“I love you too, baby.” Happy smiles, leaning in close and grazing his lips with mine.
And as our kiss deepens, as that tent in his shorts reappears, I murmur against his lips on a soft sigh, “Now, take me somewhere, anywhere, where my father might not accidentally see us on the CCTV, so you can fuck me like a good boy.”
Happy groans, palming my ass, hard. When he forcefully removes me from his lap, placing me back into the passenger seat, I can’t help but laugh when he starts the engine, the tires skidding as he tears out of the garage like we’ve just robbed the place.
EPILOGUE
HAPPY
If you listen hard enough, I bet you could hear a fucking toothpick hit the floor in the locker room right now. The energy throughout the space is steely, thick, and intense, palpable with a myriad of conflicting emotions as Coach Draper stands in the center of the room, hands on his hips, chomping his gum as he looks around at each and every one of us.
“Ninety-five games,” he says. “Ninety-five games full of blood, sweat, and tears. Body checks. Bare knuckle fist fights. Injuries. Wins. Losses.”
I stare down at the floor, taking in his words.
“Ninety-five games, and it all boils down to this moment right here. Game seven of round fucking two of the playoffs.”
Someone claps. No one else joins in.
“From finishing up at the bottom of the division last year, for the third year in a row, tothis!”
I lift my gaze from the floor to see Coach raising his arms, as if to emphasize our surroundings. And he has a point. We clinched round one against Halifax, four-two. Going into round two against Boston, no one, least of all us, expected to get out of game four alive. Yet, here we are. Game fucking seven. Tied three all at the final siren.
Coach smirks. “I don’t know about you guys, but when the season started, this sure as shit ain’t where I thought we’d end up.”
Someone sniffs a laugh.
“But we’re here,” Coach Draper continues. “And we’re here because we fucking earned our place. We’re a playoffs team, and whatever happens out there on that ice in the next twenty minutes, win or lose, no one can take this moment away from us.”
I nod because Coach is right.
As I look around at my teammates, the men who have become my brothers—Dallas, Robbie, Logan, even fucking Rusty, the hairy asshole—I can’t help but smile because we earned our place here tonight, and we did it as a team.
“And I want you boys to know that whatever happens out there”—Coach pauses to look around at all us, making eye contact with every player as he scans the room—“I am so fucking proud of how far we’ve come, of what we’ve achieved as a team.” Coach nods, but then he smacks his fist against his chest a few times, clearing his throat. “And I am so fucking honored to be standing up here right now as your coach,” he adds, his voice cracking with obvious yet unexpected emotion.
Clapping his hands, riling every one of us, he turns around the circle. “Now let’s get out there and do this thing!”
“I’m fuckin’ tired, brother!” Mason shouts over the roar of the crowd as we take a break on the bench.
I nod, squirting water into my mouth and rinsing before spitting it out.
I check the time on the clock. Six minutes left. Boston is holding strong, but so are we. Turnover after turnover, the play has been relentless, both Dallas and Boston’s goalie, Markovic, being pushed to their limits, stopping shot after brutal shot.
“We’re still in this,” Logan yells. “We can’t give up!”
When Boston ices the puck, there’s a whistle change, and we climb over the boards and skate out onto the ice, lining up for the puck drop.
Rusty snatches the puck, cradling it against his blade and spins, but right as he does, he’s checked hard by Boston’s right winger and falls back, colliding hard against the ice. He’s okay, but the ref calls a penalty, sending the offender to the box to the tune of an ear-splitting cheer from the home crowd.
I check the time; four minutes left with a powerplay advantage. This is ours. It’s fucking ours.
Lining up again, the puck drops, but Rusty isn’t quite quick enough to snag it this time, Boston’s center securing the puck and handing it off to the winger who takes off toward our zone. Logan swoops in from the left, extending his stick and stealing the puck. I close in behind him, my eyes flitting around to defend the play as Logan stops, ice shards spraying up in his haste. But just when it looks like he’s about to go for the goal, he hands it off to our winger, Josef. Josef taps it toward the net, but Markovic’s big body twists in an unnatural way, stopping the shot at the last second with the blade of his skate.
“Fuck!” Josef shouts, shaking his head to himself, clearly pissed.
Boston’s D-man secures the puck, rounding the back of the net before handing it off to the center, who breaks out of the line and skates back toward our zone. I get into position, watching the puck like a fucking hawk, but just before he’s checked by Robbie, he passes it back to their D-man, where it’s intercepted by Logan, who came out of fucking nowhere, collecting it with his backhand.
Logan pivots and looks to snap it toward the boards, but as he curls back his stick, Boston’s rookie, Callaghan, quick as fucking lightening all goddamn night, gets a perfect read and closes the last few feet with a sudden burst, stick extended, snatching the puck at the last second.
