Chapter 34
Goals Against Average
Luke
The room froze. This wasn’t the productive calm of a Tuesday night. It was a void—a hollowed-out space where air and life used to be.
Austen’s side of the room was empty. The desk was cleared—no highlighters, no laptop, no sticky notes color-coded by urgency. At some point, he’d even stripped his bed. There was no evidence that I’d ever had a roommate. I finally got the single I had thought I desperately wanted.
It had been three days. Ninety-six hours of dead air.
I sat on the edge of my bed, staring at the spot where the puck used to sit on his shelf. It was gone.
It was currently weighing down the front pocket of my hoodie. I kept reaching for it, running my thumb over the edge, terrified to let go of the only piece of him I had left.
I’m not your constant anymore.
My phone buzzed on the mattress.
Dad: Gulliver sent the contract revisions. I’m at the hotel. Come by after practice.
I let the screen go dark. Pushing myself off the bed, I stepped over a pile of laundry I hadn’t bothered to sort just sitting in the middle of the floor.
The room smelled wrong. The scent of Austen and his peppermint tea was gone.
Instead, the room smelled like a locker room that had been cleaned out after a loss.
I grabbed my gear bag. Practice in twenty minutes.
I walked out, leaving the door unlocked. I didn’t care who got in. There was nothing left to steal.
Practice was a disaster from the first whistle.
My legs were heavy, like I was skating in mud. My reaction time was off by milliseconds—an eternity in the crease.
Morales came down the wing, winding up for a slap shot. I saw it coming. I knew the angle. But when I tried to drop into the butterfly, my left knee caught an edge. I stumbled. The puck sailed over my shoulder, hitting the water bottle on top of the net with a hollow ping.
“Wake up, Carter!” Ryan yelled from the point. Half-joking, half-serious.
I fished the puck out of the net. “Bad edge,” I muttered.
Next drill: Three-on-two rush.
The freshmen forwards were buzzing. Fast, hungry, and they could smell blood. They knew I was off.
A rookie named Miller carried the puck across the blue line. He telegraphed a pass to the slot. I cheated left, anticipating the one-timer.
Miller didn’t pass. He snapped a wrist shot short-side.
I wasn’t even close. The puck hit the back of the net before I’d fully squared up.
“That’s two!” Coach Harper barked from center ice. “Move your feet, Carter!”
I slammed my stick against the post. The vibration rattled up my arms, a dull ache that settled in my bad shoulder.
Focus.
But I couldn’t focus. All I could see was Austen’s back as he walked out the door. All I could hear was my dad’s voice saying a friend.
Third drill: Screen shots.
Ryan parked himself in front of me, his big frame blocking my view. The defenseman wound up at the point.
I tried to look around Ryan. I tried to find the release point.
Thwack.
The puck hit my chest protector, but I didn’t squeeze it. It dropped to the ice—a juicy rebound sitting right in the paint.
Ryan spun around and tapped it in. Easy.
“Rebound control!” Harper shouted. “Where is your head, Carter?”
My head was in a hotel room with a contract I didn’t want to sign. My head was in an empty dorm room where my life had imploded.
The fourth goal was the worst.
It was a dump-in from center ice. A floater. A nothing shot meant to get the puck deep.
I went out to play it, putting my stick down to stop the rim.
I missed.
The puck hopped over my blade, hit the boards at a weird angle, and ricocheted back toward the empty net.
I scrambled back, diving, desperate.
It crossed the line a split second before my glove covered it.
The rink went silent.
“Carter! Wake up!”
Coach Harper’s voice cracked like a whip.
I was on my knees in the blue paint, staring at the puck inside the net.
“Sorry,” I muttered, fishing it out.
“That’s four,” Harper said, skating over. She stopped at the top of the crease, looming over me. “Four soft goals in twenty minutes. You’re playing like you’ve never seen rubber before.”
“Bad bounce,” I lied.
“Bad head,” she corrected. She leaned down, voice dropping to a low, dangerous register. “I don’t care what happened with the scouts. I don’t care what happened with your boyfriend. You step into this crease, you lock it down. Or you sit.”
Boyfriend. I almost laughed. Of course, she knew.
“I’m here,” I said, gripping my stick until my gloves creaked.
“Physically, maybe. Mentally, you’re in the parking lot.” She pointed to the gate. “Get off the ice.”
The rink went silent. Ryan froze in the faceoff circle. Javier stopped chewing his mouthguard.
“Coach?” I asked, stunned.
“You’re a liability today, Carter. Go shower. Go sleep. Don’t come back until you remember who you are.”
She blew the whistle. “Decker! Net!”
Humiliation burned hot under my mask, paralyzing me for a heartbeat. Then I turned. Skating off, I kept my eyes locked on the ice—ignoring Ryan, ignoring the team.
The gate gave way under a frustrated kick. The tunnel swallowed me whole, the sound of Decker’s pads hitting the ice echoing behind me like an accusation.
I didn’t go to the showers. I didn’t go to the dorm.
My feet carried me straight to Ridgeway Hall.
His schedule was burned into my memory: Tuesday, four p.m., Calculus tutoring.
Leaning against the lockers with my hoodie pulled up, I waited. Seeing him was the only priority. I needed to verify the variable still existed.
At 2:50, the door opened. Students filed out, complaining about proofs.
Austen came out last.
He looked tired. He was wearing his own coat, the collar turned up. He wasn’t carrying his usual coffee. He looked smaller, somehow. Less distinct.
He turned toward the stairs and saw me.
He stopped. His hand tightened on the strap of his bag.
“Austen,” I said. My voice sounded wrecked.
He looked at me—really looked at me—with an expression that wasn’t anger. It was exhaustion.
“You’re supposed to be at practice,” he said.
“Coach kicked me off the ice.”
He didn’t blink. “That’s statistically unlikely.”
“I let in four soft goals. I can’t focus.” I took a step toward him. “Austen, please. The room is… I can’t be in there without you.”
“Then move,” he said flatly. “Oh wait, you’ll be moving soon, so it really doesn’t matter.”
“I’m trying to fix this.”
“There’s nothing to fix, Luke. You made a choice.” He adjusted his bag. “And your choice had consequences for… both of us. Now, if you don’t mind, I have a shift at the tutoring center. Excuse me.”
He walked past me. He didn’t speed up, and he didn’t slow down.
“I haven’t signed it!” I yelled after him.
He paused at the top of the stairs. He didn’t turn around.
“That’s between you and your investors,” he said, before walking down the stairs and out of sight.
I drove to the Marriott on Route 9.
My dad was staying in a suite on the top floor—of course he was. Rick Carter didn’t do standard rooms.
I banged on the door.
He opened it, wearing a hotel robe and holding a tumbler.
“Lucas! Early. Good. Gulliver emailed the conditioning schedule.”
He waved me in. The room smelled of room service steak and scotch.
Papers were spread out on the coffee table—contracts, schedules, flight itineraries to St. Paul.
“Sit down,” Dad said, gesturing to the sofa. “We need to go over the signing bonus structure. I got them to bump the housing stipend.”
I didn’t sit. I stood in the middle of the room, still wearing my practice sweats, my hair still a bird’s nest on top of my head from sweat I hadn’t washed off.
“I’m not going,” I said.
Dad paused, glass halfway to his mouth. He laughed. “Cold feet? That’s normal. Big league jitters.”
“No,” I said. “I mean I’m not going to St. Paul in June. And I’m not signing with Minnesota if you’re the one holding the pen.”
Dad set the glass down. The smile vanished. “Excuse me?”
“You came here,” I said, my voice shaking but getting louder. “You came here and you embarrassed me. You humiliated the person who matters most to me.”
“The roommate?” Dad scoffed. “Luke, grow up. That boy was a distraction. I did you a favor. You need focus. There will be plenty of guys for you mess around with in Minnesota. You need to get your singular focus back.”
“I don’t want to be singular!” I shouted.
The silence rang in the hotel room.
“I don’t want to be you,” I said, quieter now. “I don’t want to sit in a big empty house with a trophy case and no one to talk to. I don’t want to look at my stats and realize they’re the only thing that loves me back.”
Dad’s face turned a mottled red. “Now listen here, you little shit.”
The back of his hand slammed into my face, violent and heavy, snapping my neck back so hard I felt something pop. The room spun. I had to grab the dresser just to stay upright.
“I gave you everything. I built this path for you.”
“You built it for yourself,” I corrected. “You had an injury and it took you out of the game forever. But I’m not your second chance, Dad.”
Walking to the coffee table, I looked at the contract—Minnesota Wild logo at the top, thick paper, life-changing money.
“I’m staying at Northern Ridge,” I said, my voice steady for the first time in my life. “I’m finishing my degree. I’m playing my senior year here. If Minnesota still wants me after that, they can call me. Not you.”
“You’re throwing it away,” Dad hissed, stepping into my space. “You walk out that door, you’re on your own. You are cut off. No stipend. No rent. No support. You’ll starve.”
I looked at him. Really looked at him. I didn’t see a safety net. I saw a cage.
I thought about the empty dorm room. I thought about the beige apartment with the maple tree Austen and I had looked at. I thought about the ledger sheets and the frozen peas and the way the quiet burned inside me when we lay together—not a terrifying silence, but a stabilized one.
“I don’t need your stipend,” I said.
I turned around and walked to the door.
“Luke!” Dad yelled, desperation cracking his voice. “Don’t be an idiot! You’re nothing without this!”
I opened the door; just turned the handle.
“No,” I said, looking back one last time. He looked small standing there, red-faced and shaking, but I didn’t feel the old fear. Just exhaustion. “I’m just done being your investment.”
I stepped out and pulled the door shut. It clicked into place—a soft, final sound.
I didn’t bother with the elevator. I raced down the ten flights of stairs, cutting off my dad’s string of curses behind me. When I hit ground level, I exited a side door, catching my breath in the biting wind.
My truck was parked in the back row. I reached for the door handle, but my hands were shaking so violently the keys slipped through my fingers. They hit a pile of dirty slush and skittered underneath the chassis.
“Come on,” I hissed, dropping to my knees. The freezing wet soaked through my.
I swept my hand blindly through the muck until my fingers brushed cold metal. I snatched the keys up, wiped them on my hoodie, and threw the door open. I fell into the driver’s seat, jamming the key into the ignition before the door was even closed.
The engine roared to life—a rough, familiar rumble that usually calmed me.
Not tonight. I gripped the steering wheel, squeezing until my knuckles turned white, trying to force the tremors to stop.
The adrenaline crash—the physical cost of telling Rick Carter “no” for the first time in twenty-one years.
My chest heaved, lungs burning as if I’d played a triple-overtime period.
I pulled out of the parking lot, tires spinning on a patch of black ice before gripping the pavement.
I didn’t go back to the dorm. The dorm was a dead end.
I drove toward the bridge.
The windshield wipers slapped back and forth, clearing a fresh layer of wet, heavy snow. The heater blasted air that smelled like burned dust, but I couldn’t stop shivering.
What do I say?
I rehearsed the opening line a dozen times as I sped down Route 9.
I’m sorry. No, too small.
I love you. I’d said that in Ridgeway, and he’d walked away. Words weren’t enough. Austen dealt in proofs. He needed evidence.
I didn’t sign it, I whispered to the empty cab. I walked away. I chose my constant.
The wipers slapped back and forth, hypnotic and useless against the wet April snow. The truck fishtailed slightly on a patch of slush, and my heart didn’t even jump.
That was the problem. I was numb. My hands were gripping the wheel so hard my forearms ached, but my brain was somewhere back in that hallway, screaming at my father.
I blew through a red light and heard car horns blaring at me.
Pull over, I told myself. You’re a hazard.
I couldn’t drive like this. My adrenaline was spiking, looking for a physical outlet that wasn’t there. I needed to hit something. I needed to sprint until I tasted copper.
I saw the sign for the access road. There was a running trail that looped under the bridge and followed the creek—a three-mile circuit I used for conditioning in the off-season. I didn’t care if it meant running in six inches of snow, I needed to move.
I wrenched the wheel to the right, tires crunching over the gravel of the maintenance lot. A sign read, No Parking After Dusk. I didn’t care about the parking ban. I killed the engine, the sudden silence ringing in my ears.
Air. I just needed air. The urge to run until my legs gave out and the static in my head cleared was overwhelming.
The door flew open with a shove, dumping me out into the cold. The wind cut through my hoodie, biting and real. Sucking in a sharp, freezing breath, I scanned the darkness for the trailhead.
The path ran parallel to the bridge structure before ducking under it. I glanced up at the steel span above me, just checking the distance, checking the terrain.
I froze.
The bridge should have been empty. No one stood on a wind-blasted overpass in a snowstorm.
But there was a silhouette at the midpoint of the span. A figure in a gray wool coat, standing perfectly still, looking down at the frozen creek like he was calculating the drop.
My breath hitched.
I didn’t run because I needed the exercise. I didn’t run to clear my head.
I ran because I knew that coat.
“Austen!” I screamed, the sound torn away by the wind.
I scrambled up the embankment, boots slipping in the mud, and sprinted toward him.