“Hockey men express affection through light assault,” Minerva agrees. “I should develop a spreadsheet.”
Knight immediately skates over to back Viktor up because apparently, emotional support among hockey players means preparing to collectively commit felonies at a moment’s notice.
Despite myself, I laugh.
That’s the bigger difference tonight. I’m not watching Owen, waiting for him to lose control. I’m watching him trust himself.
The realization settles heavily into my chest.
Because after everything that happened, after all the fear and shame and therapy conversations and emotional wreckage, he’s still here. Still standing in front of eighteen thousand screaming people. Still doing the thing he loves most in the world.
And he’s good at it.
God, he’s good.
The puck snaps suddenly across the slot to a wide-open shooter, and the entire arena rises in anticipation. Owen slides laterally across the crease with terrifying speed and gloves the shot clean out of the air.
The crowd groans loudly.
Meanwhile, I physically clutch Sofia’s arm hard enough that she yelps. “Oh, my God.”
“Yup. You’re one of us now,” Vivian says knowingly. “You have it.”
“What?”
“The goalie girlfriend panic.”
“I’m not—”
Another huge save from Owen cuts me off mid-denial. This time, I jump to my feet instinctively.
“So we’re fully abandoning the lie now?” Dot asks.
I ignore her completely because down on the ice, Owen lifts his mask briefly during the whistle, breathing hard while Tristan pounds his stick excitedly against the boards beside the bench.
And then Owen glances up toward the suites again. Toward me. The second he catches me standing there looking completely emotionally compromised over a hockey save, the corner of his mouth lifts slightly. Warmth floods straightthrough my body. It’s ridiculous how much that tiny expression affects me.
The final horn sounds, and the entire arena explodes. People leap to their feet around us while the Venom bench empties onto the ice in a rush of green and purple jerseys and shouting bodies. Sticks bang against the boards. Music blasts overhead. Somewhere behind me, Sofia screams loud enough to qualify as a medical event.
And down on the ice, Owen laughs. Head thrown back, full smile with all his teeth. The sound doesn’t reach me through the glass, but I see it while Bowen grabs him around the shoulders hard enough to nearly drag him sideways. Viktor barrels into the celebration a second later, practically vibrating with excitement while he pounds both hands against Owen’s helmet.
“Oh, my God,” Dot says to Knova from beside me. “Your husband’s going to cry.”
“He cries during insurance commercials,” Knova shoots back.
“Last week he cried at a kitten meme,” Vivian adds.
“Okay, but it was adorable,” Knova argues. “Savage and I cried too.”
I barely hear any of them because all I can see is Owen. Not the angry man from the suspension hearing. Not the terrified little boy hiding inside all that control. Not the man who looked at me like I held his entire future in my hands.
This Owen looks lighter. Still intense. But lighter, and the realization hits me unexpectedly hard. He did this. Not me. Not crisis management. Not media spin.
Him.
The therapy. The work. The willingness to look at the ugliest parts of himself instead of pretending they weren’t there. Most people spend their entire lives running from that kind of self-awareness.
Owen walked straight into it.
