I wanted to point at him.
I wanted to blow him a kiss.
I wanted to skate over to the boards and gesture up at the stands and make it clear to everyone in the arena that this goal, this moment, this feeling was all for him.
Instead, I tapped my stick on the ice twice. It was a slight gesture, nothing that would register to most people watching, but it was deliberate enough that if he was looking for it, he might understand.
This goal was for you.
The celebration continued around me as we skated toward the bench, high-fiving the guys, acknowledging the crowd, riding the wave of energy thatcomes with taking the lead in a close game.
The rest of the game passed in a blur of controlled chaos.
Nashville pressed hard for the equalizer.
We pushed back to extend our lead.
By the time the final buzzer sounded, we won 4 to 2 in a game that felt bigger and more important than any random Thursday night contest had a right to feel.
I raised my stick to acknowledge the crowd as we skated off, my eyes finding Section 108 one more time. Jacks was on his feet again. I doubted he’d sat once all night. He was still applauding, and when he caught me looking, he pressed his hand to his chest—right over the numbers on my jersey—and mouthed something I couldn’t make out.
As I disappeared into the tunnel, surrounded by mates and the good-natured chaos of a team that had played well and won, I was already thinking about later, about finding a way to see him after all of this died down, about the conversation we’d have about his first NHL game and what it meant that he’d been there wearing my jersey.
Chapter 33
Jacks
The crowd spilled out of the arena like water through a broken dam, thousands of fans flowing onto the sidewalks in waves of Lightning blue and celebratory energy. The win had put everyone in a good mood. Strangers exchanged high fives between chants of “Let’s go, Bolts!” that echoed off the concrete exterior of the building. It was the kind of communal happiness that only came from watching your team win a tough one.
“That was incredible,” Benji was sayingagainas we made our way through the crowd. “Did you see that goal? The way it exploded off his stick? And then he looked right at you!”
“He didn’t look right at me,” I said, though my chest was still tight with the memory of that moment.
“He absolutely looked right at you,” Mia corrected. “We all saw it. Even Finn saw it.”
“Yeah, I saw it,” Finn confirmed. “It looked very deliberate, the whole tappy-tap on the ice. That was for you.”
“He did not tappy-tap for me,” I argued.
“He so did!” Benji squealed. “Tappy-tap. Tappy-tap. Tappy-tap.”
I tried shoving him, but he was too quick, turning Mia into a makeshift shield.
“I still can’t believe Tyler blew you a kiss,” Benji continued, laughing as he pranced down the massive corridor. “That was like something out of a movie.”
“That was Tyler being Tyler,” I said. “Subtle isn’t in his vocabulary.”
“Thank God,” Benji said. “Subtle is overrated. Bold gestures are where it’s at.”
Mia snorted and hooked her arm in Benji’s, triggering him to begin skipping like Dorothy inTheWizard of Oz. Finn rolled his eyes and shook his head.
We’d made it maybe fifty yards from the arena entrance when I heard someone calling from behind us. “Excuse me! Hey, excuse me!”
I turned to see a young guy in a Lightning polo jogging toward us. He was out of breath, looking like he’d been running through crowds for several minutes.
“Are you Jackson Armstrong?” he asked when hereached us, breathing hard.
My stomach dropped. “Who’s asking?”
