He held my gaze for a long moment. In the fluorescent hallway light, his eyes looked lighter than usual. Almost silver.
"You should ice your shoulder," I said.
"I should."
"Goodnight, Volkov."
"Goodnight, Briggs."
Neither of us moved. Two men in a hotel hallway with ice melting between them and something else building that I didn't have a name for yet. Three seconds. Five. The ice machine hummed.
I pushed off the wall and walked to my room. Swiped my keycard. Stepped inside. Let the door close behind me.
I stood in the dark hotel room and pressed my forehead against the cool wood of the door and thought about Mikhail Volkov in his white T-shirt telling me about his sister. The way his voice changed when he talked about her. Softer. Warmer. Like there was a version of him underneath all the granite that was actually gentle, and he only let it out for people he loved.
I wanted to be someone he let it out for.
The thought arrived fully formed and undeniable, and I stood there in the dark letting it settle into my bones.
Then I brushed my teeth and went to bed, because wanting things is fine, but acting on them at eleven-thirty at night in a Nashville hotel is how careers end and friendships implode.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand.
Jonah: You disappeared. Everything good?
Me: Yeah. Just tired.
Jonah: Mhmm.
That single "mhmm" contained more observation than I was comfortable with. I put the phone face down and closed my eyes.
Sleep came slowly. And when it did, I dreamed about ice machines and silver eyes and a man in a hallway who told me about his sister like it was a gift he wasn't sure I deserved.
MIK
The woman at the front desk in Charlotte was apologetic in the particular American way that involves a lot of smiling and very little actual resolution.
"I'm so sorry, sir. There's a medical conference in town and we're completely sold out. The booking error shows two queens, but the only room we have available is a king suite. I can offer a complimentary upgrade to the minibar?"
I looked at the key packet in her hand. One room. One bed. And Cole Briggs standing next to me with his duffel bag over his shoulder and an expression I could not read.
Our team travel coordinator, a woman named Sandra who managed the logistics of thirty men moving across the country with the precision of a military operation, was already on her phone trying to find solutions. She looked up and shook her head. "Every hotel in a three-mile radius is full. Volkov, Briggs, I'm sorry. You're bunking together tonight. I'll have it sorted by Tampa."
"No problem," Cole said.
I said nothing, which Sandra correctly interpreted as agreement.
We rode the elevator in silence. The hallway was long and identical to every hotel hallway in every city I had ever played in. Patterned carpet. Brass sconces. The faint smell of industrial cleaner masked by something floral. Cole walked ahead, found the room, and swiped the keycard.
The room was nice. Large, even. A sitting area by the window, a desk, a bathroom with marble counters. And in the center of it all, one king-sized bed with a white duvet and approximately forty decorative pillows, because Americans believed that comfort was achieved through pillow multiplication.
Cole dropped his bag and surveyed the situation. "I'll take the floor."
"Don't be stupid."
"It's fine. I've slept on worse."
"You have a game tomorrow. You are not sleeping on the floor and then playing on a back that spent eight hours on carpet."