Page 114 of Her Player

I know.

The Dynamites were introduced to a thunderous roar from their side. Their center came out last. Viktor Sokolov, six-foot-nine, two-sixty, three-time PHL all-star, had never lost a championship game in his career. He skated out onto the ice with the kind of ease that came from knowing exactly how good you were. He did one slow lap, deliberate and unhurried, and when he passed our bench he looked straight at me.

I stared back.

Not tonight, asshole.

Jett appeared at my elbow. "He's big," he said conversationally.

"Yep."

"Like, very big."

"I noticed."

"You're sure about the right side gap."

"Victoria pulled three games of tape on it."

Jett was quiet for exactly one second. "I love that woman," he said sincerely.

I shoved him away from me before I lined up for the opening face-off.

Sokolov skated into position across from me. Up close he was even bigger, which I hadn't thought was goddamn possible. He rolled his neck once, cracked his knuckles around his stick, and looked down at me with the confidence of a man who had never once doubted himself on a patch of ice.

I thought about a flat tire changed in the dark. About a woman in a silk robe flipping her phone face down on a kitchen counter. About Ryan Caldwell's team and what it meant to the woman who rebuilt it from nothing.

About forty thousand people watching and every damn one of them waiting to see what we were made of.

The official skated into position between us.

The puck went up.

I rolled my shoulders back and fixed my eyes on that rubber disc.

See a puck.

Sink a puck.

The puck dropped.

The first period was a war.

Sokolov was everything the tape said he was and then some. He moved through our defense with a patience that told me he wasn't worried about the first period at all. He was setting something up. I could feel it in the way he didn't push when he had openings, just filed them away.

Smart. Disciplined. The kind of opponent you respected even while you were trying to take him the fuck apart.

I kept Jett on a short leash. He wanted to chirp, wanted to get in Sokolov's head early, and I let him do a little of it because Jett without an outlet was worse than Jett with one. But I pulled him back every time he started pushing too hard. We didn't need Sokolov rattled in the first period. We needed him comfortable. Comfortable meant predictable. Predictable was something we could damn well work with.

Moose took the first goal on a shot none of us had seen in the tape. Clean and fast and gone before any of us could react. I watched Moose pull the puck out of the net and flip it to the official with that flat expression he always wore when he was furious at himself, and I skated past him on the way to the bench.

"One shot," I said. "That's all he got."

Moose just nodded.

We went into the second period down one, which was exactly where I'd told the team we might be. Down one was nothing. Down one was exactly enough to make us angry without making us stupid.

I looked up at the owner's box before the puck dropped.