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His breath is mint. His voice is barely there. It’s the softest thing he’s ever said to me, which makes no sense at all, given what he said.

“Likewise,” I whisper.

He takes a step back. “Good. We have an understanding. Withdraw that fucking application.”

I blink at his green eyes. Green again. Annoyed again. Whatever I saw is gone, and I can’t tell if it was ever there or if I made it up from standing too close to him for too long.

“And don’t apply to Camden,” he adds. “You hear me?”

It’s such a strange thing to say that I almost ask him why.

“Yes,” I whisper, looking down at his shirt and then back up, quickly. “I didn’t apply to Camden.”

“Withdraw the Woodbury one, Tess.”

I nod and keep my eyes low.

“Verbal confirmation,” he says.

I look down at my hands. They’re steady. They’re always steady with him, because out of all the people who have hurt me, or don’t like me, or have put me down, Rafe has never once used his hands. He’s never shoved me into a locker or caught my arm or put his weight anywhere near me. He’s never needed to. His weapon has always been his mouth, and I’ve had a lifetime of practice against words. As long as he doesn’t touch me, I can handle him.

“I’ll withdraw,” I say quietly.

It’s the easiest lie I’ve ever told. I don’t even feel it leave.

He doesn’t say anything. He goes. I watch the back of his head as he walks down the stairs, his hand trailing the rail, his footsteps getting smaller, until he’s around the corner.

I stand here for a long time after.

My shoes are wet. My sandwich is still on the table in the cafeteria, and I bet someone has thrown it away by now.

I’m going to Woodbury. I have my reasons, and they’re good ones, and he doesn’t get to know what they are.

He told me to withdraw. I told him I would.

Let him believe it. Boys like Rafferty Waleska never check. They just assume the world listens to their every word.

2

Two Minutes for Roughing

Rafe

Present day

Tuesday games are for schools nobody has heard of.

Twice a season, somebody in an office decides a weeknight needs filling, and a program that travels by bus instead of charter drives four hours to lose in front of a building that’s two-thirds full of people who got in free with a student ID. Tonight, it’s Rubin. I couldn’t find Rubin on a map if I wanted to, and I’m not going to.

In warmups, their goalie let a puck squirt off his blocker during line rushes and laughed about it with his D-man. I stood on our blue line with my stick across my knees and decided I’d have one on him before the end of the first.

Kennebeck’s back from a one-game suspension and playing like somebody kept him in a basement and fed him through the door. He wins the opening draw before the puck has finished falling. Two minutes in, he puts a Rubin defenseman into the boards so hard the glass in front of the student section shudders in its frame, and he doesn’t look at the guy after. He just takes the puck and goes, and I’ve got the whole right side open, and he puts it on Barnes’s tape instead.

I bang my stick on the ice.

Bastard.

Halfway through the period, a Rubin forward catches Barnes high along the boards, and Kennebeck’s there before Koda’s even back on his skates. Glove in the guy’s face, fist in his jersey, four inches of air between them. I watch it from the far side of the circle and wait for the stripes to send him back to the suit. They don’t call a thing. He lets go and skates away with both hands out.