Instead, he glides closer, until he is pressed right up against the boards.
The arena hums. People are watching—the refs, the other team, the fans. A goalie leaving the crease during warmups to talk to the glass is weird. A goalie doing it with this much intensity is a statement.
He doesn’t take his helmet off—that would draw a penalty, or at least a yell from the ref. But he leans in until his facemask is scraping the plexiglass.
His eyes find mine through the bars of the cage.
Green. Intense. Locked on.
No cameras. No Beatrice. No father. Just me.
My lungs forget how to work.
He presses his forehead against the glass. The metal of his cage clinks softly against the barrier, a sound I feel in the soles of my feet more than I hear.
It’s intimate. It’s forehead-to-forehead, breath-to-breath, with an inch of bulletproof glass between us.
His mouth moves.
I can’t hear him, but I see it.
Just you.
My heart stutters so hard it hurts.
I shake my head, just barely. This is too much. Too risky.
He doesn’t push. He just stays there, pressed against the glass, waiting.
“Holy shit,” Zoë whispers.
“It’s your choice,” Clara adds, voice soft and sure. “Not his. Not Alistair’s. Yours.”
Choice.
He’s not asking for forgiveness. He’s not hiding this in some dark hallway. He is putting his face against the glass in front of two thousand people and waiting for me to acknowledge him.
My hand lifts before I can stop it.
My fingers tremble as I raise them to the glass, hovering a millimeter away from where his cage rests.
My pulse is a drum in my ears.
I press my palm to the glass.
He exhales, the condensation from his breath fogging the plastic between us. He closes his eyes for a second, leaning into my hand like he can feel the heat of it through the barrier.
It feels like touching him.
Cold metal, hard plexi, and yet—there’s a jolt that shoots straight down my spine.
I glance toward the bench.
My dad is standing there. He’s watching Declan. He’s watching me.
He doesn’t look angry. He doesn’t signal the ref. He doesn’t call Declan back to the crease.
He just watches. And then, slowly, he turns his back and looks at the clipboard in his hand.
