27. Rhett
RHETT
I had to bow my head when Bry came into the locker room just to plant a big one on Coach.
I was jealous, I admitted it. Never out loud, but definitely to myself.
I had to stay away from Victoria all fucking day, despite the fact that she was in her office right down the hallway since nine that morning.
I smelled her every time she walked by. I watched the way her hips sashayed while Jett and I drilled the team, keeping our bodies warm and lean while we pieced together everything Caldwell Arena needed for the game.
Jett was back and forth from the bar, helping Bry figure out where all of the food kiosks would go.
Langley and Moose helped her set up the kiosks and prepare the fountain drinks for the packed-out stadium.
Because tickets had already sold out earlier in the week.
Coach clapped his hands and gained the team’s attention. “All right, weirdos! Listen up!”
We all chuckled at the new term of endearment Coach used with us all week. It was good finally seeing him make this place home. Because all season, it almost felt like he was on the run from us. Like we were just a stepping stone to get back to his old life.
This week was the first week that none of us on the team felt that way.
Coach cleared his throat, eyeing all of us down.
“This game is important. Not just for us, but for this crowd. Now, I’ve been doing some digging into this team’s past, and the last championship we brought home was seventeen damn years ago.
And yet, Las Vegas has stuck by this team.
Funded and supported this team. Shown up to games they knew we’d never win.
It’s about damn time we repaid them for their efforts. ”
Usually that was when we’d start cheering, but there was something in Coach’s eyes that told all of us to shut up.
“This is still a wild card game,” he said, his voice growing serious.
“Even though the only loss we had this year is a forfeit we didn’t start, this is still a game where the winner takes all.
Anything can happen. It’s a complete reset of statistics.
All chances are on the table. All options are viable.
Everything they can pull, they will, which means we have to be willing to bring the goddamn heat. ”
“Yes, sir!” the locker room barked in unison.
His voice rose with us. “So, what do we do?”
I thrust my stick into the air. “See a puck, sink a puck!”
Jett stood to his feet and clapped his hands. “See a puck! Sink a puck! See a puck! Sink a puck!”
I stood, chanting with him. “See a puck! Sink a puck! See a puck! Sink a puck!”
And soon, Coach clapped to the rhythm of our chanting as the entire team stood to their feet, thrusting their sticks into the air and yelling at the top of their lungs.
“See a puck! Sink a puck! See a puck! Sink a puck! See a puck! Sink a puck! See a puck! Sink a puck! See a puck! Sink a puck! See a puck! Sink a puck!”
The phrase grew faster and faster until we beat on the metal doors of the lockers with a fervor I’d never heard in us before.
In the three years I’d been on this team, in the two years since I’d been their captain, I’d never heard us so ready.
I’d never heard us so pumped. I’d never heard us so confident.
Coach bellowed over our heads. “Now, let’s get out there and show them what we can do when our city stays loyal to us!”
We made our way out to the rink in a single file line, geared up and ready to go.
I barely remembered the New York Bulldogs being introduced.
I mean, I registered the heat of the fire.
I registered the firing of the confetti guns.
My eyes swept over the teenage boys on the ice, shooting t-shirt cannons into the packed-out crowd.
Then the announcer turned to us.
“Hah, hah, HAAAH!” Jett exclaimed as he clapped his gloved hand against my back. “Let’s fucking go, guys! Let’s fucking goooooo!”
The entrance for our team moved in a blur.
I focused when my name was called, skating out onto the ice and making my backwards journey around the rink just to wave at everyone.
People who came to rally around the Bulldogs booed and put their thumbs down into the air.
Our people cheered over them, whipping t-shirts around in the air with their faces painted and our signed jerseys on their backs.
I swear to hell on high, it felt like a fucking professional game.
No wonder Coach missed this shit.
Then, as the team gathered on the bench on our side of the ice, I sheered off a small layer of it as I came to a stop in front of all them.
“All right!” I exclaimed, getting over the announcer over the loudspeaker. “This is it! This is our moment! So we leave it all out on the ice. Good. Bad. Anger. Happiness. Frustration. Elation. Whatever it is you’re feeling?! You leave it the fuck out there and you don’t look back!”
The team slammed their sticks into the floor as the pregame stuff rolled around.
Everything moved in still-life images as I scanned the VIP booths searching for that face.
That figure. Those downturned lips and that furrowed brow she always got whenever she concentrated.
And when I spotted Victoria in her booth, standing there, peering down at us with her arms crossed over her chest?
Everything focused back in, moving in slow motion as I skated into position.
The roar of the crowd faded away. I crouched down, my stick only inches away from my rival.
Jett stood off to my side, already talking about someone’s fucking mom as I stood there, staring into the dark, black eyes of my opponent.
These men were much spindlier than the Detroit Pirates.
More like Jett, built for speed and stealth, not strength.
I’d have to find a way to make up for it.
The official held the puck up in the air. I watched in slow motion as the man’s fingers retracted, the rubber puck dropping to the ice. I watched as it tumbled through the air. I watched as it smacked against the ice.
Then I heard Jett’s voice rise above the cacophony.
“You gonna be like tampons, baby!” he exclaimed. “Only good for one fucking period, hah, HAAAH!”
And the second I saw the man’s eyes in front of me flicker toward him, I took my chance.
I scooped the puck up against my stick and pushed my blades off to the left, shooting me behind Jett as quickly as possible. The crowd went wild, chanting my nickname from the stands.
STONE! STONE! STONE! STONE!
Which only made the pass between his legs even better when the opposing team thought the crowd was chanting because I had the puck.
The only thing I focused on was the puck. Coach barked out orders. He yanked men off the ice and shoved others from the bench onto it. He switched his plays as quickly as he switched his players, no doubt trying to throw the other team off.
Jett worked his distractive magic.
“Hey, hey, heeeey!” he exclaimed when their goalie pulled off his helmet to throw it at my best friend. “Look who’s got a late curfew tonight, boys?! Does your mother know you’re out that late!”
“I just have a fucking babyface, you asshole!” the goalie piped up.
Jett just threw his head back with laughter, however, before he sniped that puck right between the fucker’s legs, setting off the goal alarm. And even though it wasn’t an actual goal, seeing as we reset the play, it didn’t stop Jett from making a comment.
“Good thing that didn’t count, then! You sure you’re a righty?! Because you don’t skate like one! Maybe you should ask your mom if you’re not sure! She around?! I could ask her for you over dinner!”
“You stupid motherfuck—”
Their goalie took off after Jett, and within seconds, Moose was across the ice. He slammed into their goalie, pushing him away before skating around the rink and back toward his goal. The official blew his whistle twice, indicating that the first period was over.
I barely registered Coach barking at us for keeping our heads in the game.
The second period saw more goals than our entire season, combined. Every time we sank a puck, they came up and tied the game. One to zero. Then, one to one. Two to one, then two to two. On and on it crept until the second period ended with the score being fucking four to four.
They gave us a fucking run for our money, that much was for certain.
Coach didn’t stop switching out players.
He didn’t give the Bulldog coach a chance to analyze what our team was capable of.
The only two players who stayed out on the ice the entire time, outside of Moose, were me and Jett.
We danced around one another like we were born on the ice.
A brick house and a string bean with eyes, dancing around on sharpened blades.
The crowd went wild. Every shot Moose blocked, women in the crowd shrieked for him.
Every word that came from Jett’s mouth made the men hoot with laughter and cheer him on.
Until the game clock counted down the final seconds.
“Twenty! Nineteen! Eighteen! Seventeen!”
The crowd chanted the last seconds, and I knew we had to make a move.
If we didn’t want this game going into overtime, we had to take control and show these fuckers who owned this ice.
No one came into our city and kicked our asses.
We’d shown that much all season. Forfeited game be damned, we didn’t let them get the best of us there, either.
We made sure they fucking walked out with their tails between their legs, and with the media in their faces as well.
Courtesy of me and Jett, who just so happened to ‘leak’ to the media after that game exactly what exit the Detroit Pirates were going to use.
“Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven!”
I intercepted a pass the other team took with the puck. The crowd went wild as Coach barked orders none of us heard since the crowd was roaring like a deafening storm. I skated down the rink, knowing damn good and well that there were at least three Bulldogs coming after me.
I heard Jett chirping, but none of them were deterred.
“Six! Five! Four!”
We had to do something. We had to pull out a move. Otherwise, we’d go into overtime, and according to the studying Jett and I had done in our spare time, overtime was where the Bulldogs excelled.
They wanted the overtime.
We had to make sure not to give it to them.
“Three! Two!”
Jett zipped in front of me and I gave it my best shot. I tucked the puck in between his legs, then darted off quickly to the left, acting like I still had the puck. Two of the men behind me followed, but one of them eyed Jett down as he took aim at their goal from at least twenty feet away.
And that man sprinted right toward my best friend.
“Oh, no you fucking don’t,” I glowered.
The slap of the puck was met with the blaring of the game clock, signaling the end of the third period.
The puck sank into the goal, triggering the red alarm that sent the crowd roaring and soaring to their feet.
That man didn’t stop, though. His eyes were trained on Jett, despite the end of the game, and I wasn’t about to let that happen.
“Jett! Look out!” I barked.
I pushed off the ice harder than I’d pushed off anything in three years.
Time did the thing it sometimes did on the ice when a hit was coming.
Stretched out. Compressed. The crowd went away.
The buzzer went away. I could see every individual fiber of the Bulldog’s jersey getting closer.
I could see Jett in my peripheral, oblivious, still grinning at the puck he’d just put in the goal.
I knew exactly what was about to happen to me.
I had a half-second of time inside that stretched-out second, and I spent it on her.
Victoria up in the VIP box with her arms crossed.
Victoria’s hand under mine in the car. Victoria asleep against my chest at the estate.
Victoria standing in the shower under the hot water and crying without apologizing for it.
Three years of every version of her, played back so fast they almost overlapped, and underneath all of it the one steady thought I’d been carrying around since I was old enough to know my mother wasn’t coming back.
Don’t leave the people who choose you. Whatever the cost. Don’t be the one who walks out.
I skated in front of him just in time to take the fucking blow.
An intentional blow. One that felt more personal than anything else.
One second, I was glaring at the tree on skates sprinting straight for my best friend.
And in the next second, I flipped head over heels.
In the fucking air. With my goddamn skates on.
At some point in time, my helmet got tossed off my head like a rock leaving a sling before my neck crunched against the ice.
And the last thing I thought before everything went dark was that I hoped she could see me from the box. That I hoped she knew exactly who I’d been thinking about.
That I hoped, if this was it, she’d know I’d chosen her in the last second I’d had to choose anything.