I’ll make you feel fine.
Neither of us are poets and that much is true
But the one thing that won’t change with time is…
Riley, I love you.
Chapter Sixty-Two
NATHAN
Sweat beads on my forehead.
The hockey stick feels foreign in my hand.
Get a grip, Nat.
This first head-to-head game should’ve been easy. We’ve got Chance McLanely, Renthrow, Kinsey, other all-stars from the training camp, handpicked for their talent.
And yet the opposing team is breathing down our necks.
Shot after shot.
Defense after defense.
We can’t get a break.
The score is a tie.
The game is on its last round and it’s clear what the strategy was. The other team is fighting to push us into overtime, turning this battle of skills and speed into an arena of endurance.
No one expected the night to be this vicious.
Or this personal.
I glance around the ice, breathing hard.
The game is moving fast with three defenders clinging to McLanely like vultures on a carcass. It’s the smartest thing an opposing team can do.
Coach accounted for this.
The strategy he laid out was clear. I’m supposed to come in and do exactly what I did at the last scrimmage. Move fast enough that the defenders can’t catch me. ‘Predict’ where the puck will land and get there first.
Be the next Chance McLanely.
Except Coach isn’t the only one who studied my moves in that game.
The other team did too.
And rather than flock me with a brood of defenders like they did to McLanely, they launched one weapon.
Theilan.
The first hit came early and it wasn’t even subtle.
I heard the roar of the crowd when Theilan and I crashed in the corner. On the outside, our collision looked like a vicious, unavoidable by-product of the game. Grown men moving at speeds of up to twenty to thirty miles an hour on frozen water are going to cross paths. It’s inevitable.
But the way my bad leg screamed at the impact was my first clue.
