My Athlete Neighbor (Neighborhood Hotties #2)

Chapter Eight

A few weeks later .

The visiting team locker room at PPG Paints Arena smelled like every other away locker room in the league—a mix of gear, tension, and industrial cleaning products that couldn't quite mask either. Kane had been in hundreds of them over his career, but tonight felt different. Tonight, his usual pre-game routine kept getting interrupted by the urge to check his phone.

No new messages.

Not that he expected any. Allison had made it clear she wasn't coming to Pittsburgh, wasn't bringing the puck this time. She had to be at work early tomorrow.

The problem was, they had won the last four games when she was there with the puck. Everyone went nuts, the fans, the press, the team. Part of him was kicking himself for not asking her if he could borrow her grandfather’s puck tonight. But he was afraid if he had, it would have ended their budding relationship. He wasn’t like her ex Jesse, but Kane also didn’t want to put those comparisons in Allison’s head either. The puck had nothing to do with how he felt about her and truth be told, he knew the puck wasn’t a magical good luck charm.

But he did miss having Allison in the audience.

Was that why did the locker room feel colder than usual?

"Missing something, Cap?" Oliver's knowing grin reflected in his phone screen as he documented their pre-game preparations for his vlog. "Or someone?"

"Focus on your own prep." Kane tightened his skate laces with more force than necessary. Around them, the usual pre-game rhythm of the locker room played out—equipment being adjusted, tape jobs perfected, various superstitions and rituals observed.

"The fans are focused on it," Oliver continued, scrolling through his feeds. "#WarrantLuck is trending. Everyone's wondering if we can win without the puck."

"We don't need luck." But Kane found himself checking his phone again anyway. Still nothing. It’s not like she would change her mind.

Across the room, Dmitri had claimed a corner for his pre-game stretching routine, which looked more like a ballet warm up than hockey preparation. He moved through elaborate positions, humming what sounded suspiciously like Swan Lake under his breath.

"The ice feels different," Dmitri said sadly.

"Deal with it," Kane snapped.

"Numbers don't lie." Marcus looked up from his tablet, where he'd been analyzing their recent performance stats. "Our shooting percentage is 12% higher when the Warrant puck is present. Power play efficiency increases by 15.3%. Even our hits are more effective, though I haven't figured out the correlation there yet."

Kane stripped the tape off his stick and started over. "Those numbers don't mean anything. We're a good team playing good hockey. That's it."

"Says the guy who keeps checking his phone," Oliver muttered, then yelped as Kane's ball of discarded tape hit him square in the head.

In his corner, Liam had assumed his pre-game meditation pose, eyes closed and breath measured. But even the usually-zen goalie seemed off, his mantra interrupted by occasional twitch and flinch.

Kane's phone lit up. His heart jumped before he saw it was just the team's booster chat. He wasn’t in the mood to engage with them right now. It was a text from Jenny with a picture of Allison wearing his sweater. He grinned and clicked it to save in his photos.

"All right, listen up!" Coach Vicky's voice cut through the locker room chatter. She stood in the center of the room, commanding attention without effort. "I know there's been a lot of talk about luck and superstitions. About magical pucks and winning streaks."

Kane focused on his tape job, trying to ignore the weight of her gaze.

"But you know what I see? I see a team that's finally playing to its potential. A team that's connecting passes, finishing checks, supporting each other. That's not luck. That's hockey."

She moved around the room, making eye contact with each player. "The Blitz don't care about our trinkets or our traditions. They care about ending our streak. So I need every one of you focused on what matters—the system, the team, the sixty minutes ahead of us."

Her gaze landed on Kane last, heavy with meaning. "Individual distractions cost team victories. And this team's worked too hard to let anything get in our way now. Clear?"

"Clear, Coach," Kane said, along with the rest of the room. But his phone felt like it was burning a hole in his pocket.

As Coach left to give the media their pre-game soundbites, the room settled into final preparations. Kane forced himself through his usual routine—stick flex, shin pad adjustment, helmet strap check. But his mind kept drifting to Allison.

"You know," Dmitri appeared beside him, somehow making hockey gear look graceful, "in ballet, performance is best when heart and head work together. Cannot separate feeling from technique."

"This isn't ballet."

"No?" Dmitri's smile was knowing. "Then why you dance around feelings like nervous understudy?"

Before Kane could respond, Oliver called out, "Hey Cap, want to say anything to the fans about playing without our lucky charm?"

Several things happened at once: Kane's stick tape job went crooked, Liam's meditation mantra stuttered, and Dmitri launched into what appeared to be an interpretive dance about longing.

"There is no lucky charm," Kane said through gritted teeth. "We're here to play hockey. That's it."

"The fans disagree." Oliver held up his phone, showing comment after comment asking about the puck, about Allison, about the team's chances without their newfound luck. "They're pretty invested in the romance of it all. Star player, legacy family, magical artifact..."

"There's no magic involved in this." But even as he said it, Kane's phone buzzed with a message from Allison. Good luck.

His heart did something complicated in his chest.

"Cap's right," Marcus cut in, though he was still frowning at his stats. "We need to focus on the game plan. Though I should note that our face-off percentage does show a statistically significant improvement when—"

"Enough!" Kane stood, addressing the whole room. "Listen up. We're a hockey team, not a fairy tale. We win because we work hard, play our system, and trust each other. Anyone who thinks we need luck hasn't been paying attention to what we've built here. So forget about pucks and superstitions and other things." He definitely didn't think about Allison in his sweater. "We've got a game to win."

The speech would have been more effective if his phone hadn't chosen that moment to buzz again. This time it was Mrs. Peterson: Let’s go Chill!

"Very inspiring," Dmitri said solemnly. "Like Swan Lake when prince denies love for swan queen. Very tragic, much drama."

"I'm not denying—it's not—" Kane ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "Can we just focus on hockey?"

"Hockey is focused," Dmitri said with surprising gentleness. "But maybe captain is not, yes? Maybe is okay to want both—victory and love. Like perfect program needs both technical skill and artistic expression."

Kane was saved from responding by Coach Vicky's return. "Five minutes. Get your heads in the game. And if I see a cell phone in the next ninety minutes, it’s going up your ass."

The room fell into familiar pre-game patterns. Dmitri finished his stretches with a flourish. Oliver put his phone away. Liam settled into his final meditation. Marcus muttered statistics under his breath as he adjusted his gear.

Kane looked down at his phone one last time. No more messages from Allison. He shouldn't care. Shouldn't be thinking about her watching the game in his sweater. Shouldn't wonder if the ice really did feel different without her there.

"Let's go!" Coach called, and the team began filing out toward the ice.

Kane shoved his phone in his bag with more force than necessary. He had a job to do, a team to lead, a game to win. No distractions. No complications. No thoughts about librarians who read stories with different voices and stress-baked at midnight and looked gorgeous in his team’s jersey.

"Ready, Cap?" Oliver paused at the door.

Kane took a deep breath, trying to find his focus. But all he could think about was Allison's smile when he scored, the way she was learning to love hockey again, how it felt to kiss her in hidden corners of their apartment building.

"Yeah," he lied, following his team toward the ice. "Ready."

Behind him, Dmitri hummed the tragic love theme from Swan Lake.

It was going to be a long night.

ALLISON HADN'T PLANNED on watching the game. She had a stack of new picture books to review, three story time sessions to plan, and absolutely no reason to care about a hockey match happening six hours away in Pittsburgh.

But here she was, curled on her couch at seven pm, wearing Kane's Charm City Chill sweater he'd "accidentally" left in her apartment last week. The TV was tuned to the sports channel, and her grandfather's lucky puck sat on the coffee table, taunting her.

Her phone buzzed with the first of what would undoubtedly be many messages from her neighbors.

Mrs. Peterson: Dear, are you watching? The boys look nervous without their lucky charm.

Before Allison could respond, the building's group chat exploded:

Jenny: Did you see Kane during warmups? He kept checking the stands.

Mr. Collins: Not the same energy without the puck.

Mrs. Martinez : Mi hijo says the ice looks different.

Allison silenced her phone as the game began. She didn't need their commentary making her feel worse about staying home. This was the right decision. The team needed to learn to win without supernatural help, and Kane needed to focus on hockey, not her.

But her heart still clenched when the camera caught him during the opening faceoff. Even through the TV, she could see the tension in his shoulders, the way his jaw was set too tight. He'd texted her early this morning when they were on the road: Sure you won't reconsider coming? Dmitri says he'll teach you his good luck ballet routine.

She'd replied with a gif of a librarian shushing the camera. He'd sent back a sad face and At least, tell me you'll be watching?

I’ll be watching, she had texted back.

The first period was brutal. Kane missed a perfect pass from Oliver, something he could usually handle in his sleep. The Blitz' defense seemed to have his number, checking him hard into the boards twice. When Pittsburgh scored first, the cameras caught Coach Vicky's expression darkening.

"Come on," Allison whispered, leaning forward as Kane lined up another shot. "You've got this."

He didn't. The puck went wide, and Kane's frustration was visible even through his helmet. The period ended with the Chill down by one, and Allison's phone was going crazy:

Mrs. Peterson: The energy's all wrong. You should have been there.

Jenny: Kane looks off his game.

Mr. Collins: @Allison what did you do to our star player??

She ignored them all, but her fingers itched to text Kane. To tell him that she believed in him, puck or no puck. Not that he’d see it until the game ended. Instead, she pulled his sweater tighter around herself and tried to remember the reason why she hadn’t just gone to the game.

The second period started marginally better. Dmitri, ever the showman, pulled off one of his signature moves—a between-the-legs pass that had the commentators raving. Marcus orchestrated a beautiful defensive play that prevented a sure goal. And Liam was a wall in net, making save after incredible save to keep them in the game.

But Kane still wasn't Kane. He was trying too hard, forcing plays that weren't there, missing opportunities that were. The cameras kept finding him on the bench, where he sat with his head down, barely engaging with his teammates.

The Blitz were running a neutral zone trap, clogging up the middle of the ice. The Chill needed to adjust their breakout, maybe try some stretch passes...

Her phone lit up with a text from Oliver: He's in his head. Fix it.

She typed and deleted three responses before settling on: He doesn't need me to play hockey.

Oliver's reply was instant: No, but he wants you here. Different thing.

The second period ended with no change in score, but plenty of change in momentum. The Chill looked disjointed, frustrated. Even Dmitri had stopped his usual celebratory flourishes after good plays.

Allison found herself reaching for the puck without thinking. It was cool and smooth in her palm, the engraving of her grandfather's Olympic victory date barely visible after years of handling. What would he think of all this? His practical, methodical granddaughter caught up in hockey superstitions and complicated feelings for a player?

Her reverie was broken by the start of the third period. The Chill came out looking determined, but something was still off. Kane got the puck on a breakaway, exactly the kind of situation he usually lived for, but his shot was easily saved.

"Stop thinking," Allison told his image on the screen. "Just play your game."

As if he'd heard her, Kane's next shift was different. He was skating faster, hitting harder. When Oliver sent him a perfect pass, he buried it top shelf where mama keeps the cookies, as her grandfather used to say.

The celebration was subdued—they were still down by one—but something had shifted. The team found their rhythm, started connecting passes, forechecking with purpose. Even from her couch, Allison could feel the change in energy.

Her phone buzzed again:

Mrs. Peterson: There's our boy! Whatever you did, keep doing it!

Jenny: KANE GOAL KANE GOAL

Mr. Collins: The curse is broken!

But it wasn't over. With two minutes left, Pittsburgh nearly scored on a scramble in front of the net. Liam made an impossible save, and suddenly the Chill were rushing the other way. Marcus to Dmitri to Oliver to Kane...

Allison was on her feet without realizing it, the puck clutched to her chest, as Kane deked around one defender, then another. The clock showed thirty seconds. The defenseman was closing in. Kane had no angle...

He passed.

The camera barely caught Dmitri streaking in from the other side...

"YES!" Allison shouted, then clapped a hand over her mouth, aware of how thin the apartment walls were. But her phone told her she wasn't the only one celebrating:

Mrs. Martinez: GOOOOOAAAALLL

Jenny: Did you see that pass???

Mr. Collins: What a play!

Mrs. Peterson: Is anyone else crying? I'm definitely crying.

The game went to overtime, then a shootout. Allison's voice was hoarse from yelling at the TV. She'd never experienced a game like this—not even her grandfather's old videos had made her feel so invested, so connected to every play.

In the end, Liam missed the shot that won the game for the Blitz.

“Shit.”

She should have brought the puck to the game.