She nods, and for the briefest instant her mask slips—there’s a ghost of a smile before she turns away.
As soon as she’s gone, the tension evaporates. Everyone pretends they weren’t waiting for her approval, but everyone was. I glance at her husband, our left guard, Bass Giulietti, his eyes glued to her ass as she walks away.
I clear my throat, and he turns to me, eyes narrowed. “What?”
“Do not open a door for questions you would prefer me to keep to myself,” I warn.
His eyes narrow, but he says nothing.
I open my mouth to speak, and he cuts me off and sneers, “Never you mind.”
I chuckle. “I won’t say a word.”
“Good.”
I have many gifts; one is spotting a pregnant woman before she even knows she is carrying a child. In Nalani’s case, I proved my theory when I mailed a letter to the Puck Pad three weeks before they made the announcement. When they questioned me, I presented them with a sealed envelope bearing a postmark as proof. Was this over the top? Of course, however, I like evidence to support my claims as much as I like being right. It’s a little game I’ve played with myself for years. I don’t use it, of course, unless called out. That’s when the nickname ‘Mother Faulker’ was set in play again. I didn’t like it then, any more than I do now. But you know how these things go, you fuck one mother, and she shows up to your college dorm with children in tow because her husband found out due to the titty pics she DM’d you, and you’re tagged for life.
It was also when my betrothed asked that I be more discreet, as a picture of us on her socials from several years ago made her the unwitting target of an angry husband who thought it appropriate to send her pictures of his dick. It was on the larger side of average, but that didn’t make up for how unattractive and angry it looked, or for its shape; the head was disproportionately large compared to the shaft. Very unaesthetically pleasing.
We did a full review on it together that summer, and she sent him that very detailed review in a message… before she blocked him.
That was the end of my online hookups and hers as well. Because one day we would fulfill our obligation, and marry, and vows are sacred, even to a mother Faulker like me.
I finish taping my stick, then settle back to watch the room reassemble itself. Kozlov and Callahan are already plotting their next bit. Hank is now pacing, trying to burn off the extra adrenaline. Which he shouldn’t have, since he is on the ice at least two hours a day longer than the rest of us, blocking shots from Moretti or the trainers. Used to be three until he met a girl.
He walks over and stops, “How the hell are you so calm before every game?”
I turn the stick over in my hands, trailing my thumb along the rough seam of old tape, searching for a fray I’d missed, but the blade’s perfect—stiff, clean, ready. “You get used to it,” I say. “Or maybe you don’t. Either way, the game starts.”
Dash is good at hiding nerves, but I see the subtle tells. The way he taps his fingers, the way his eyes narrow as if bracing for a slapshot, even in conversation. He grins, but it’s not the usual razzle-dazzle. “Couldn’t have said it better.”
He stands, shakes out his arms, and lets the weight of anticipation roll off his spine as he rejoins the others.
Callahan crows his name, a raspy-baritone “Hank the Tank!” ricocheting off the tiled walls, and Kozlov—who never met astraight line he couldn’t break—lobs a balled tape at Marshall’s head. It skitters off and bounces directly into Dash’s orbit. Dash barely flicks his stick, sending it careening off another guy’s kneecap, and the ricochet sparks a flurry of trash talk, bets, and a brief, ridiculous debate about whether Kozlov could survive a week in the Texas Panhandle without offending someone’s grandma or ending up in jail. The laughter climbs, a jagged sound that splits open the tense air and stitches it shut just as fast.
I stare down the length of my stick, weighing the comfort of old ritual against the need for new superstition. There’s a gouge near the blade—last week’s overtime, a slash from a defenseman with too much to prove and too little to lose. I run my finger over it, wondering when this particular stick will snap, as they all eventually do. They say you never forget the first one that breaks on you. I remember it clearly. Twelve years old, the cracked graphite wrapped in a hundred layers of gaffer’s tape. It broke on a frozen pond, the splinters slicing my palm. I bled through three gloves but wouldn’t stop playing. Loved that pond.
The room’s tempo has shifted. Rookies are fidgeting in their stalls, rookies always do; one of them double-checks his laces, then redoes them, hands shaking.
Even Deacon, a veteran of half a dozen playoff runs, drums the bench with his knuckles in bursts of three, four, five—a pattern, a superstition, a silent prayer.
There’s a moment, before every game, where the room bends and wavers at the edges, as if the walls themselves are vibrating with the force of forty hearts slamming in unison. I press the blade of my stick to the floor, feel the flex, let the memory of muscle and bone wrap around the motion. My mind drifts back to my school days, the cold of ancient rinks, the echo of my uncle’s voice thundering from behind glass. He never told me to be brave, just to be precise. Precision was the only kind ofbravery my family had any use for these days. I remember him smoking in the stands, gesturing with a lit cigarette, the slow-motion nod when I did something right. The only time he ever smiled at me was after I blocked a slapshot with my ribcage and didn’t go down. I see now how that made me, how it makes me even now, in this room, at this level.
I look over to see Kilovac standing by the door, helmet tucked under his arm, staring out at the corridor that leads to the ice. He’s caught in some private calculation, a list of things he needs to get right, people he can’t let down.
I slide my hand down the shaft of my stick, test the tension of fresh tape at the butt end, and roll my shoulders until they pop, one then the other. It’s a ritual, but it’s also a way of reminding myself that no amount of analysis or bravado changes what happens once the puck drops.
Somewhere behind me, Kozlov swears in Czech, punctuated by a slap of tape against his shin guard. Marshall is still pacing, the sound of his skate guards clacking on tile weirdly reassuring. Dash is retelling that story about the ref he accidentally body-checked into the penalty box, embellishing for effect, and the room eats it up. Even the rookies, whose nerves are raw and visible, are laughing now.
Coach D walks in, and the room falls instantly still. Every man grabs his helmet, gloves, and stick. A last round of fist bumps: Kilovac with a shoulder bump, Marshall gripping my forearm tight, and we file toward the exit.
The lights drop so fast the arena gasps before it cheers.
I stand at the tunnel with the rest of the guys, helmet tucked under my arm, listening to anticipation ripple through the building. Brooklyn crowds don’t warm slowly. They erupt.
The announcer’s voice rolls out smooth and smug.
“Laaaadies and gentlemen… please welcome to the ice… tonight’s visitors…” A pause that feels intentional. “…the New York… Island Sharks.”
