Spencer whooped and picked me up, twirled me around, and yelled, “Fuck yeah!”
I laughed, joy lighting me up. This was really happening. I couldn’t wait.
twenty-two
Brayden
Ilooked around the locker room. This was it. Four years after the Seals’ inauguration, and we were playing game seven of the Playoffs. It was neck and neck, three games apiece. The Colorado Boomtown had the home-ice advantage, but I'd seen purple everywhere on the streets. It was as if the whole of San Diego had travelled to watch us play. Every one of the boys’ families, and in my case, both my family and found family, were here cheering us on.
We were ready. Our gear was on, our skates sharpened, and our minds were focused. We would make the Boom weep.
Mironov was the only one of us who’d lifted the Cup before. We all burned for it. We’d worked hard, pushed our bodies to the limit. Training had been endless, but we’d earned every win to get ourselves to this point. We were nearly there—three twenty-minute periods were all that stood between us and the Cup. One more goal than the Boom was all we needed.
We were going to do it.
The Cup was ours.
But first we had the game of our lives to play. The decider.
Sixty minutes until we would heft the Cup.
The Colorado Boomtown were out for blood.
We weren’t going to let them taste it.
Gauthier stood, and the chirping ceased. My heart rate ratcheted up. This was it. We were really here. The Seals were a young franchise—even younger than the Golden Knights had been when they’d won their Stanley Cup. We were going to make history tonight.
Gauthier moved to the middle of the locker room and scanned us, his expression intense. There was a banked fire in his eyes that matched the one smoldering in my belly. It was about to explode into an inferno.
He paced, meeting each of our gazes with a steady one of his own.
“This, tonight, is the culmination of years of hard work. Most of us were on skates before we could run. We’re now at the pinnacle of our sport. Two teams—the best in the world. One will walk out of here tonight as the champions. It’ll be us.”
I whistled, and the other boys cheered, all of us banging our sticks on the rubber matting in the locker room.
“Look around, boys,” Gauthier continued. He held his hands out wide, gesturing to each and every one of us.
I did as he said, scanning the faces of the men who’d become brothers to me. Rune, my closest friend on the team and a goalie with the skills you only see once in a generation. Gauthier, our big brother. Hux, the quiet guy who was a strategist with almost a precognition about plays. Minns, who was fiercely protective of his brothers and terrifying on the ice. Mironov, the enforcer—the man who’d take anyone down for one of us.
“Years from now we'll look back and remember winning the Cup tonight. We’ll know we earned it, that we battled every second of every game to get here.” He closed his hand into a fist and thumped the Seals’ logo on his jersey. “Boys, this isourmoment.Ourtime. This brotherhood—our family—was formed through blood, sweat, and busted teeth.”
He was right. This team meant the world to me. It had only taken one season to change everything for me. Before, in Boston, I was reckless. I was a smart-mouthed average player. I wasn’t part of the Blizzards family; I didn’t deserve to be part of a team playing for the Cup. But now I was different. Now I deserved it. I’d earned it. I was no longer coasting on my teammates’ efforts. I’d become one of the elite alongside every man sitting in this room with me.
“We'll remember pushing ourselves until our bodies broke.” He pointed out Cohen, our second line left defense, who’d been playing with a torn MCL since game one. It was strapped, he’d had a cortisone injection, and he was ready to go. He’d need surgery in the off-season, but there was no way he was missing this game. Every one of us would have done the same.
“We'll remember the sacrifice each and every one of us has made.” He pounded his chest over his heart, and my body vibrated with excitement. Anticipation coiled in my gut, the knowledge that we were going out there to achieve something I’d only dared to dream of as a kid.
“We'll remember how much heart we have. Skill isn’t enough anymore. The Boomtown have skill. But we have more than that. We don’t just want the Cup. We crave it. Eat, breathe, and sleep it. We need it.”
He nodded slowly, casting his gaze around us again. Our gazes locked, and the bouncing in my feet stilled. All that energy, the eagerness to get out there, settled, channeling into an unquenchable thirst to win. I wouldn’t rest until we’d beaten their asses.
This game would be ferocious.
We would bring it harder.
“We want it more than them. I know how much our city wants it. I know how much our friends and families and that crowd in the arena want it. You can hear them chanting for us already.”
He paused, letting his words sink in, and we hollered and hooted, revving ourselves up. We’d seen the crowds gathering outside the barn as the bus had driven in. We’d watched them stream in on foot and in cars from our hotel rooms high above the city, purple Seals flags converging on the barn en masse.
