The arena ERUPTS.
The noise is deafening—people screaming, stomping, the metal rafters shaking with the sound. My teammates mob me at center ice, gloves and helmets and everyone yelling at once. Jax nearly tackles me. Tommy skates down from the crease to pound my back.
3-3 with five minutes left. Still got a game to win.
Those last five minutes last about seventeen years. Both teams know what's at stake. Every shift matters. Every puck battle. Every second. The scouts lean forward in their seats, watching everything, and I try not to think about them, about what this means, about anything except the next play.
Regulation ends tied 3-3. We're going to overtime.
Sudden death. Next goal wins.
Coach pulls me aside before we take the ice. "You've got this."
"How do you know?"
"Because you're your father's son." He grips my shoulder—the one that doesn't hurt. "He'd be proud of you, no matter what happens out there."
The words lodge somewhere behind my ribs.
Overtime is five minutes of pure terror. Both teams playing cautious, looking for the one mistake that ends it. Their forward gets a breakaway that Tommy stops with a glove save that'll be on highlight reels. Jax hits the crossbar on a shot that misses by inches.
Three minutes left. Two. One.
Then their defenseman makes a mistake—an outlet pass that's just a fraction too high. Jax intercepts, feeds it to me breaking across the blue line. One defender back. Their goalie moving out to cut the angle.
The world narrows to just me, the puck, and the net. This moment. This shot. Everything.
I don't think. Thinking is the enemy. Just muscle memory and instinct and twenty-one years of shooting pucks at nets.
The shot goes short-side, just under the crossbar. Clean. Perfect. Done.
The goal light flashes red.
The buzzer sounds.
The arena loses its collective mind.
We win.
We actually won.
My teammates pile on top of me—the whole bench emptying onto the ice in a mass of black and gold jerseys, everyone screaming and laughing and pounding my helmet. The crowd's on their feet, the noise shaking the building. Somewhere in the chaos, someone starts a "LOCKWOOD" chant that spreads through the arena like wildfire.
When I finally surface from the celebration, gasping and grinning, the first thing I see is Sage. She's screaming, jumping up and down, tears streaming down her face. Next to her, Piper claps with both hands pressed to her chest, and she's crying too, but she's also smiling so hard it must hurt.
Our eyes meet across the ice.
She's proud of me. The realization hits harder than any check. She's proud, and she's happy, and something in her expression is also heartbroken. Because we both know what comes next.
The scouts.
Preston's waiting at the bench before I even unlace my skates. His phone's already out, already recording. "That was incredible! The scouts want to talk to you. Now. Conference room in ten minutes."
"I need to—" Talk to Piper. Tell her everything. Explain.
"Ten minutes, Ryder. Don't keep them waiting." He's already walking away, phone pressed to his ear.
The conference room is exactly as sterile as expected. Three scouts, all men in their fifties wearing team polos and the kind of watches that cost more than my truck. They sit on one side of the table. I sit on the other, still in my base layer, hair damp with sweat.
