Then Cole gives me the puck.
My blade is already there. The pass arrives on my tape the way his passes always arrive, exactly where I am, exactly when I need it.
I shoot.
The puck crosses the goal line and hits the back of the empty net, and the goal horn screams, and the building erupts.
3–1.
Cole reaches me before the team does. His arms lock around my neck. His forehead presses to mine. Through the cages, through the sweat, the noise, the sixteen thousand people, his eyes find mine and hold.
“Together,” he says.
“Together.”
The rest of the clock is a blur. Wisconsin pulls the goalie again. We hold. Seconds drain. The horn sounds, long and final, and every stick on our bench goes up.
National Champions.
The bench floods onto the ice. Sticks go up. Gloves fly. Adrian skates in circles with his arms spread. Gio lifts Declan out of the crease. The student section pounds against the glass, and the noise turns into pressure against my cage.
Near the boards, Gio finds Zoë. She is pressed against the glass in the front row, and he skates to her and puts his gloved hand flat against the plexiglass. She puts her hand on the other side. The cameras catch it, the jumbotron shows it, and the crowd makes a sound that is half roar and half ache. Zoë’s face through the glass is open, wet, and fixed on him.
Cole finds me in the chaos. His helmet is off. His hair is wrecked. Sweat. Tears. The grin. The full grin, sweat-bright and wrecked.
“We did it,” he says. His voice breaks on it, the words cracking in his throat. “D. We did it.”
I pull him in with both arms. My face presses against his temple. His chest heaves against mine. We stand at center ice holding each other while confetti drops, the trophy comes out, and cameras flash against our cages and shoulder pads.
The trophy ceremony happens in a blur of handshakes and photographs. Addison stands at center ice with the trophy in his hands and tears running down his cheeks. He doesn’t wipe them away. Talia steps onto the ice beside him, her arm through his. She is crying too, tears running straight down her face. Addison looks at her, his jaw working, his hand covering hers on his arm before they both look back at the ice. In the stands above them, Genny is on her feet. Her phone is down. Her hands are still. She watches Addison hold the trophy with an expression I can’t read from here. When Talia looks up toward her section, Genny doesn’t look away.
He hands the trophy to Adrian. Adrian lifts it. The roar shakes the rafters.
Adrian passes it to Declan. Declan to Gio. Gio to Cole.
Cole holds it. The weight shows in his arms, in the way his face changes when the metal touches his gloves. Then he turns to me.
“Your turn,” he says.
He passes it.
The trophy is heavy and cold, the handles worn smooth from the hands that came before. I lift it. The light catches the metal, and the crowd screams, and the sound hits my chest, sharp and clean.
I look up.
The press section.
Maya is standing. Her laptop is closed. Her press credential hangs against her chest. She is gripping the rail with both hands, her eyes on me and her face wet.
She mouths two words.
Come home.
The tunnel is loud with the aftermath, equipment staff hauling bags, trainers carrying ice, reporters pressed against the barricades with microphones extended. The team files past. Adrian has the trophy balanced on one shoulder. Gio is singing something in Italian that he is making up as he goes.
She is at the end of the tunnel.
She leans against the concrete wall. Coat on. Bag over her shoulder. The press credential still around her neck. Arms crossed, she watches the tunnel until she finds us.
