Jennings skates toward me, spraying ice in my direction. The old guys on our team like to complain we do it too much, but neither of us listens. “It’s good to fucking have you back, man.”
I hip-check him. “Aw, did you miss me, Princeton?”
“More like our record missed you.”
My eyes roll. The team’s done all right without me, currently second in the Metro division. The odds of us not making the playoffs are slim, and only people who hate our team would bet against us. Since Volk and I joined two years ago, we’ve made the playoffs every year—exiting round one the first year but making it to the second round last year. We’re building a Stanley Cup team in Palmer City, and every year we get that much closer.
I weave across the ice, stick-handling a puck against an invisible defender. When I reach the other side, I balance the hockey puck on my stick, tossing it in the air, then catching it over and over. Out of nowhere, another stick nabs it.
“Your girl coming tonight?” Jennings asks, balancing the puck on his stick.
I knock into him to send the puck to the ice. “Can you not announce it to the entire arena?”
“Holding her hands during family skate didn’t already do that?” he asks. “Cap didn’t warn you off?”
“Nope,” I reply. Matt didn’t say a damn word after Volk told me I’d attracted his attention and not in a good way. “Finley being into me is absurd. Can’t say I blame him.”
Jennings secures the puck before passing it to me. “Then he didn’t see her face. It’s obvious she’s into you.”
I catch the puck and make no move to send it back to him. “It is?” I eat up every confirmation like it’s the best damn dessert I’ve ever had.
“Yeah.” He motions around the arena. “So is she here?”
“She said she would be.”
“Better show out then, man,” he says, telling me something I already know. He knocks into me before heading to the bench.
When I line up on the ice before the national anthem fifteen minutes later, my gaze drifts to the location of Kennedy’s season tickets, about ten rows back from center ice and our bench. She’s there every game, wearing Volk’s jersey, screaming at the top of her lungs. The usual suspects sit beside her—Gemma on one side and Deandra Collins, our communications director, on the other.
The difference tonight? Finley Harris sits beside Gemma. Her lips quirk into a smile, and her sunshine hair flows past her shoulders. She’s wearing a Palmer City Wolves winter hat and jersey. Fuck, I hope it’s mine. I’ve never wanted to play a better game than this one—for myself but also to impress her.
Halo taps his stick against my skate. “You ready for me to make you look good?”
Volk groans beside me. Niko Halonen might be one of the best hockey players in the league, but Volk is perpetually exasperated by him. These two guys make sweet music together on the ice despite their clashing personalities. Halo’s little comments spark Volk’s hotheaded nature, and when that happens, opposing teams need to watch out.
“Let’s compare stats in ten games,” I reply. “I bet your points per game will go up playing with me.”
Halo scoffs but gives me a nod of approval. He wants to win, same as me.
When the national anthem finishes, I take my place outside the circle at center ice, waiting for Halo to win the face-off. Like usual, after the ref drops the puck, he slaps it my way, and the game I’ve been anticipating for weeks is underway.
24
Finley
My gaze locks onZach as soon as he sprints onto the ice, and that’s where it stays.
He effortlessly floats across the rink with the puck, like he was made to play this game. Growing up, I resented hockey that consumed so much space in the Harris family. Watching Zach zip around the ice with incredible speed, weaving in and out of players, checking them into the boards, sacrificing his body to block shots, gives me a new appreciation for the game.
I’m also falling hard for number ten, not because he’s skilled and popular or because seeing him in his element is fucking hot—though all of those are true. I like his soul, the lens through which he sees the world, how he brings out the best in me, the childlike wonder I thought I’d lost.
“Having fun?” Deandra asks from two seats down. The empty two seats between us belong to Gemma and Kennedy, who took off for the restroom as soon as the buzzer signaled the end of the first period.
I swallow hard, trying to school my expression into blandness. “Yeah, it’s been years since I’ve caught a game.”
Deandra takes a swig from a plastic bottle of diet soda. “I was surprised when Gem said you’d be here. We’re six weeks into the season, and this is the first game you’ve been to.”
After family skate, I expected an interrogation about my relationship with Zach—just not from Deandra Collins. She’s been to the house for dinner a couple of times, but we don’t know each other well. Not well enough for me to reveal my feelings for Zach.
