32. Cole #2
I’m laughing, and my eyes burn hard enough that I know I’m crying too.
I don’t give a damn who sees it. Sixteen thousand people are on their feet. The team is crushing in around Gio. The horn is still ringing in my ears, and somewhere in the press box, third row, left side, Maya is watching.
The team peels off and lines up for the final ninety-seven seconds. Michigan pulls their goalie. Six attackers press into our zone. We survive blocked shots, cleared pucks, and one last save from Declan’s knees that is pure instinct and no technique. The final horn sounds. 4–3. Briarcliff.
The handshake line comes next. Helmets off, gloves off, the ritual of hockey that I love more than almost anything. Two teams that just tried to destroy each other file past and shake hands because that is what hockey makes you do after the horn. Michigan’s captain grips my hand hard.
“Hell of a game,” he says.
I nod. It was.
Then the celebration hits again. The team swarms center ice.
Sticks and gloves scatter. Declan gets dragged out of his crease by four teammates, his mask pushed back, his face split into the widest grin I have ever seen on him.
Adrian picks up Gio, literally lifting the smaller man off the ice and hauling him against his chest like a trophy.
Gio spreads his arms and tips his head back.
Gio breaks away from the group and skates toward the tunnel opening.
Zoe is there, pressed near the glass in the front row, Clara and Talia beside her.
Gio reaches the boards, pulls his helmet off, and kisses her over the low gap near the tunnel, full and in front of the press cameras, the broadcast team, anyone watching.
Her hands clamp on his face. His mouth stays on hers.
I’m already skating toward the boards. Toward the rinkside press opening. Toward the place I know Maya will come down to after the horn.
She is there.
Standing at the glass. Arms crossed. Mouth fighting a war with a smile.
I stop in front of her, take my helmet off, and press my hand flat against the plexiglass.
She presses hers to the other side.
Palm to palm with an inch of glass between us.
A broadcast camera swings past the rinkside lane, but I don’t move my hand.
Dante skates up behind me. His hand lands on my shoulder, solid and warm through the gear.
He looks up at Maya through the glass. She looks down at both of us, and her face shifts.
The composure loosens. The smile wins. She looks at us like we are hers, two men standing on Frozen Four ice with our helmets off and our faces wrecked and our hands reaching for her.
She mouths something. I read her lips.
Come home.
The locker room is bedlam.
Music. Shouting. Towels whipping through the air.
Someone opens the doors for family and inner circle, and the room swells.
Declan stands on a bench in his pads with no shirt, conducting some kind of organized chant.
Gio sits in his stall with his head in his hands, grinning so hard his face might split, while Zoe takes photos on her phone.
Adrian has his arm around Clara. Genny hugs anyone who holds still long enough.
Addison stands at the edge of it, watching. His eyes are bright. His mouth is set. One breath at a time, his jaw loosens. The lines around his eyes deepen. Genny’s gaze catches him across the room, holds for a beat, then moves on. She goes back to hugging Talia.
A moment later, Talia appears beside her father.
She hands him a water bottle. He takes it and looks at his daughter.
She looks back. No words. Talia puts her arm through his.
He pulls her close for one second. Two. Then he lets go, and she disappears back into the chaos while Addison straightens his shoulders and goes to shake hands with the athletic director.
I shower and dress on autopilot. My body knows what to do while the horn keeps ringing in my ears and sixteen thousand people still vibrate through my bones.
Dante finds me in the hallway outside the locker room. He is in a suit. It is the one concession to his upbringing that I do not tease him about because the suits fit him like they were made for his body and they probably were. His hair is damp from the shower. The tie hangs loose at his throat.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey.”
We stand in the hallway while the arena empties around us, ushers and cleaning crews moving through rows that were shaking twenty minutes ago. The corridor is concrete and fluorescent and smells like Zamboni exhaust.
“Hell of a pass to Gio,” Dante says.
“Hell of a goal.”
“He found the soft ice.”
“You told him where to look.”
The corridor goes quiet around us. The championship game is Saturday. Two days. That is Saturday’s problem. Right now, Dante is close enough that our shoulders almost touch, and the win is still sitting in my chest.
“I love you,” Dante says.
He says it without checking the hallway first.
“I love you too,” I say. “Now let’s go find our girl.”
Maya is waiting in the concourse, leaning against a pillar near the exit with her coat on, her bag over her shoulder, and her press credential still around her neck.
She is talking to another reporter, probably comparing notes about Michigan’s power play that she will fold into whatever piece she files tomorrow.
Mid-sentence, she sees us. Her eyes track sideways and find us crossing the concourse. She finishes what she’s saying, nods once, closes the conversation cleanly, then turns.
“Congratulations,” she says, dry as hell. The smile is already pulling at her mouth. “That was moderately entertaining.”
“Moderately,” Dante repeats.
“The Gio goal was acceptable.”
“Acceptable,” I say. “He put it top corner in a Frozen Four semifinal. Acceptable.”
“Fine.”
Her smile wins. Full.
It hits me harder than the horn did. My chest goes tight before she even touches me.
“It was incredible. He was incredible. You were both incredible. I screamed so loud the woman next to me spilled her beer.”
“That’s the best review we’ve ever gotten,” I say.
She takes one step forward, then another.
Across the concourse of TD Garden, with the arena emptying and the cleaning crews working and the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, she closes the distance between us.
She steps between us and puts one hand on my chest, one hand on Dante’s. Her palms flatten over our heartbeats.
“Take me home,” she says. “Both of you.”