“Romantically intriguing,” Willow says.
“Terrible.”
“Both.”
Katie glances at her phone.
“Oh,” she says suddenly. “Speaking of terrible decisions.”
Willow looks up. “What?”
“Halloween.”
Willow whoops. “Yes! The campus Halloween party!”
Katie nods. “It’s in a few weeks.”
Willow points dramatically at me.
“You need a costume.”
“I will be busy playing hockey.”
“You can do both.” Katie smiles. “But start thinking about it now.”
I lean back in the chair and close my eyes.
Bruised ribs.
Secret hockey identity.
A potential crush who thinks I’m someone else.
And now an urgent Halloween costume.
My life has officially become ridiculous.
ZANE
The first win changes something.
The record is still ugly, the standings still stubbornly unforgiving, and nobody is suddenly pretending we’re the unstoppable Blackwood Giants from five years ago. But the locker room feels different the following week.
Winning once is like cracking a window in a room that’s been sealed too long.
Practice gets louder. Someone drags a speaker into the corner and insists on blasting music during warm-ups, which Calloway pretends not to notice as long as the drills stay sharp.
Most importantly, we start believing the next game might actually go our way.
Shaw helps with that.
Not dramatically at first. He doesn’t arrive with some legendary performance that flips the whole season on its head. If anything, the most impressive thing about him is how quietly he improves.
The first few games after the Eagles match are messy.
Our passing still falls apart under pressure. Our defense occasionally forgets that the other team is allowed to attack the net. Chen continues to bail us out with saves that should never have been necessary in the first place, but, as amazing as he is, even he can’t save them all.
But what I’m starting to like most about how Shaw plays is how he adapts. If something isn’t working, he tries something else.
