This one was real.
Big.
Bright.
Reckless.
Mine.
Daniel noticed it. Of course he did. His gaze shifted from her face to mine through the glass, and even from the ice, even with the noise and distance and lights, I felt the weight of it. Not a warning exactly. Not approval either. Something harder to earn than both.
A father watching his daughter look happy and trying to decide if the man responsible deserved to keep breathing.
Fair.
Honestly? Respect.
Ryker leaned down and said something near Bliss’s ear. She turned and shoved at his chest with both hands, laughing, while Aura pointed at me like she was presenting evidence in court and Charm practically levitated beside them. Kellen zoomed in on the whole thing, and Knox caught him by the back of the hoodie without even looking, dragging him out of someone’s way before he got trampled by a student section losing its mind before the puck had even dropped.
Easton skated by me muttering, “Yeah, you’re definitely scoring tonight.”
“I’m gonna kill you.”
“That’s not a denial.”
And it wasn’t.
Because Bliss Bennett was behind the glass wearing my name, surrounded by the people who loved her most in the world, and for once she wasn’t shrinking between them like she needed protection from the night.
She was glowing inside it.
That thought alone nearly made me want to tear the opposing team apart molecule by molecule, just so she could see me in greatness. I wanted her proud that I was hers.
The puck dropped twenty minutes later.
And after that?
Everything became destruction.
The kind that made the game slow down around me until every pass, every opening, every hit felt obvious before it happened. My legs felt explosive, lungs burning perfectly while adrenaline ripped through my bloodstream hot enough to make me reckless in all the right ways.
Halfway through the first period, I buried one top shelf so hard their goalie slammed his stick against the post afterward.
The crowd detonated.
And through all the screaming, all the lights, all the chaos, my eyes still found Bliss behind the glass losing her absolute mind.
Mine.
The thought nearly made me dangerous.
Three shifts later, I flattened one of their defensemen hard enough the bench exploded while Briggs nearly fell over laughing skating past me.
“That man has a family, Mercer.”
“He’ll recover,” I muttered.
“Emotionally?”
