Instead of celebrating, I pointed to my stomach and mouthed ‘It’s happening’ with a bit of a freaked-out face. I was not prepared for this tonight…. And I hoped to God either Griff saw or that someone would tellhim…
“Have you guys been drinking?” I asked the teenagers next to me.
The boy’s eyebrows drew together. “Only pop, we’re not 21.”
“Perfect,” I breathed out. “Let’s go, please.”
He stared at me like he didn’t understand, but his girlfriend came to my rescue.
“She said let’s go!” Jenny pushed him forward and held my hand as we made our way up the steps.
I think the home crowd around us was cheering for me as I swiftly left, which felt like such an odd turn of events.
I was just about to the top of the steps when I turned back around and searched the team box for Griff.
He had his back turned away from the play, and he had a desperate look on his face as he searched for me. His hands were up on the glass, like he was trapped.
When his worried eyes landed on me, he started to take his helmet off, but I frantically shook my head no and gave him the calm motion.
“It’s okay,” I mouthed.
I could handle this while they handled business out on the ice tonight.
59. Griff
She gave that calm sign, and I knew she wanted me to stay here and play my heart out… but jeez, couldn’t she have at least grabbed a security guard to help her instead of two teenagers?
I was still watching her make her way toward the top of the stairs when I heard the crowd erupt… but not in a good way…
Pittsburgh scored to tie it up.
“I don’t have time for this!” I yelled frustratingly down the bench at my teammates. “Let’s fucking go!” I hollered.
They all cheered, and I hoped that did the trick to rile them up… because it was true, I did not have time for this to go longer tonight. My head was no longer in this game… It was thinking about Savannah giving birth all alone, and that absolutely gutted me.
The buzzer went off a few minutes later, sending the Stanley Cup game intoovertime.
The stadium was so loud I could barely hear Coach as he was yelling plays at us.
“Duke, Griff, Campbell,” he yelled, while motioning a play on his mini white board.
The defensive coach yelled for Whitty and McGregor to take the first shift.
When the ref finally blew the whistle, we all glided out to the center circle together.
I eyed Duke seriously. “We have to get this done quickly. If Savannah has that baby without me, I’ll never forgivemyself.”
He let his mouthguard hang halfway out of his mouth. “If we don’t win this I’ll never forgive myself,” he countered with a laugh. “Let’s fuckin go, bud.”
I knuckle punched him. “Let’s fuckin go.”
Campbell won the faceoff and dropped the puck back to Whitty. He skated back into our zone a bit to give himself some room to set up the play.
He snapped the puck up to me then, and I skated it up quickly, faked a shot to Campbell in the middle, and passed it up to Duke, who was moving toward the net…
But their defenseman rubbed him off the puck.
One of their guys had stretched way up to our blue line, and their defenseman was able to snipe it to him to give him a breakaway…
