41. Niall
CHAPTER 41
NIALL
The roar of the crowd filled the arena, vibrating through my chest as I skated into position. The scoreboard was blank, the clock set, the ice beneath my skates freshly cut and gleaming under the lights. Michigan versus Arizona. The thirteenth game in a brutal rivalry, dead even at six wins apiece. We needed this one.
I rolled my shoulders, gripping my stick as I took my place at center ice. Across from me, Arizona’s center—big, strong, and grinning like he already owned the night—smirked.
“You ready for another loss, Caldwell?”
I ignored him, rolling my neck, forcing my shoulders to stay loose. Trash talk was part of the game, but my head wasn’t there. I was still searching the stands.
Eli said he’d be here. I knew he wouldn’t bail, not without a reason.
A weight I didn’t realize I was still carrying settled in my chest. This morning, I’d looked Chase in the eye and told him what I hadn’t even let myself say out loud before then—Eli was mine. My boyfriend. And I’d meant it. No hesitation. No fear. And when Eli had turned to me, breathless and sure, telling me I was his too, it had felt like something inside me finally clicked into place.
So why did my chest still feel tight?
I exhaled sharply, pushing the doubt away. This wasn’t like before. It wasn’t like when I was eighteen, when I expected my parents to be in the stands and didn’t know they’d never make it. Eli wouldn’t let me down. He wouldn’t just disappear.
The ref skated in, puck in hand. I snapped my focus back, lowering into position, my stick blade hovering just above the ice. The puck dangled in his grip, seconds from dropping.
A breath. A beat. Then?—
The puck hit the ice. I lunged forward, trying to tie up my opponent’s stick, but I was a fraction too late. Arizona’s center swept it back cleanly to his defenseman.
“Fuck,” I growled, pushing off hard.
Arizona surged into our zone, their forward ripping a shot at Logan. He kicked it away with his blocker, sending the rebound into the corner.
“Go! Go! Go!” Coach AJ’s voice cut through the noise.
Micah stepped up, drilling an Arizona winger into the boards. The impact rattled through the glass, jarring the puck loose. Nico was there in a flash, scooping it up and wheeling behind the net before launching a clean pass up to Hunter.
We charged into Arizona’s zone, my body moving on instinct, but my mind was still half-stuck in the stands.
Where the hell was Eli?
The play raged on, but my head wasn’t fully in it. My shift was shaky. I fumbled a pass, took a hit I should’ve avoided. I skated back to the bench, cursing under my breath.
“Caldwell!” Coach AJ barked. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.
It took until my third shift to see him. Finally.
Sitting between Gigi and Asher in the front row. I didn’t know how I’d missed them before—no one could miss Gigi’s outfit. A bright Michigan U hoodie and glittering blue-and-gold face paint. Asher, arms crossed, looked more invested than I expected. And there was Eli. Watching me.
A breath I hadn’t realized I was holding finally released. I met his gaze, and even from here, I could see the reassurance in his eyes.
I nodded once. He nodded back.
Then I went to work.
I took my next faceoff in the offensive zone and won it clean, snapping the puck to Roman. We stormed into the zone, our passes crisp, our bodies colliding with Arizona’s defense. I fed Nico a pass, and he fired a wrister on net, but their goalie snatched it with a last-second glove save, deflecting it just wide.
We kept pressing. The game turned brutal. Hits came harder. Fights broke out. Micah got into it with one of their forwards, fists flying, sending both to the box. Hunter, our enforcer, leveled a guy along the boards so hard the glass rattled.
Halfway through the second, Nico took a nasty hit against the boards and limped to the bench, cursing in Spanish. Rookie Coach crouched beside him, checking his knee. “You good?”
“Yeah,” Nico gritted out. “Just give me a shift.”
“You’re getting checked out first.” Aaron shot him a look before waving the trainer over.
We played on, pushing through exhaustion, through pain. It all came down to the final minutes in the third. A 2-2 tie, the crowd electric. And then— the moment.
Hunter chipped the puck deep. I chased it down, battling past Arizona’s defense. My stick hooked around the puck, dragging it in tight. A snap of my wrists, a flick of the blade?—
I slapped the shot low, slipping it five-hole before he could close his pads.
Goal.
The arena exploded. The crowd roared, shaking the whole damn place. The noise was deafening, but it wasn’t the reason I was still standing there, frozen for a moment after scoring the winning goal.
The win wasa victory on paper—7 wins to Arizona’s 6, yeah, but it… it wasn’t about the score anymore. It was about Eli.
My teammates swarmed me, shouting, shoving, and celebrating, but it was just a blur in the background. All I heard was the pounding of my heart, thudding in my chest like it was trying to break free.
I looked up.
Eli.
He was on his feet, fists in the air, cheering louder than anyone in the damn arena. His face was flushed with excitement, eyes bright, and he wore that stupidly adorable grin that did things to my insides.
Something snapped.
I didn’t think. I didn’t hesitate. I couldn’t.
Helmet off. Stick abandoned. I vaulted the boards before security could react and shoved past stunned onlookers. The noise around me was deafening, but I didn’t hear any of it.
Eli’s cheering faded, his grin slipped as his eyes locked onto mine. Confusion flickered across his face. His mouth moved—maybe my name—but I didn’t slow down.
And then I was there.
I grabbed him, fisting my hands in his jacket— my jacket, the one he never gave back—and crashed my mouth against his. I felt his surprise at first, but then he kissed me back, hard, almost like he’d been waiting for me to do this for years.
The kiss wasn’t tentative. It wasn’t careful. It was everything . Desperate. Raw. A declaration.
I couldn’t even hear the crowd anymore. It was just us. Him and me. I poured everything into the kiss. All the things I’d never said. All the things I’d been too afraid to show.
God, I never thought I’d be there. Not after everything that’d happened. I never got close to anyone, convinced that if I let myself care, it’d hurt too much if they left on their own or were stolen from me. It’s hard to live on the edge of your seat, waiting for the other shoe to drop.Having had to face life alone, with no one left, keeping people at arm’s length was all I knew how to do.
But then Eli came into my life, and I couldn’t shut him out. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop the pull he had on me. The way he made me feel alive again, the way he wasn’t afraid to be himself—bi, open, honest. He was everything I wasn’t.
I didn’t have a label for what I was. Maybe I didn’t need one. What I did know—what I felt down to the bone—was that I wanted him. The way he touched me, the way he looked at me like he saw through all my defenses and still wanted me. Turned me inside out.
But more than anything, I wanted to love Eli the way he deserved to be loved—fully, openly, with everything I had. No rules, no second-guessing, no trying to make what we had fit into a box.
Just us .
When we finally broke apart, we were both breathing hard, foreheads pressed together. His lips were red, kiss-swollen, and he stared at me like he was trying to figure out what had just happened.
“You look good in my jacket,” I murmured, my voice rough, my thumb brushing the soft fabric.
Eli laughed, that goddamn sunshiny smile lighting up his face, and it made my heart skip a beat. “Yeah? I’ve been meaning to give it back to you.” His fingers trailed along my jaw, the playful glint in his eyes never leaving. “But I kind of like using it as an excuse to stay close to you. You planning to steal it back?”
“No.” My voice dropped lower, steady and sure. “I’m planning to keep you.”
His breath caught.
I drew in a shaky breath, my heart thudded like it knew the weight of what I was about to say.
“I love you.”
Oh God. I finally let the words out. The ones I didn’t think I’d ever be brave enough to say.
Eli’s eyes shone, and his lips parted. He leaned in, pressing another kiss to my lips, softer this time, lingering.
“I love you too, Captain.”
And just like that, everything I’d been so damn afraid of didn’t seem so scary anymore. That was the moment when I let go of the past. When I stopped being afraid to love.
And no matter what happened from there on out, Eli was there. And I wasn’t letting him go.