“We absolutely have this,” Gwen agrees.
I don’t say anything.
Because I’m watching Blake again.
With less than a minute left, the puck breaks loose near center ice. Zane catches it. Turns. Sees Blake. Passes. Blake skates forward, fast.
Faster than anyone expects after surgery. Faster than anyone expects tonight. And shoots. The puck hits the back of the net.
The buzzer sounds.
The arena erupts.
And suddenly, everyone around me is standing and shouting and hugging each other while the team floods toward Blake on the ice like they already knew this moment was going to belong to him before the game even started.
“He’s back,” Anna says.
“He’s really back.”
I smile because she’s right. Because he is. Because everything we fought through brought us here. And because when he looks up into the crowd again, he finds me exactly where I’m standing.
—
The arena is still loud when we leave. Not the kind of loud that comes from music or announcements or fans chanting player names across the stands, but the kind that lives under your skin after something big happens, something you waited for longer than you admitted even to yourself, something that changes the shape of the future without asking permission first.
Blake played again.
And somewhere between the moment the puck hit the net and the moment the final buzzer sounded, I realized I had been holding my breath for weeks without knowing it.
“You’re quiet,” Blake says as we step outside into the cold night air together.
“You won,” I reply.
“I noticed.”
“You scored.”
“I noticed that too.”
“I’m still processing.”
“That makes two of us.”
The drive to his house feels shorter than usual, even though neither of us is rushing. Neither of us says very much while we’re moving through the dark streets together, because the energy from the game hasn’t faded yet. I can still see flashes of it every time I close my eyes, the way he skated, the way he smiled when he found me in the stands afterward, the way his hand settled at the small of my back like it belonged there.
“You were watching me the entire time,” he says.
“I did watch you.”
“That sounded dramatic.”
“It was,” I laugh.
“I like it.”
When we step inside his house, everything feels quieter than the arena did. By contrast, the silence wraps around us as if the night is finally catching up after hours of noise, movement, and cheering crowds.
Neither of us turns the lights on right away. We don’t need them. The soft glow from the kitchen and the streetlights outside is enough.
