Shane shrugs. “Not happening. Unless you’ve got a time machine or a miracle pill, I’m benched, baby.”
“Useless,” I hiss. “Absolutely fucking useless.”
“Love you too, sunshine.”
Steve groans somewhere behind me. “Why are you all like this,” he mutters into his gloves.
“Because this is the finals,” Cole chirps, slapping him on the ass. “And you’re the goalie. So suck it up, buttercup.”
Steve looks like he might actually weep as I shove my helmet on, snap the chinstrap into place, and drag in a deep, steadying breath. Damian’s not here—but I am, and I’m skating this Cup for him.
“I am not winning this Cup for Damian,” I deadpan, staring up at the jumbotron. “Not like this.”
The Hawks have scored ten times. TEN. In two periods.
Because Steve? Steve is vibrating in the goddamn crease like he’s auditioning for a haunted house. He hasn’t blocked a single shot since the puck dropped. At this point, I’m convinced he’sallergic to pucks. The moment one gets within five feet of him, he flinches.
Meanwhile, we’ve scored five. Five goals. Do you know how hard it is to score five goals in the goddamn finals and still be losing?
My gloves hit the boards with a violent slap as I snap, “I swear to fuck—”
Viktor is seething beside me, jaw clenched tight. Shane is pounding on the wall behind the bench in his wheelchair, yelling “MURDER HIM” every time Steve flubs another save. Mats is muttering something in Spanish that sounds like a very creative death threat. Tyler looks like he aged ten years just watching this trainwreck unfold.
Coach is chain-smoking behind the bench like he’s watching his soul physically ascend into the rafters. He’s pacing in tight, twitchy circles, muttering, ash flaking off the end of his cigarette. The smoke coils around him, thick and slow, turning him into this grim, grizzled figure of doom who’s one bad play away from spontaneous combustion. Every time I glance back at him, he looks a little closer to cardiac arrest.
I turn, storm up the bench, skates hissing across the concrete, gloves already off, heart in my throat and I absolutely lose it.“PUT ME IN THE FUCKING NET!”
The words come out with the full force of every emotion I’ve been trying not to feel since this whole nightmare started. The rage. The grief. The desperation. It all comes spilling out in a scream that echoes down the hall.
Coach doesn’t even blink. He turns to me with all the calm of a man who’s raised ten feral children and buried three. One eyebrow goes up, unimpressed. Smoke curls lazily out of his nose. “Not possible.”
My voice spikes so high I’m amazed glass doesn’t shatter. “WHY NOT?!”
“You’re a center, Mercer.”
“DOESN’T MATTER!”
He shrugs like this isn’t even a conversation worth entertaining. “You’ve never blocked a shot in your life.”
I throw my arms wide, already full banshee. “I BLOCKED DAMIAN WITH MY MOUTH LAST WEEK!”
There’s a beat of stunned silence. Then Mats chokes violently, audibly, almost dropping his stick. Viktor turns his head slightly, enough for me to catch the tiniest twitch at the corner of his mouth, like he’s two seconds from losing it and physically fighting himself not to.
Coach does blink this time, slowly, then flicks the ash off his cigarette, looks at me like I’m the reason he has high blood pressure, and mutters, “Jesus. Sit down before I strap the goalie pads to Cole.”
Cole cackles, loud and delighted. “Do it, coach,” he says, eyes gleaming with the kind of glee only he can get away with. “I wanna die dramatically.”
I throw my head back and scream, hands in my hair, lungs on fire, the kind of primal noise that doesn’t have a name, just pure frustration distilled into sound.
“Coach, let me back on the ice,” Shane chimes in smoothly from his wheelchair, voice syrupy and sinfully sweet.
Coach doesn’t even look at him. His tone is flat, already over all of us. “Are you high?”
Shane grins. “A little.”
I stare at both of them like I’ve fallen into a parallel universe where nothing makes sense, where the rules are made up and the points absolutely don’t matter. I’m surrounded by chaos. Literal, living, breathing chaos. And I’m part of it.
Then the puck drops again and something changes.
