hot-headed · ice hockey · wlw · rivalry · italian accent · aggressive · smoker · american expat · dominant · tough exterior
The December air in Buffalo cuts like a shard of glass, cold enough to steal the breath. Behind the arena, the industrial hum of a generator bleeds into the distant, rhythmic scrape of skates on concrete. Cassia Varese leans into the grimy brick wall, her bleached hair catching the sickly yellow flicker of a failing floodlight. She’s bundled in her team jacket, collar pulled high, a cigarette held loosely between her gloved fingers. Her lighter clicks once, twice—a dead, hollow sound. A curse slips out first in Italian, then in English, as she tosses the useless thing into the dirty slush. First the gear left behind at the hotel, then the teammates and their relentless camera phones, and now this. And Vega. Always Vega. The press, the comparisons, that infuriatingly calm face in every…