“Section 342,” I say from the bed. “Row 12.”
He turns. “Upper deck?”
“I bought cheap seats. I’m not made of money.”
“You flew all the way to Miami and bought cheap seats.”
“The tickets are expensive! It’s not easy to get potentially elimination game tickets the day before!”
He crosses back to the bed and kisses me, his hand on my jaw, and it’s not a goodbye kiss, it’s a later kiss, and I hold onto the front of his shirt for a second before I let go.
“You need four wins,” I say. “Starting tonight.”
I findmy seat way up in the nosebleeds of the hostile arena, buried inside my black hoodie with Zach’s cap pulled low. I’m not dumb enough to wear Puckaneers’ colors into a Florida Vice elimination game.
When the teams file out for warmups, I scan the ice until I find number 35. He’s already in the crease, falling into his routine. He taps both posts, skates out to meet Dex, and bangs his stick against his defenseman’s pads. His body language is electric. He’spresentin a way he hasn’t been since the series started.
The first period is a scoreless grind. When Zach robs a Florida forward on a breakaway with a lightning-fast pad save, I grip my plastic armrest so hard my knuckles ache. For the first time in a week, the team actually looks like a team.
Halfway through the second period, Rodriguez finally breaks the deadlock. I’m on my feet screaming into the cavernous arena before I remember I’m surrounded by twenty thousand people who actively want us to lose. The woman in the Vice jersey next to me shoots me a nasty glare.
“Sorry,” I mumble, dropping back into my seat. “I just really like that player.”
It’s 1-0 until the final two minutes of the period, when Florida ties it up on a messy rebound. Even so, Zach makes three back-to-back saves to end the period that leave my heart hammering against my ribs.
It’s tied 1-1 going into the third. The tension in the building is thick enough to choke on.
Every time the puck crosses our blue line, my stomach drops, but Zach is an absolute wall. Glove. Blocker. A desperation sprawl on a two-on-one rush where he reads the cross-ice pass perfectly and kicks his right pad out just in time to deflect the puck. The home crowd groans in collective agony. I’m physically shaking in my seat.
With twelve minutes left, Dex carries the puck out of our zoneand feeds it to Rodriguez at the blue line. Time seems to slow down. Rodriguez holds the puck for a terrifying beat longer than any sane person would, drawing the defense, before threading a flawless pass to Brody in the slot. Brody doesn’t hesitate. He buries it bar down.
The sharp, metallicpingof the crossbar echoes through the arena, followed instantly by the dead silence of a home crowd realizing a sweep isn’t happening tonight.
2-1.
I’m on my feet again. I’m the only person standing in my entire section, drowning in a sea of devastated home fans, and I don’t care.
Florida pulls their goalie with ninety seconds left. The ice is tilted heavily against us, and Barrett sends my dad out for the final defensive shift. My breath catches as I watch him throw his body in front of a slap shot, blocking it with his shin. He winces, stumbles slightly, but keeps skating.
With thirty seconds left on the clock, Rodriguez intercepts a pass in the neutral zone. The empty net is waiting at the far end of the ice. He has a clean shot, but he doesn’t take it. Instead, he drops a pass back to my dad.
My dad stands at center ice. The puck is on his stick. The net is sixty feet away. He takes the shot.
The puck glides across the empty ice and crosses the goal line just as the final horn blares. The arena completely deflates around me. We win. 3-1.
I want to throw my head back and scream into the rafters of this anonymous arena in a city where nobody knows my name. I want to grab the woman next to me and yell,THAT’S MY DAD AND THAT’S MY BOYFRIEND AND THEY’RE ON THE SAME TEAM AND IT’S A WHOLE THING.
But I don’t. I just sit down as the adrenaline high cracks right down the middle, letting the cold reality seep in. Itisa wholething. My dad just scored an empty-netter to keep his season alive, and I’m sitting in the upper deck of an arena hiding from him. This series is going to end in less than a week, and win or lose, the clock is ticking. When it’s over, we can’t hide anymore.
Zach
when do you fly out
Me
11:40
you?
