you got a problem sharing a compartment with Holm?” Toledo asks him.

Rodriguez looks at him, then turns to me for the first time since we left the ice. Dark eyes, jaw set, the cold still red across his face.

“I don’t give a shit,” he says.

He’s not angry. Not even annoyed. He looks bored, like I’m not worth the effort of a real reaction.

Toledo gestures between us, as if making a point that I’m the unreasonable one here. “See? He doesn’t give a shit. And you shouldn’t either. Problem solved.”

And with that, he moves on to the next names on his list, discussion closed.

I clench my jaw and glare at Rodriguez, but he’s already looking down at his phone, so my frustration doesn’t get to go anywhere.

Sam gives me a sympathetic grimace and murmurs, “Could be worse.”