Icebreaker Read online

  The only reason my friendship with Nova has lasted through distance is because I’ve known her since the day I was born and lived with her after my family moved away from Buffalo. I still have a room at her parents’ house. There’s no escaping it at this point, and I wouldn’t want to.

  I scroll through the replies to Jaysen’s post as I head back to my room. There’s plenty from the rest of the Royals, some of the other defensemen being mock-offended by his favorite blueliners comment, Zero saying my sons with a bunch of heart emojis. Then there’s the random hockey fans vying for a little bit of attention by commenting how they hope they’re all having a good time in college.

  I’m staring at Jaysen’s infuriating dimples on my phone when I walk into my room.

  Jaysen and Dorian are sitting on Dorian’s bed, a laptop open with angry-sounding music screaming from the speakers.

  I jump so high I almost fling my phone into the sun, but they’re too caught up in their conversation to notice. They look like budding best friends with their all black clothes and tattoos.

  “Dude, I am so relieved,” Dorian says. “I thought I’d be missing out on shows here.”

  “Yeah, looks like they don’t got a barricade, either,” Jaysen says, squinting at the screen through black-rimmed glasses. “We can get right up in their faces.”

  “I’ve never been to a venue like that. All the ones back home, the stages were shoulder height and barricaded with this huge gap.”

  “Once you experience a place like this, those other ones won’t even be worth it to you.” Jaysen nods his head in my direction. “Your Grace.”

  I clench the towel tighter around my waist. “That gotten old yet?”

  He shrugs. “It’s fitting. Zero wants to call you Terzo, but you gotta earn it first. It’s Italian for third, apparently.”

  Right. I was Jamesy on my last team. At least Zero’s a little more creative, turning that pretentious little III at the end of my name into something decent sounding. Still, I roll my eyes. “He google translate that?”

  “His grandma’s from Italy. You’d know that if you ever joined us for team bonding. He never shuts up about it.”

  I glance at him. His words are light and carefree, but the pinched look on his face says he’d rather shave with a power sander than keep talking to me.

  “Wait, didn’t your mom skate for Italy?” Dorian asks. “Do you know Italian?”

  I nod slowly and they both look at me like they’re expecting me to go into some Italian soliloquy or something. I keep my mouth shut and duck behind my dresser for some privacy as I get dressed. I’ll be changing in front of these guys daily once practices start, but something about being in my room instead of the locker room makes it feel, I don’t know, weird. Yeah, this is Dorian’s room, too, but I’ve had it to myself while he’s been spending his nights at the hockey house, so it almost feels like he’s intruding.

  “Okay,” Dorian says, drawing it out for a few seconds. The bed creaks, and I hear the snap of his laptop closing. It takes a moment for the music to die, and he’s quick to fill the quiet. “Terzo’s a pretty sick nickname, though. Better than Hildy. Like, I don’t get it. There’s not even an L there! Please, if you like me even a little, just call me Dorian.”

  “For the record,” Jaysen says, “I suggested Doll Face.”

  Dorian snorts. “That one’s actually not bad. I gotta head out, though, man. First ever college class is physics. Reza por mí.”

  “That’s what you get for majoring in astronomy.”

  Dorian clenches his hands in front of himself and pulls a face that makes the tendons in his neck pop out. “I just … love space … so much!” he says through his teeth. He heads for the door with his backpack slung over one shoulder. “Why can’t I skip the math and just look at the stars?”

  There’s a panorama of the Milky Way breaking up all the metal bands and hockey posters above Dorian’s bed. I’ve seen it every day for the past week and never realized it was anything more than aesthetic.

  I spent two years with the same players in Michigan but don’t have a single one of them saved in my phone or added on social media. Honestly, that doesn’t bother me as much as the thought of not knowing a single personal thing about my own roommate. Of wasting my one year of college.

  It’s not until Dorian gets all the way to the door that I realize Jaysen’s not following him.

  “What?” I ask when we’re alone.

  Jaysen sighs, long and loud and tortured. “We got algebra together, apparently. Zero and Kovy are forcing me to walk with you.”

  I blink at him. What is this, the buddy system? “Why?”

  He gives me a look as blank as my own, and I can’t hold up against it. I turn to the mirror and comb my fingers through my hair in a vain attempt to tame my curls and stick a pen behind my ear. I head out the door without warning and let it close on Jaysen just to buy myself a few extra steps alone. He seems unaffected when he catches up, falling into step beside me.

  Delilah and I are taking this algebra class together. We both suck at math, so it’s not like it’s gonna help either of us, but it’s better than suffering alone. Now it’s gonna be pure torture.

  I’d gotten used to campus being pretty quiet with just the freshmen and fall athletes here for the most part. Now we have to squeeze past other people crowding the narrow, curving paths from the dorms. Hartland’s small for a D-I school, but there’s still enough people screaming at the sight of one another and laughing and hugging like they’ve been apart for years that it gives me a headache.

  Seniors are gathered on the hill outside the Sommer Student Center in their black robes and ridiculous costume sunglasses, drinking alcohol out of their class mugs and heckling the freshmen. I keep my head down after spotting Zero and Kovy doubled over in laughter, already wasted at ten in the morning.

  We’re past most of the noise and starting up the hill to the Stratton science and math hall when Jaysen finally speaks up.

  “So, what’re you majoring in?”

  You know what sucks the most about this? I know he doesn’t really want to know. His voice is so dead. He doesn’t even glance in my direction as he asks. I know he’s only here because our drunk captains want us to stop being so hostile before practice starts. But that doesn’t stop my heart from stuttering or my palms from sweating at the weight of his attention.

  “Nothing,” I say.

  “So, what, undecided for now? Testing the waters?”

  I look at him. He’s got a tight grip on his backpack straps, chewing hard on his gum. There’s this heavy feeling in my chest, like I know exactly what he’s getting at.

  “Not here for a degree,” I say slowly, keeping my eyes on him the whole time.

  He reacts exactly like I expect him to, finally looking at me with disdain all over his face. “Shoulda gone CHL, then. Why bother coming to college if the NHL is such a sure thing?”

  He kinda has a point. Playing in the CHL would let me focus solely on hockey instead of wasting time on classes and homework. But Hartland is a James family tradition. I didn’t have much choice.

  I adjust the pen behind my ear and turn my eyes back to the sidewalk. My face is starting to feel hot, and not just from the late-August sun. “I could ask the same of you.”

  “The NHL has never been a given for me.”

  I scoff. “You’ve been a top prospect for years. It’s a given.”

  “James.” He says my name like it causes him physical pain, all strained and raspy. “I already had one career-threatening injury. One bad hit’s all it’ll take for me to lose this. Then there’s the fact that less than one percent of men’s college hockey players and two percent of NHL players are Black. I haven’t been set up for superstardom like you.”

  I take a deep breath and let it out heavily through my nose. I can’t argue with that.

  “You realize like half our team’s been drafted, right?” Jaysen goes on. I wonder how he would’ve gone about flipping
out on me if I’d answered that first question differently. Because this was obviously his plan from the start. “Hell, Dorian went second round to the Kings, and he’s still declaring astronomy. You might as well have a backup plan for when that legacy blows up in your face. One bad attitude can sink an entire team. No one’s gonna risk that for your name.”

  I roll my eyes and stop walking. “Listen. Jaysen.”

  He faces me with his arms crossed and eyebrows pinched.

  “We don’t have to do this,” I continue, voice hoarse. “You don’t have to remind me how much you hate me every time you see me. I haven’t forgotten.”

  He bites down hard, the tendons in his jaw popping out. I don’t give him time to come up with another insult before I walk away.

  The air-conditioning in Stratton hits me like a wall, and I take in a relieved breath of cold air, wiping sweat off my forehead. I should’ve brought a backpack just to carry around extra deodorant.

  I take a desk at the back of the lecture hall and sink low in my seat, leg bouncing as I watch people come in. Jaysen trails in right behind me, but he sits closer to the front, thank god. I prop an elbow on the table and scrub at a drawing of a dick in Sharpie with my thumb while I wait for Delilah to show up. Good to know college students are no more mature than the ones in high school.

  The slap of a notebook on the table next to me makes me jump. “We’re sitting up front next time,” Delilah says, Jade sinking into the seat on her other side, wearing a T-shirt that says Seventeen on the front and Woozi 96 on the back. They must’ve gotten together because of K-pop. It’s the first thing I’ve seen them have in common so far. “I need to pass this class.”

  I sigh. “Fine.”

  She takes her seat next to me and slides over a sweating plastic cup. “You’re in college now, kid. Time to caffeinate.”

  “Thanks,” I mumble, and take a small sip of some kind of bitter iced coffee.

  She laughs at my grimace. “You have to stir it first.” She jerks her chin toward the front of the room. “Try not to make so many ugly faces—you’ve got an audience.”

  A few people quickly look away when I follow her gaze. “What the hell.”

  “They’re selling these in the Sommer Center.” Delilah reaches into her backpack and pulls out a magazine, tossing it onto the table in front of me. The Hockey News. The cover photo has me in full gear, my new purple-and-black Royals jersey, completely unsmiling.

  “The Dynasty Continues: Presenting His Majesty, Mickey James III.”

  Suddenly, Nova’s Your Majesty and Jaysen’s Your Grace make a lot more sense.

  My eye roll and sigh combination is a work of art perfected by years of practice.

  “Wait till you read it,” Delilah says.

  I grumble as I flip through until I find my face again, surrounded by my sisters on the couch at Mom and Dad’s house in Raleigh. My face is as blank as always, but my sisters stare at the camera like they’re trying to break it.

  At the time of that photo shoot, I’d been bitter about a lot of things. My parents have lived in Raleigh since I was ten years old, but that was only the third time I’d ever been there. I got to see my sisters for a day, and it was all about hockey.

  Mickey James set NHL records, the article says. Mickey James II broke them. Mickey James III was bred to shatter them entirely. His five older sisters are a testament to their parents’ desperation to have a son to continue the James family’s hockey dynasty.

  I blink. Read that last line again. Then a third time before I push the magazine away from me. “Fucking seriously?”

  Delilah nods. “That’s the only mention of any of us. I mean, they do say Bailey and me are at Hartland, too. But they don’t talk about Mikayla’s SID job, or Nicolette’s medals, or Bailey’s lacrosse championship, or Madison’s coaching.”

  “Or your Patty Kazmaier?” Delilah was literally named NCAA women’s hockey’s MVP last season. This is The Hockey News. They should probably mention something like that.

  Delilah shakes her head. “Nothing we do matters. We only exist because Mom and Dad were desperate for a child with a Y chromosome.”

  Jade tsks from her other side, stirring her own iced coffee with a metal straw. “That is an inaccurate indicator of gender and you know it.”

  “Speaking from their perspective,” Delilah amends. The two of them start talking about a gender studies class they’re in together, and I drag the magazine back to me to give it a rage read while waiting for the professor to show up.

  I skim through comparisons of Dad and me, how we were both too young for the draft coming out of high school, spending a year at Hartland in the meantime. Of course it has to bring up my height, because the hockey media is so obsessed with how tiny and adorable they think I am. The writer seems confident that my name and skill will be enough to secure the top pick in June despite my size. The third Mickey James to be taken first overall.

  I only start really absorbing the words when I stumble on Jaysen’s name.

  They seriously interviewed him for this?

  Kill me now.

  I’m not letting him take that spot without a fight. Teammate or not, I’m coming for him.

  “This dickhead,” I mutter.

  “What, you scared?” Delilah says. She raises her hands in mock surrender when I glare at her. “He’s sitting right there. Want me to get in his head? Throw him off his game?”

  “No.” I want to earn that first overall spot. I need Jaysen at his best when I beat him. Prove I didn’t get here on my name alone. Prove that I’m just better than him.

  “I don’t get how he’s even up for the draft?” Jade says. She takes a small sip of coffee and goes back to stirring. “He plans on graduating, right? How can someone be drafted if they won’t be available for four years?”

  Delilah sits up straighter, ready to dispense some hockey knowledge. “Whatever team drafts him will hold on to his rights until the August after he graduates. He gets his degree, his draft team gets some free development, everyone wins.”

  Jade looks unconvinced, but my phone vibrates, distracting me from the rest of their conversation. The official NHL Twitter just tagged me in a post with a picture attached. The preview shows a row of gray tables and half a person slouched over a notebook. My stomach bottoms out before I even click on it, expanding the picture to reveal this very classroom. I glance up, but the room is filled in enough now that I can’t pinpoint exactly who took it. All I see are the backs of heads bent over cell phones and a math textbook I didn’t bother to buy.

  I take a better look at the picture. It shows Jaysen looking down at his phone and me in the back of the room turning a page in the magazine with a scowl on my face, Delilah and Jade smiling at each other as they talk.

  Jesus. Social media is scary.

  The original poster only tagged the NHL account, but whoever runs it added the comment who will get the better grade? with a thinking face emoji, and tagged both me and Jaysen.

  It’s impossible to miss Delilah with that hair. They just don’t care about her. So I retweet it and say obviously @LilahJames23.

  The professor shows up as the notifications start pouring in. My follower count has been steadily rising ever since the focus shifted to my draft class. I barely even use the thing, but I’m gonna have to turn off notifications soon. For now, I silence my phone and take the syllabus the girl a few seats over passes to me. We don’t do roll call. Instead, the professor goes around and makes each of us introduce ourselves.

  In a class this size, it’ll take almost the whole hour.

  Everyone’s giving their year, their majors, what they plan to do with their degree. My hands are clammy, my chest tight. What the hell am I supposed to say without making myself look like an ass?

  Jaysen’s right. I don’t belong here. I should be on some CHL team, not wasting my and everyone else’s time in this classroom, taking up space on this campus.

  Jaysen turns in his seat to face more peo
ple when he’s up, eyes skipping right over me as he says, “I’m Jaysen. Freshman soc major. Thinking about working in a law firm someday.”

  Not a word about hockey. Jaysen Caulfield is made up of more important things.

  Now I have to make it look like I am, too. Just to get him off my back.

  I drown out the rest of the intros, scrambling to come up with something meaningful. Anything I like that I could make a career out of. Something I’d be happy to get out of bed for.

  My mind comes up startlingly blank. Nothing makes me happy, really. Getting out of bed is a chore.

  “Hi!” Delilah says, all loud and bubbly, jolting me out of my thoughts. “I’m Delilah James. Sophomore sports management major. I’m playing for Team USA women’s hockey in the Olympics next year and working for them after I graduate.”

  There is no hoping or planning about it. She talks like it’s already a given. I mean, of course it is. She’s a James, after all.

  Then it’s my turn. Forty-something pairs of eyes on me is nothing compared to the thousands when I’m on the ice. But this is way more stressful. Talking is not part of my skill set.

  My mouth is so dry that my tongue makes this gross sticky sound as it moves. “I’m, uh…” My eyes dart around the room, looking for someone safe to focus on so it’s not like I’m talking to all of these people. It’d be weird if I stared at Delilah right next to me. So of course I home in on Jaysen. He watches me through heavy eyelids, head tilted back like a challenge.

  I clear my throat. “Mickey. Freshman. Marine science major.”

  And that’s all I got. Jaysen raises one eyebrow so it arches above his glasses. I look away.

  The room is quiet for a beat before some guy shouts, “Go Sens!”

  The Ottawa Senators are a favorite to tank this season and win the draft lottery for that coveted top pick. I sigh heavily and barely catch the way Jaysen’s face sours as he turns around. He’s a top prospect, too, but nobody made any comments like that for him.