Page 57 of Her Player

“Oh hell fucking no you don’t,” I glowered as I leapt back over the wall that separated the bench from the ice.

Rhett caught me midair and touched my heels back down in place. “Oh no you don’t.”

“That’s fucking BULLSHIT, AND YOU KNOW IT!” I yelled out onto the ice.

The official turned to me and stared me down, still talking into his microphone as the crowd booed. “The game will be struck from the books on both sides. A loss for both teams.”

And with a curt three-pulse blow from his whistle, the game was over.

Our undefeated streak was done.

I wanted nothing more than to tear the heads off the opposing team and stake them onto spikes.

Rhett’s hand found the small of my back.

I didn’t pull away from it. I probably should have, given that half of Caldwell Arena still had their phones raised and the press box was directly above us, but I found that I didn’t have the energy left to care about optics. Not tonight. Not with the forfeit still ringing in my ears and Moose somewhere in the tunnel with our team doctor and the adrenaline starting its ugly withdrawal from my system.

“He’s okay,” Rhett said quietly. Close enough that only I could hear it. “Doc’s with him. It looked worse than it was.”

I exhaled through my nose. “The camera on the northwest corner caught the hit.”

“I know.”

“I’m filing a formal complaint with the PHL office tonight. That hit was deliberate. Anyone watching that replay for more than five seconds can see it.” I straightened my spine and smoothed the front of my blazer, which had somehow survived the last twenty minutes entirely intact, which was more than I could say for my composure. “They’ll be fined. Possibly suspended.”

Rhett was quiet for a moment. “We still advance.”

I turned to look at him.

“Forfeit counts as a loss for both teams,” he said. “But we’ve got enough wins in the division to clinch the wildcard regardless. Coach confirmed it.” His jaw was set, that look he got when he was containing something larger than the expression he was showing the room. “We’re still in.”

I held his gaze for a moment.

The arena was still buzzing around us. Fans filing out, some still chanting, some booing the empty ice. The lights had shifted from game-bright to the flat overhead wash of post-game cleanup. It made everything look a little more like the real world and a little less like the heightened, electric version of it that a live game produced.

We were still in.

Fifteen years. Every decision I’d made since Ryan died, every dollar I’d poured into this franchise, every morning I’d walked into Caldwell Arena and chosen to keep going instead of letting it go the way everyone said I should. It had led to this. A forfeit and a brawl and a wildcard berth and a man standing at the small of my back telling me we were still in.

“Good,” I said.

Rhett’s mouth curved. Just slightly.

“Good game, Miss C,” Jett called from somewhere behind us.

“I pulled one player off by his helmet,” I said flatly without turning around.

“And it was beautiful,” Jett said sincerely.

Brynn appeared at my elbow, slightly rumpled, her hair coming loose from whatever she’d put it in this morning. She looked at Rhett’s hand at my back and then at my face and then very deliberately looked somewhere else entirely.

Smart girl.

I always did raise her right.

20

RHETT