Every time I come off for a change, my eyes flick to her, and she avoids eye contact; she thinks she’s going to fuck up my stride. I’ll tell her the opposite is true, that I’ve never had anyone in the stands rooting for me, and it doesn’t impair me; it makes me rise to a different and more focused level.
We dominate the first, but by the second, they get inside some of my teammates’ heads, and even Moretti seems off. The game tightens. The score stays locked. The building hums with that familiar restless energy, the kind that wants a hero, whether you volunteer or not.
Third period. Tie game.
“You good, Moretti? I ask.
“Yeah. Won’t happen again.” But I see his eyes shift to the box.
“She’s up there with people who love her man. She’s good. Savannah’s good.”
“Fuckers here.”Kyle.
Coach yells out, “Kilovac.” I look at her. “No OT!”
I nod. Helmet down. Everything sharpens, end this.
The memory of that first time on the ice with Mikhail. Him, me, the net, a point to make.
Stone, Smith, and Giulietti do a damn good job keeping it on the other side of the ice, and Faulker is staying close to Moretti, exactly where he needs to be. I dig deeper.
The puck comes off the boards wrong. Detroit hesitates. They aren’t expecting me. I read it like a book, I don’t play offense when defense runs in my blood. They don’t know things have changed. Hell, I didn’t, not on the ice anyway. But it has.
I cut inside, shoulder burning, legs driving, muscle memory taking over. A lane opens where there shouldn’t be one.
I don’t hear the crowd when the puck leaves my stick. I hear the sound it makes when it hits the net. Goal.
The place erupts.
I don’t celebrate the way they want me to. But the guys are on me anyway, gloves slapping my helmet, shouts in my ear. Faulker bangs his stick like he’s trying to break it. Deacon’s grin is feral; he doesn’t want to be here; he wants to go to her.
We pull ahead. No overtime.
Good.
“Make sure they stay in the suite!” I yell, and he skates off toward the bench.
No one else sees it, of course, they don’t. I look up and see her in the box, jumping around, celebrating. I love it, but want her attention. I need to tell her to stay put.
As I skate back to the bench, I watch as Deacon is talking to security.
Coach D looks at me, “You have a minute, and twenty left in you?”
I look at Deacon and watch his eyes follow Costello up to the box section; they’re good.
“Damn right I do.”
“Good,” She nods to Marshall, “Get out there.”
The last minute and twenty is brutal; they don’t want redemption, they want blood, and tonight, they’re not getting it.
“Well, shit,” Faulker laughs when their center shoves me after the final buzzer, and I don’t react. “I’ve just witnessed a miracle.”
“Dingy’s here,” I sneer as I scan the crowd. I don’t see him, but I see his fiancée. Emma Shaw, and then…
“Are you fucking kidding me?” he asks, following the direction of my eyes.
“That quack Rathburn is here with Emma Shaw, and one of Sofies sisters.” Before he can ask, I shove off the ice and head straight to where Fairfax Media’s crew is set up.
