Gabe:Is he still there?
The air left the room. The four words felt like a physical weight pressing down on the bar.
Michael saw it, and he didn't wait for me to speak. He was off the bar in a heartbeat, his athletic reflexes kicking in as he scrambled for his discarded shirt on the floorboards. He was a blur of motion, pulling on his pants and shoving his feet into his shoes without socks. The guilt on his face made my heart ache.
"I should go," he whispered, his voice hushed and urgent as he fumbled with his belt. "If he’s awake, if he’s waiting at the top of those stairs... I don't want to make this harder on him, Kayla. I’ll call you from the car."
I didn't move for a second, watching him try to retreat into the shadows, try to play the part of the mess he’d promised he wasn't. I looked at the phone, then at the man who had just told me he loved me in front of the only person who mattered most.
"No," I said.
I sat up, sliding off the bar and grabbing my clothes to get dressed too.
Michael stood halfway in and halfway out of the bar at the open door, his shoulders hunched, ready to bolt into the night. He looked back at me, his eyes wide and confused.
“What do you mean, no?”
"If you walk away now, you’re proving him right," I said, my voice steady, the fear finally eclipsed by a fierce, protective certainty.
I walked around the bar, closing the distance between us. "Come upstairs with me.”
Michael’s gaze darted toward the ceiling, toward the boy who was waiting for an answer. "Are you sure?"
"He asked if you were still here," I told him, my hand firm on his forearm as I guided him out. "I'm not going to lie to him again."
33
Michael
The locker room was electric. It was the kind of atmospheric pressure that made the hair on my arms stand up, a collective hum of twenty-five men holding their breath before the final plunge.
I had snuck a look at the arena bowl twenty minutes ago, stepping out from the tunnel while the lights were still low. Even then, Frost Bank felt alive. The Stanley Cup was in the building, sitting in a velvet-lined crate somewhere in the bowels of the stadium. A silver ghost that had haunted my dreams since I was six years old. I’d never been this close. I’d never felt the weight of it pressing down on my shoulders quite like this.
Back in the room, the silence was heavy, broken only by the rhythmicsnap-tape-snapof sticks being prepped.
Grayson stood in the center of the rug, his "C" stitched firmly back onto his chest where it belonged. He looked like a man who had walked through hell and come out the other side with a colder, sharper focus. Beside him, Mason cleared his throat.
"Listen up," he said, his voice cutting through the pre-game jitters.
He reached up, his fingers hooked under the Velcro of the "C" he’d been wearing on his alternate jersey to signify his co-captaincy. With a sharp rip, he pulled it off. The room went dead silent.
"I’ve lived in this city a long time," he said, looking around the room. "And I’ve seen a lot of guys wear the letters. But this run? This comeback? It doesn't happen without one specific person holding the line when the rest of us were losing our heads."
He walked over to my stall. My heart hit my ribs like a puck off the post.
"Mason, what are you doing?" I muttered.
"Doing the honors," he said. He looked at Grayson, who gave a slow, solemn nod. Then Mason pressed the letter onto the front of my Surge sweater. "Grayson’s the heart of this team, Michael. But you’re the spine. You’re the Co-captain today. For the Cup."
A low roar started in the back of the room, a chorus of gloves hitting the floor and sticks banging against lockers.
"Landry! Landry! Landry!"
I looked at the letter on my chest, then at the faces of the men I’d bled with for months. The resentment, the mercenary labels, the cold shoulders from the start of the season… it was all gone. I wasn't the Seattle guy anymore. I wasn't the placeholder. I was home.
"Don't make me get emotional," I croaked, the lump in my throat making it hard to swallow. "We have a job to do. Let’s go get that silver."
As we lined up in the tunnel, the vibration of twenty thousand fans began to shake the concrete beneath our skates. It was a physical force, a wall of sound that pushed against us.
