Steve, the announcer, is bundled in so many layers he looks twice his normal size, but his voice booms clear through his microphone: "From a backyard in Chicago, Illinois, during one of the worst blizzards in recent history, welcome to the Blizzard Bowl!"
Becker's watching his laptop, eyes wide. "Viewer count is climbing. Fifteen thousand. Twenty thousand. Thirty thousand. Holy shit, we're at fifty thousand!"
The other ref skates to center ice and pulls out the puck.
I look across the rink at Devon, who's gripping his stick like it's the only thing keeping him upright.
He catches my eye and smiles, wide and genuine despite the cold.
The ref raises the puck.
"Game on!" Steve shouts.
The puck drops.
CHAPTER 32
DEVON
MY SKATES ARE doing things I'm pretty sure skates should not do, sliding sideways, crossing over each other, threatening mutiny. The puck is somewhere to my left. Or my right. Honestly, I can't see shit through the snow that's pelting my visor like tiny frozen bullets.
The wind is screaming, and I'm pretty sure my face stopped having feeling about ten minutes ago. My legs are burning. My lungs are on fire from breathing frigid air. Every muscle in my body is staging a protest.
And I'm having the absolute time of my life.
"DEVON!" Someone—Petrov, maybe—is yelling my name, and I turn, squinting through the snow just in time to see a black blur flying toward me.
The puck.
Oh, fuck.
I stick out my stick—that's what you're supposed to do, right?—and by some miracle, by actual divine intervention, the puck hits my blade and stays there instead of ricocheting into my face.
"GO!" Becker screams from somewhere behind me. "GO, GO, GO!"
I'm going. I'm definitely going. I'm skating (if you can call this flailing motion skating) toward what I think is the goal. The snow is so thick I can barely see the net, but I'm committed now. No turning back.
I'm maybe five feet away when my skates decide they've had enough of my bullshit.
My left skate catches on absolutely nothing, and I go down hard.
Not gracefully. Not in a way that could be edited to look cool. I'm talking full sprawl, arms windmilling, stick flying, ass meeting ice with a crack that definitely echoes despite the wind.
The puck slides away from me, gliding lazily toward the boards like it's mocking me.
I lie there for a second, staring up at the sky, snowflakes hitting my face.
This is fine. Everything's fine. I'm just going to live here now.
Then a shadow blocks out the gray sky, and Ace is standing over me, looking down through his face shield, trying not to laugh.
He offers his hand.
I grab it, and he pulls me up with zero effort, which should not be as hot as it is, but here we are. For a second, we'reclose enough that I can see his eyes through the shield, bright and amused and so fucking fond it makes my chest ache.
"Having fun?" I gasp out, still trying to catch my breath.
He grins. "Best day of my life."
