“Get control of this, or he’s going to do your job for you all night,” I say.
The ref doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t need to. We kill the penalty, because even a man down, we can still skate rings around them, but it takes a physical toll I don’t want to pay this early.
By the time the clock lets Seb out of the box, my hand is gripping my stick so hard it’s starting to ache. As Seb drops onto the bench, I let go and flex my fingers behind my back where no one can see.
“Good job,” I tell him.
He nods.
The first period ends zero-zero, and while we outshot them we couldn’t finish. Coach is happy with that, but I’m not, because if we’re going to make the playoffs this is the exact sort of game we should be controlling early and coasting late.
Second period, Mason sets up the goal three minutes in.
He picks the puck off a turnover at the blue line, holds it for two full beats while their D-pair commits, and slides a pass through the space where a defender used to be. Niko one-times it past the goalie’s blocker. The bench erupts, and the crowd goes nuts.
When Mason comes off, I nod. “Hell of a pass.”
“Thanks, Cap,” he says, with the same flat pleasantness he’s had for weeks.
Mason isn’t doing anything wrong. That’s the problem. For weeks now — since the lawn and the verbal jab in the locker room — he’s been clean, disciplined, exactly what a captain would hope for. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it doesn’t come.
My own shifts tell a different story.
I play the kind of hockey that keeps a team in a game but never makes a highlight reel, and somewhere in the donor box, a scout is writing down Mason’s assist while I’m icing my forearm.
We get our next break when one of their D-men hooks Luca along the wall and, finally, the ref’s arm shoots up. Power play. Franklin sends the second unit out, keeping me on the bench, and Riley Watson hits it from the left circle — high, clean, top corner.
Two-zero.
The building wakes up, and for a few minutes it feels like the game we should have been playing from the start. Then Mason scores the third, picking a pocket at the blue line, cutting inside, and wristing it past the goalie’s glove like he’s the only person on the ice.
The bench is up and I’m on my feet with them, banging my stick and doing the right things, but my eyes are already in the stands. Sloane is on her feet seven rows up, clapping and watching the guy she used to date play the best hockey of his life.
I’m not the only one looking.
Mason coasts back toward the bench and lets his eyes climb the same seven rows — to her — and holds there a beat past anything I can call accidental. Then he finds me, and whatever was in his face smooths back into that flat, easy pleasantness, like I imagined it.
Seb drops beside me with a water bottle and says, “Mason’s playing well.”
I take a long pull before answering. “Yeah.”
Seb watches me a moment too long, then looks back at the ice.
In the third period, they come out like a different team. Their top line pulls a goal back on a cheap deflection, and four minutes later they score again on a broken play. Before we know it, it’s suddenly three-two, and the building that was roaring ten minutes ago is quiet.
Franklin’s voice comes from behind me. “Talk to your D. They’re cheating weak side.”
I lean down the bench and tell them, and they adjust.
The last five minutes, I’m on the ice for most of it, blocking shots, clearing pucks, grinding. With two minutes left, I make the mistake that should cost us the game. I’m a half-second late reading the play, and their forward breaks in alone on our goalie.
The building holds its breath, but Mason comes out of nowhere — backchecking from the far wing, full speed, angling him off the puck and into the boards with a clean hit that sends the building wild. He doesn’t celebrate, and just keeps skating like it was routine.
It wasn’t routine.
Relief comes first. The other thing comes a half-second behind — my jaw setting, my stick gone still in my hands while everyone around me bangs the boards. He just covered for me in front of a scout, my girl, and the whole building, and he made it look like nothing.
The buzzer sounds with us still ahead three-two.
