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I pounced on it, chipping it high off the glass. I dug my skate into the ice, sprinting into the neutral zone after my own clearance. Seattle’s last defenseman scrambled backward, desperately trying to keep the play alive, but he bobbled the bouncing rubber at center ice.

I stripped it right off his tape, driving hard toward the open net and buried it into the mesh in the split second before the horn blared to end the game. The red light flashed, the home crowd groaned, and my line rushed toward me. Hands slammed against my shoulders, gloves patted my helmet, Koffee nearly tackling me in the process.

Through the mob of bodies surrounding me, I looked toward our bench. Mikey was standing by the door, eyes locked on mine. I gave him a single, sharp nod that he returned.

I swung back into the scrum, as the rest of the team mobbed us on the ice, Mikey finally making his way to me.

“Fucking beaut,” he said, tugging my head down and planting a loud, smacking kiss on my helmet.

I pulled back, staring down at him, and allowed myself one brief moment to take in his sweaty, beautiful face.

I hated to admit my dad was ever right, but maybe our coaches were blind. This man—this fucking never-give-up, always-push-yourself-harder man did not belong on the fourth line. He belonged on the second. With me.

We could make magic together.

Hell, we already did—just not on the ice where it was acceptable. I really fucking wanted to rectify that.

I downed a shot with Koffee, laughed with Mercer at the replay of my empty-netter playing on the TV screens overhead, and lifted my beer in salute when Bell toasted our win.

Mikey and I made sure to socialize separately, though I was always aware of where he was at any given moment. Currently, he was sitting on a stool in the corner of the bar with the rest of the bottom-six guys.

Every time our eyes happened to meet, I heard a timer ticking down in my head.

Only a few more minutes and I could leave.

Andrei Kovalev, the left winger to my right, leaned back against the sticky laminate counter. “You see how he pinch in second period?”

The “he” in question was Burkowski, one of Seattle’s veteran defensemen. The guy was a twitchy, suffocating prick who had the ability to show up out of nowhere, ramming guys into the boards like he had a personal vendetta against them.

In the locker room after the game, Bell explained the guy was actually a big old softie off the ice. Apparently, his wife ran an animal rescue that he single-handedly funded.

“Yeah,” I said, my eyes tracking past Andrei’s shoulder toward Mikey’s corner. He caught me looking and smirked. I shook my head and pulled my attention back to my partner. “He jumped the blue line early.”

“Exactly!” Kovalev pointed the neck of his bottle at my chest, his Russian accent coming out thicker after a few drinks. “He knows I am looking for you on the cross-ice. If I delay half-second, he is caught in no-man land, giving you clean backdoor.” He slammed his bottle down onto the counter, and beer bubbled over.

“I saw it,” I agreed, dragging my arm away from the foamy puddle as I watched Mikey say something to Nielson, who clapped him on the back. Then Stockhard said something that had Mikey shaking his head as he grabbed his jacket off the back of a chair, hooked it over his shoulder, and strolled toward the bar’s exit, his hand held high in goodbye.

“He, uh,” I stammered, trying to remember what I’d been saying to Kovalev. “Next time we see them, you fake the seam, hold the puck at the wall, and I’ll cut right behind him.”

“Is good,” Kovalev grunted, nodding in satisfaction as he took a long pull of his beer. He wiped his mustache with the back of his hand and leaned in closer. “Also, we need to talk about their dump-and-chase in third. Their guy Rustova, he is⁠—”

Against my thigh, the silent alarm on my phone buzzed, and like Pavlov’s fucking dog, my cock twitched.

Time to go get fucked.

“Hold that thought,” I told him, setting my glass of sparkling water with lime down on the bar. “I gotta go take a piss.”

“Ah, yes. Good idea,” he said, signaling the bartender for what I assumed was another drink.

I turned and headed straight toward the exit.

By the time I made it back to the hotel, I was practically buzzing out of my skin.

I slipped out of the elevator on my floor, moving down the dimly lit hallway to find Mikey waiting for me in the shadows. He fell into step beside me as I passed, the carpet eating up the sound of our strides as we practically sprinted down the hall toward my room.

My hands were shaking as I fished the key out of my pocket. On the first pass of it over the lock, the card reader flashed red.

Mikey pressed the front of his body against the back of mine, and I swore I could feel the plug shift inside me.