We tightened up defensively, clogging the neutral zone and making them work for every inch of ice. Their forecheck was relentless, and I spent most of my shifts battling in the corners, protecting the puck, and trying to kill time without giving them any momentum. With three minutes left, they pulled their goalie, and the entire arena seemed to hold its breath.
Coach sent our shutdown line out for the final shifts, and I watched from the bench as Dmitri and Mason killed nearly two full minutes just by being in the right position at the right time. The entire bench was tense, everyone leaning forward like we could somehow will the puck to stay out of our net through sheer force of collective anxiety.
When the buzzer finally sounded, we'd held on for a three to two win. The bench emptied onto the ice for the post-game celly,and I made a point of checking Finn hard enough to knock him sideways as I skated past.
“That's for the chirping,” I told him.
“Worth it!” he shouted back, grinning like an idiot.
The handshake line was quick and professional, just two teams acknowledging a good game before heading to their respective locker rooms. Their captain gave me a nod as we shook hands, and I returned it because respect was respect even when you'd spent sixty minutes trying to destroy each other on the ice.
Back in the locker room, the energy was loud and loose, everyone riding the high of a win even if it didn't technically count for anything. The roasting picked up immediately.
“So who is she?” Cole asked as he pulled off his jersey. “Or he? We're not picky, we just want details.”
“There are no details because there's no one,” I said, unlacing my skates with more force than strictly necessary.
“He's lying,” Finn announced. “Look at his face. That's his lying face.”
“I don't have a lying face.”
“You absolutely have a lying face,” Jace said from the doorway, still holding his tablet. “It's the same face you make when you tell me you're not playing through an injury.”
“I hate all of you,” I muttered, but I was smiling despite myself.
“He loves us,” Tate translated. “See? Emotionally available. Something definitely changed.”
I threw a piece of tape at him and missed, which only made everyone laugh harder.
I stripped off my gear slowly, letting the conversations wash over me without fully engaging, and by the time I'd showered and changed into street clothes, most of the team had already cleared out.
Coach caught me on my way out the door, one hand on my shoulder and an expression on his face that was equal parts pride and concern.
“Good game tonight,” he said simply. “You were exactly where you needed to be.”
“Thanks, Coach.”
“Whatever you worked through over the past few days, it's showing.” He squeezed my shoulder once and let go. “Keep your head clear. Playoffs start soon, and we need this version of you.”
I nodded, throat tight in a way that made words feel impossible, and he seemed to understand because he just clapped me on the back and walked away.
The dive barwhere Soren's band played was packed by the time I got there, bodies pressed close together in the dark and the air thick with the smell of beer and sweat. I'd thought about this move for exactly ten minutes in the car after leaving the rink before deciding to just fucking do it instead of overthinking myself into paralysis. Soren had mentioned the gig yesterday, said the band was playing tonight, and I'd filed that information away without consciously planning to use it.
Except here I was. Standing in the back of the room with a drink I wasn't planning to finish, watching the stage where Soren sat behind the drum kit like he'd been born there.
The guitarist was shredding through a solo that made half the crowd lose their minds, the bassist was holding down a rhythm that rattled my ribs, and Soren was driving the whole thing forward. He looked different up there under the stage lights, tattoos on full display, hair damp with sweat, completelyabsorbed in the music in a way that felt almost private despite the crowd watching him.
The set ended with a crash of cymbals and a final sustained note from the guitar that seemed to hang in the air for longer than physics should have allowed. The crowd screamed, Soren stood up from behind the kit with his sticks still in hand, and the grin on his face was bright enough to cut through the dim lighting. He said something into the mic I couldn't hear over the noise, waved to the crowd, and disappeared backstage with the rest of the band.
I waited and finished my drink. Tried to figure out what the hell I was going to say when I showed up in his dressing room unannounced. The venue was small enough that “backstage” was really just a narrow hallway and a converted storage room, and I found it easily by following the sound of loud voices and laughter.
The door was half-open. I knocked anyway, more out of habit than actual politeness, and pushed it open when someone shouted, “It's open!”
The room was chaos. Gear everywhere, empty beer bottles on every flat surface, the bassist sitting on a torn couch with her phone out, and the guitarist arguing with someone about whether their setlist had been too heavy on new material. And in the middle of it all was Soren, shirtless, toweling off his hair like he'd just stepped out of a shower.
I stopped moving. Couldn't have moved if someone had paid me. Because Soren without a shirt was apparently a thing my brain had no idea how to process.
He'd always been lean, even in high school. Wiry and fast and built for speed more than power. But the man standing in front of me now had filled out in ways that made my mouth go dry. His shoulders were broader, his arms were defined in a way that came from years of drumming, and his torso was all muscle andink and skin that looked like it would be warm to the touch. The tattoos wrapped around his ribs, across his chest, down his arms in patterns I wanted to trace with my fingers just to see if they felt different than the rest of him.
