The Pucking Comeback (Defenders Diaries #5)

Chapter 1 Heart in the Crease （Eden）

HEART IN THE CREASE (EDEN)

First dates are supposed to be clean slates—until my past drops into the crease.

Ten years ago, my brother’s best friend cracked my heart. I glued it back together and called the seams “growth.”

Tonight, I’m doing the sensible thing. Madison Square Garden. Defenders hockey. Six rows up with a tall, tailored finance guy who booked the tickets, found our seats without squinting, and asked what I wanted before he told me what he likes. He smells of cedar and competence. He’s exactly my speed.

The lights dip. The organ growls. Cold air rolls off the ice and beads my drink. I am fine.

Then the goalie folds into the blue paint.

The familiar set of shoulders. Number One.

Nate Russo.

He used to know every corner of me. I’ve spent a decade dodging the places he might be and calling it moving on. New friends, new routes, new rules: do not feed the past.

“Great seats,” Bennett says, offering me a nacho.

“Great,” I echo, and my pulse stutters against the plastic rim of my cup.

Nate shuffles, taps each post, settles. The crowd swells into a single loud heart.

Don’t look at the crease.

The goalie lifts his chin a fraction, the tiniest tilt of the mask, and glances up into the crowd.

I forget how to breathe.

The puck drops. Sticks clash. Life surges forward.

Bennett leans in, warm and steady. “You follow the Defenders?”

“Not lately,” I say, because only the one who ruined me seems impolite.

A shot whistles in. Nate swallows it because gravity’s only a suggestion to him. The horn doesn’t sound, but my rib cage does.

I grip my drink. Watch the puck, I order myself. Not the past.

Except the past is wearing blue, standing in the crease, and he just found me.

Bennet takes my hand without asking. He’s steady, assured, and the warmth feels good. There’s no jolt, but maybe the voltage will show up later. “You okay? You look a little…keyed up.”

“Crowds,” I lie, and unstick my shoulders from my ears.

The Garden thrums under my heels—bass, blades, voices stacked into one big pulse. Number One looks bigger than the boy who taught me card tricks on summer porches. Broader. Sharper.

“Fastest game in the world,” Bennet says near my ear. “Watch Seventeen, Finn O’Reilly. He’ll change your religion.”

I hum and play along. I don’t mention I was at Finn O’Reilly’s wedding last summer—or that his wife Jessica Novak O’Reilly runs PR for half the roster now.

She’s also representing my brother, Leo—boxing, not hockey.

My brain’s already analyzing plays and spotting mistakes I’d call out if that were my job. It isn’t. My job is saying yes to life.

“We could’ve done martinis on a rooftop,” Bennett says during a whistle. “But this felt more…us.”

Us. Optimistic, but points for effort.

The Raiders rush. Number One slides, squares, erases the chance. My chest pulls tight. I know that precision; he wastes nothing. He waits you out, a silent challenge.

“Okay,” Bennett says, impressed. “He’s a wall.”

“Mm.” My mouth cooperates, but my stomach flips.

The game turns mean in a fun way. Shoulders into glass, sticks tangled, speed snapping into scrums in the corners. Bennett feeds me soft commentary between sips of his plastic-cup beer. He’s charming and a little cocky and clearly proud of the seats.

“You’re cold,” he says, rubbing my knuckles. “Do you want—”

The jumbotron heart blooms without warning. Pink floods our section; we’re framed dead center.

“Oh boy,” he laughs. “We’re on.”

There’s a breath where I could shake my head. Instead, I lean in. His mouth is warm, confident, unhurried. The section roars; my lips curve on reflex.

Across the ice, the goalie stalls. Mask angled. A beat, then another. Could be me. Could be the clock. Could be nothing. My pulse doesn’t care.

I stay in the kiss for one more second. Beer on my tongue, heat at my throat. He’s a good man who deserves better than half my attention. But my heart’s in the crease.

The goalie taps his post and resets. The camera cuts to two dudes in banana suits, and the place howls. Bennett pulls back, pleased and oblivious, thumb sweeping my cheek. He’s checking a box and genuinely enjoying it.

“Cute,” he says.

“Adorable,” I manage, pulse still misbehaving.

I glue my eyes to the neutral zone and pretend I don’t feel that stare coming through glass. Pretend this is about a screen kiss and not the way a man in blue can tilt his head and put my entire nervous system on alert.

The first ends scoreless. During the break, Bennett returns with an oversized pretzel and water.

He talks about a rescue dog named Ralph and a ski trip.

He’s normal in the exact way Liz keeps ordering for me.

He laughs easily. He listens. He isn’t trying to shrink me to fit.

“I’m glad you came with me,” he says, folding his big hand around mine.

Second period, the Defenders start threading needles. O’Reilly sends a pass that belongs in a museum, and I almost clap. The shot hits iron. The Garden groans. Nate resets in blue paint. Breathe, seal, wait.

At the next TV timeout, he skates a slow arc, water bottle to mask. He tips it back, throat working, eyes scanning the lower bowl. He doesn’t linger long on anything. But when his gaze skims our row, my spine goes straight, and I absolutely do not blink.

He saw the kiss. He knows it’s me.

Fire climbs my neck. Bennett says something about finance, and I nod on a delay because my brain is busy with a math problem from ten summers ago: how fast can a girl shove a memory back into the box it escaped from?

The period ends. Zambonis take their laps. I check my phone hoping it will steady me. A text from Liz blares: Is he hot?? Did you kiss him?? I type Yes, and then, Kiss-Cam, send help, and she replies with seventeen knife emojis and, Be the main character.

The third period tightens into a grind. Legs are heavy, edges bite deeper.

Nate is flawless until a screen sets up high, a shot threads traffic, and he picks it up a fraction late; the puck slips under his glove, and the red light blooms. The roar hits me.

He holds his spot at the top of the crease for one extra beat, small enough to miss unless you know him.

He pivots and disappears down the tunnel.

“Tough break,” Bennett says, not devastated. “But what a game.”

“It was.” I keep my voice even so I don’t betray the part of me pacing in a room I locked years ago.

Instead of following the herd straight to Eighth, Bennett steers us toward the VIP club behind glass.

Coat check, last drinks, the kind of room where client tickets come with a side of bragging rights.

He orders us waters and a beer, hand warm at the small of my back. The bartender drops in a lemon slice.

I smile when someone offers to take our picture and let him tuck me close for it. The air feels charged, or maybe that’s just adrenaline refusing to quit.

We spill onto Eighth Avenue with the crowd, breath fogging white. Bennett stops under a streetlight, smile warm and sure. “I had a great time,” he says, brushing a knuckle along my jaw. “You’re gorgeous.”

“Thank you for a good night.” I smile. And I mean it. He planned, he showed up, he was kind.

He kisses me again, soft, patient, a promise if I want it. My body waits for a spark that doesn’t catch.

“I want to see you again,” he says, hopeful.

“I’m busy this week,” I say, which is true. “Maybe.”

He grins as if maybe is his favorite word, hails a cab, and rides with me back to the Upper East Side. At my curb, he kisses my cheek and tells me he’ll text.

My apartment is in the Cherokee—a prewar courtyard complex from the 1910s with wrought-iron galleries, exterior staircases, and tall French doors—tucked between York Avenue and the East River, a quiet little secret off the main map.

Tonight, the courtyard is strung with fairy lights, frost dusting the ivy.

Upstairs, our two-bedroom apartment smells of lavender candles.

I toe off my heels, rub the line they carved into my toes, and try not to think about how easy it was to let a stranger hold my hand, and how hard it is to breathe when a very specific man tips his mask my way.

Liz pops out the second my keys click. “Well?”

“He’s great,” I say, hanging my coat. “Kind. Funny. Has a dog named Ralph.”

“Kissable?”

“Yes.” True, and not enough.

She narrows her eyes. “But?”

But my pulse kicked for a goalie who doesn’t belong to me. But ten years of silence weren’t enough to stop the ache. But I want to want the man who wants me back, and my body has terrible aim.

I shrug instead. “I’m out of practice.”

“Practice is fixable,” she says briskly. “Eat. Sleep. Text him tomorrow.”

“Bossy,” I mutter, fighting a smile.

“Effective,” she counters, kissing my temple before disappearing. “You looked happy. It suits you.”

When the apartment goes quiet, I wash Bennett’s cologne from my neck and pull on a sweatshirt. Yorkville hums under the windows. My foam roller waits by the couch, overzealous and torturous.

I sit on the edge of my bed and let the night replay. The kiss. The stillness across the ice. The tiny extra heartbeat Nate spent in the crease after the goal. The rules I wrote for myself and the ones other people handed me.

He’s just a goalie, I tell myself.

The lie tastes bitter.