And then he's skating away, back to his position, leaving me standing there like an idiot with my heart doing gymnastics.
"Devon!" Becker yells. "You good?"
"Peachy!" I yell back, retrieving my stick from where it landed approximately seven feet away.
The game continues in beautiful chaos.
Becker has the puck now, weaving between defenders, making it look easy. He takes a shot, high and fast, and it sails past the firefighter goalie into the net.
The garage erupts with cheers. Hendrix's "WHAT THE PUUUUCK?" cuts through the wind.
"That's how it's done!" Becker's doing a victory lap, arms raised, nearly crashing into Groover in the process.
Groover just shakes his head, already moving to center ice for the face-off.
Thirty seconds later, Groover scores, and he skates directly to Becker, pointing at him like he just won a personal vendetta. "What was that about 'how it's done'?" he yells over the wind.
"Lucky shot!"
"Skill shot!"
"Your mom's a skill shot!"
"That doesn't even make sense!"
The whistle sounds. Two minutes. Rotation time.
I skate off—well, stumble off—toward the warming station, my legs shaking from exertion and cold. The garage is blessedly warm, portable heaters blasting, and I immediately gravitate toward one like a moth to a flame.
Kayla hands me hot chocolate, and I wrap my frozen fingers around the cup, letting the warmth seep into my bones.
"You're doing great out there!" She beams.
"I fell down."
"Yeah, but you fell down with enthusiasm."
Mama Paws appears at my elbow, her phone in hand, her face doing something complicated—somewhere between crying and laughing and complete disbelief.
"Devon," she says, and her voice is shaking. "Look."
She shows me her phone, the email app open, and I have to read the number twice before it processes.
547 unread emails. All adoption applications.
"What?" I grab the phone, scrolling through. Every single animal in the shelter is listed. Candy has twenty-three applications alone. The three-legged cat has fifteen. The ancient one-eyed cat has nine. Even the pissed-off rabbit who bites people has three families interested.
"We did it," I whisper, my throat tight. "Holy shit."
"No, honey." Mama Paws takes my face in her hands. "Youdid it."
I shake my head. "We all did it."
She pulls me into a hug, and I hug her back, and we're both crying now, standing in a garage during a blizzard, surrounded by portable heaters and coffee makers and the best people I've ever met.
The buzzer sounds again. Time to rotate back.
I reluctantly pull away, wiping my eyes, and head back to the ice.
