The rest of the team piled on—Bishop and Volkov and Kieran and Hayes, all of them screaming and pounding my helmet. My vision blurred with tears.
I’d spent my whole life building walls. Bound by control, discipline, distance. Lies
And now I was surrounded by my team, holding the man I loved, eight minutes away from a championship.
Vulnerable. Exposed. Authentic.
And stronger than I’d ever been.
The final eight minutes lasted approximately seven hundred years.
I played every shift like my life depended on it—blocking shots, breaking up rushes, winning board battles. My lungs burned. My legs screamed. My vision tunneled to just the puck, the clock, the score.
3-2. Six minutes.
3-2. Four minutes.
3-2. Two minutes.
The opposing team pulled their goalie for an extra attacker. My line scrambled back on defense, exhausted but refusing to break. Theo limped slightly on his next stride—shoulder or fatigue, I couldn't tell—but he didn't slow down.
The puck rimmed around the boards. I got there first, chipped it high and deep into neutral ice.
Icing.
Faceoff in the defensive zone. One minute, forty-three seconds.
I lined up across from their center—a veteran with two rings already, eyes cold and calculating. The referee’s hand hovered over the dot.
Don't think. Just win.
The puck dropped.
I tied up the center’s stick, used my body to push him off balance, and kicked the puck back to Bishop. The defenseman fired it around the boards to Kieran, who chipped it out of the zone.
One minute, twelve seconds.
The other team regrouped. They pressed again. Wave after wave of pressure. I blocked a shot that caught me in the ribs—pain exploded across my chest, sharp enough to make my vision white out for half a second. I stayed on my feet.
Thirty-eight seconds.
Theo intercepted a pass at the blue line and managed to dump it deep. The other team’s defenseman retrieved it, but the clock was bleeding out now. Twenty seconds. Fifteen.
I didn't remember the final seconds. Just noise and motion. The impossible weight of hope.
The buzzer sounded.
For one heartbeat, the arena went silent.
Then it detonated.
Sticks and gloves flew into the air. The bench emptied onto the ice. My knees buckled and I hit the ice on all fours, gasping, unable to process the magnitude of what had just happened.
We won.
We won the championship.
I won the championship as an openly gay captain.
