We trade chances. Our third line digs one loose behind their net; I jump into the seam, take a return pass at the top of the circles, and crank a slap shot that knuckles through traffic. Their goalie barely gets a blocker on it. The rebound dies in the paint; a scrum erupts. I hear Kyle’s voice—mine, mine—and fall back into structure, protecting against the counter.
Magnus is everywhere. He backchecks like a man with something to prove, then flies the zone the second their D has control. A broken play leaves him alone on me at our blue line; his head and hands lie left, his hips say right. I trust hips. He tries to walk me; I pivot with him, keep my stick in the lane, and deny the middle.
He grins as if the denied lane is foreplay. “You skate like money,” he says, and somehow it feels like both an insult and a compliment.
I don’t blink.
We get our chance with the man advantage late in the second. Their third pair is gassed; we win two draws clean. I quarterback from the point, swapping with our half-wall to pull their box out of shape. I fake the slapper, slide to the top, spot our net-front with inside body, and thread a shot-pass that kisses his stick and slides five-hole. Light. Noise. 2–1 Titans. I feel nothing but the tiny jolt of electricity in my fingers that says the read was right.
Between periods, the hallway smells like coffee and sweat and rubber. Kyle shoves a Gatorade into my chest. “You’re dialed in,” he says.
His eyes hold that steady heat that makes me feel steadier than I am. I nod.
Third period. Everything compresses.
Wolves come like a stormfront. Their forecheck surges; our breakouts shrink by a foot, then two, until it feels like the ice is tilting against us. Our winger ices a puck under pressure; the faceoff comes back to our end. Locke wins it clean; the puck is cycled high-low-high, and Dahl wires a shot short-side off the bar and in. 2–2. Frost Haven detonates. Noise, lights, fists on glass. I center myself at the circle and look at the crease: our goalie taps the post, resets. Good. Breathe.
Shift after shift, it becomes a knife fight in a phone booth. Sticks slash for pucks, legs churn through treacle, vision tunnels until all that exists is the ten feet in front of me. Magnus’s line comes again; I read the drop pass before he makes it, step up into the lane, and jam the puck out with the toe of my stick. He clips my hip on the way by, clean but personal. He loves the dance. So do I. I just won’t admit it.
Mid-third, I win a race to a loose puck behind our net and reverse hard to Kyle; he moves it with the softest hands I’ve ever seen on a man that size. We break, three across. Our winger rips from the top of the circle; their goalie flashes leather. Whistle. The building seethes.
And then—the shift. We’ve been trading body blows all night, and I’m winning my minutes, but all it takes is one breath drawn the wrong way.
I collect the puck off a rim with Magnus closing.
He’s too far to get stick on puck clean, but near enough to curl his voice into my ear, soft as sin. “Still so stiff, pretty boy! Would it help if I bent you over later? Maybe a good fuck would loosen you up.”
The words hit harder than a shoulder. Heat spikes under my ribs—shame, anger, something I refuse to name. For an instant, control slips. My bottom hand rides up the shaft a hair; my stick flutters.
It’s enough.
The puck skitters past my toe. His stick is already there, thief-clean, and he ghosts through like it’s the easiest thing in the world. He doesn’t even celebrate the pick—just explodes. Two strides and he’s separated, legs piston-fast, edges tearing arcs into the sheet as he carves toward the dot.
“Shit,” I hiss, shoving into pursuit. But he’s already wrong-footed our forward, faked the shot to freeze our goalie, and feathered a pass through a seam that shouldn’t exist. Leander arrives in that seam like he was born to it, stick cocked, eyes wide.
Time slows. The puck leaves his blade, low and mean. Our goalie flares glove—too wide, too late. The net ripples. The horn screams.
The Wolves’ bench erupts. Frost Haven becomes a tidal wave of sound—howls, drums, and something metallic slamming the boards until the glass shivers. Leander rockets to the corner, swallowed by teammates. Phoenix gathers them with a captain’s calm that’s smug only because it’s earned.
I stand frozen, stick heavy in my hands, lungs burning.
One mistake. One second of weakness. That’s all it took.
Magnus arcs past me, slowing just enough that his shoulder brushes mine, deliberate, proprietary. His grin is sharp enough to cut. He doesn’t say anything this time, but he doesn’t need to. His eyes say it all.Got you.
My fists tighten around my stick, tendons creaking.
Kyle glides up, taps my blade with his—a quietshake it off.His jaw is clenched, but his eyes are soft. He knows me. He knows how I’ll autopsy this moment until dawn. “Next one,” he says, and I nod because that’s what I’m supposed to do.
We push for the equalizer. Coach shortens the bench; my legs turn to hot iron and I welcome it. I jump on a loose puck and hammer a shot through traffic that whistles just wide. Kyle threads another impossible pass backdoor that our winger fans on by a hair. Our last rush dies on a sliding block from Phoenix—the kind of captain’s play that doesn’t make highlight reels but wins games.
The scoreboard glares down at us, numbers burning red like an accusation. Wolves: 3. Titans: 2. Final.
Fucking bullshit.
The whistle blows one last time, sealing our fate. We skate off in a silence that tastes like metal. Our blades carve shallow scars into the ice as we leave. The Wolves bask—Magnus at the center of it like he was born there, Leander grinning, Phoenix anchoring it all with measured pride.
In the tunnel, I roll my neck and fix my face back into the cool shape the cameras expect. But inside, everything is noise—his whisper, the lost puck, the flick of his grin as he brushed my shoulder.
