I leave everything in the stairwell and I play.
My play is different tonight.
I feel it in the first shift - the edges clean and precise under me, the reads coming before the plays develop, my body doing what I ask it without argument or lag or that fraction of resistance I’ve been fighting all season. I’m not thinking abouttechnique. I’m not thinking about scouts - only the puck and the next play.
It’s just hockey.
But it’s the best hockey I’ve played in a long time.
We score in the first - Grant, off a setup I made without thinking. I can hear the stands but I skate back into position without looking up.
We score again in the second.
This one is mine - a transition that opens up because I find the angle and the shot goes where I put it. The red light comes on and the noise hits me like a wall.
Then Chen crashes into me from behind and Barrett from the side and someone is shouting in my ear. I’m laughing - it feels so bright and real.
We hold it through the third.
Final buzzer. 3-1.
The bench clears onto the ice and it’s the beautiful chaos of a team that really, really needed this. I take it in for a moment, standing there while it happens around me.
Then I find her.
She’s come down to the glass, standing at the boards with Calloway. I skate over - she’s grinning at me. I don’t think about it, I open the gate and pull her in for a hug. It’s less exuberant but more certain. She knows it too - I can feel it in the way she holds on for a second longer than last time. Around us the team is celebrating.
“Good win,” she says, into my shoulder.
We pull back and look at each other for a second that contains way more than we can say, and then Barrett appears and throws his arm around my neck and drags me back into the chaos. I go with him, smiling. The scouts are somewhere in this building, and I don’t care, I genuinely don’t care right now.
I’ll care tomorrow.
Tonight I just want this.
ELIDA
The team finds a bar two blocks from the hotel.
The celebrating starts before we’ve even got our coats off. Tara appears beside me within minutes with two drinks and an expression of complete delight.
“That was incredible!”
We find a spot near the wall. I watch Mateo across the room.
He’s with Chen and a couple of others, relaxed in a way I’ve only seen a handful of times, the captain-mode dialed down for one night. He laughs at something Chen says.
Calloway appears beside me briefly.
“Brilliant result.”
“Absolutely.”
He nods once and looks across the room and then back at me with an expression that is kind and professional.
“Get some rest. Long bus home tomorrow.”
I watch him go, and when I look back across the room, Mateo is looking at me.
