Chapter 36 Happy
HAPPY
Baby Draper: Good luck. I wish I could be there to watch the last game.
Me: I wish you could be here, too.
Baby Draper: I’ll be watching the live updates.
“Alright, ladies, listen up!”
I snap my head up from my phone as Coach Draper walks into the locker room surrounded by his coaching team, ready to deliver his final pre-game speech for our last regular season game.
We’re playing New Jersey tonight. Our biggest rivals in the league.
And although New Jersey’s season ends tonight, we sure as hell do not want to go into round one of the playoffs on a loss.
Especially not in front of a home crowd to fucking Jersey.
But the problem we always seem to have when we play these guys is it doesn’t matter how good we are; they always manage to ruffle our feathers one way or another. We can’t let that happen. Not tonight.
Hannah flew down to South Carolina today.
I’m bummed she’s not here, but I think she made the right decision going down for her mother’s wedding.
Despite her reluctance, I know she’d regret it if she didn’t go.
But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck not having her here.
But I do have Lucky here. In fact, the gang is all here tonight—Dad, Mom, my stepdad, Lewis, Allie, and Lucky, all sitting up in the family section wearing my jersey.
I’m a little worried how Lucky might handle seeing a live game because at home Allie can at least mute the television so Lucky can focus on something else when it gets to be a little too much.
But here, with the crowd, the noise of each brutal check, the potential for blood.
I made sure Allie packed Lucky’s iPad to distract her if necessary.
I hope like hell she makes it through the game okay.
I fucking love the idea of her being up there.
“Okay. Tonight is our last game of the regular season.” Coach looks around at all of us, nodding as he does.
“It doesn’t matter what the hell happened over the last eighty-two games.
It doesn’t matter how many times we won, how many times we lost, how many minutes we spent in the box—” He looks pointedly at Robbie who is equal first with time spent in the penalty box this season, and everyone laughs.
“Doesn’t matter how many goals we let slip through.
” He looks to Dallas, his gaze sliding over me as he continues, “It doesn’t matter whether we started, or whether we spent more time riding the bench.
What matters is that tomorrow when we wake up, we get straight back to fuckin’ work. ”
The team cheers.
“Many of you have never played in the playoffs, and I can tell you now, it’s not fucking easy. But we’ve earned our place. And now we need to prove that we fucking belong there.”
The roar that echoes through the locker room is deafening, sticks hitting the floor, gloved hands banging against hard metal.
“Now get the fuck up,” Coach Draper yells, clapping his hands together and riling everyone up even more. “Get the fuck out onto the ice and show them exactly why we’re going to the fuckin’ playoffs!”
“Is that Lucky up there with your folks?” Logan asks through a few panting breaths as he comes off the ice for a quick break.
I turn, looking back up to where my girl is sitting perched on her grandfather’s lap, waving her arms at me like she has every time I’ve looked back there. I wave a gloved hand, nodding my chin, and her smile lights up my life. She’s loving this. And that means the goddamn world to me.
Without warning, I feel something smack the back of my helmet, turning to see Coach glowering at me, chomping his gum. “Slater, how about you focus on the goddamn game and quit flirtin’ with the girlies up in the stands!”
Next to me, I can feel Logan’s body shudder with his laughter, but all I can do is throw Coach a salute, nodding. “Sure thing, Coach.”
Seconds later, a commotion erupts on the ice, and everyone on the bench jumps up, watching as every player out there hurtles toward whatever’s happening.
I look up at the Jumbotron to watch the replay, wincing the second I see it on the big screen.
Alex Henry, checked from behind with such force his helmet flies off and his huge body hits the ice at an awkward angle, causing his head to take the brunt of the fall.
It’s an all-out brawl, players shucking their gloves, fists flying, all while the refs try to make space around Alex. And it’s only as people start to see that he’s not moving does the fighting subside as an eerie quiet settles throughout the arena.
I snap my head back, searching the stands and releasing a relieved breath when I see my mom and Allie heading up the stairs, taking Lucky with them. Turning back to the ice, the teams retreat to their benches while medics hurry out to where Alex is still lying there, not moving.
“Fuck,” Logan mutters when a stretcher is brought out, and we all watch on, leaning over the boards and tapping our sticks on the ice as Alex is carried out, the crowd applauding when the seasoned D-man holds his thumb up in the air, letting everyone know that he’s at least conscious.
“Alright, fellas, c’mon!” Coach claps his hands together in an attempt to get our heads back in the game. “We’ve got five minutes left.” He slaps me on my shoulder. “Happy, you’re up.”
It’s never nice stepping in to replace an injured player, especially one who has to be stretchered off the ice and down to the rooms, but I push it to the back of my head as I shove my guard into my mouth. I need to do this for Alex. I can’t let him down.
“Go get ’em, Hap.” Logan smacks my ass as I climb over the boards, the atmosphere through the arena turning electric as I skate onto the ice.
With only four minutes left in the third, we’re up by one, with a power play, but Jersey is clinging on, and the last thing we want is for them to push the game into overtime.
They’re giving it all they’ve got, and they’re being fucking dirty.
They don’t want to see us closing out the regular season on a win.
They don’t care about winning—they’re finishing up second to last in the division—they just want us to lose because hockey players are naturally superstitious creatures at the best of times, and going into the playoffs on a loss is not something any hockey team wants.
I line up for the puck drop and Jensen Landry, Jersey’s cocky ass winger, fresh out of college, shoves into me like an asshole. I ignore him, keeping my focus on the ref’s hand, locked on the puck, and the second it drops, I advance.
Rusty wins the faceoff, chipping the puck to our winger, Josef, but the Jersey D-man intercepts it at the blue line.
He fires it toward the net—a low, sneaky shot straight through the middle—and I crouch down in an attempt to block the shot, the puck rebounding off my shin to the corner where it’s secured by Rusty.
I rush to guard Rusty and the puck, and over the roar of the crowd and the blood hammering loudly in my ears, I hear Dallas bark, “Time! Watch the fucking time!”
Narrowly avoiding a check against the boards, I follow behind Rusty, protecting the play as he rounds the back of the net.
A Jersey forward tears up the ice directly toward Rusty, and he dishes the puck to me.
I skate back around the net, stupidly forcing a pass through the middle which is, again, intercepted.
“Fuck!” I yell to myself, pushing back down the ice.
The power play is over and we’re back to five-on-five, the play brutal enough before they pull their fucking goalie.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” I mutter under my breath as Jersey sends another forward over the boards.
New Jersey regroups and comes charging again. I gap up at the blue line, skating backward, my stick extended as I try to read their play. When the center tries to toe-drag around me, I angle my body and attempt a steal, shocking myself when I manage to poke the puck free, muscling him off it.
I chip the puck up the wall and chase it, sending it down the length of the ice, hoping for the best because YOLO. I watch on as the puck threads between two unsuspecting players, sailing all the way before it nestles into the empty net, causing the lamp to light up.
The arena erupts, and before I can even process what just happened, I’m mobbed by my teammates, tapping my helmet, almost taking me down to the ice. I manage to get a look at the time. Less than eighteen seconds left.
Robbie grabs me, pushing his helmet up against mine and yelling directly into my face, “You just fucking sealed it, Hap!”
Despite winning our final game for the regular season, the mood is low after the news that not only will Alex Henry not make the playoffs, but that his playing career is almost certainly over.
He received a nasty concussion and a fracture to his C4 vertebrae from the impact of his fall.
He’s lucky to be alive. But sadly, his playing days are likely over.
I was invited to post-game press again with Coach Draper, but when the questions were centered more around Alex, something I have no business commenting on, Coach was quick to end the interview early, and I thanked the journalists as we exited the room together.
“You did good in there, son.” Coach slaps me on my back as we walk together down the hallways. “Kept it professional, guided the questioning, didn’t let them corner you. Well done.”
“Thanks, Coach.” I tuck my hands in the corner of my shorts, and we continue in relative silence along the corridor.
But then, just as we turn the corner and begin heading toward the locker room, I spot my family up ahead talking with Fran, Millie, and Emily, along with some of the other players’ friends and family.
“Hey, Coach?”
Coach Draper glances up from where he’s looking at something on his phone. “What is it, Slater?”
“You know how you said I needed to stop flirting with the girls up in the stands?” I bite back a smile.
Coach deadpans.
“Wanna meet the girl I was flirting with?”
His brows knit together, but before he can say anything, I continue straight ahead, catching Lucky’s eyes.
Her face lights up with a smile, and she pushes past my dad and runs toward me, her blonde curls bouncing with every step, the bedazzled number nineteen jersey she wears glittering beneath the fluorescent lights.
From my periphery, I see Coach pause mid-step, clearly confused.
“Daddy!” Lucky cries, crashing into me, her little arms wrapping around my waist and holding me so tight.
I crouch down and pick her up, squeezing her right back. “Hey, Lucky girl.”
“I missed you!” she exclaims.
“I missed you too, baby,” I whisper, my gaze flitting to Coach Draper to see the look on his face the definition of befuddled.
Lucky pulls back, smiling widely at me. “Good goal, Daddy!”
“Aw, thanks, Luck.”
Clearing my throat, I turn to Coach, swallowing my nerves as best as I can. “Coach, this is Lucky, my… daughter.”
Coach Draper’s mouth hangs open as he looks from me to Lucky and back again. And in time playing for him, I have never once seen this man speechless. It’s almost creepy.
I look at Lucky with a smile. “Lucky, this is Daddy’s coach. Coach Draper.”
“Hi, Coach.”
At the mention of his name spoken in such a sweet voice, Coach suddenly comes to, snapping back to reality, a confused smile tugging at his lips as he clears his throat.
“Well, hello there, L-Lucky…?” He glances questioningly at me, like he’s not sure he said her name right. I nod, and he reaches his big hand out.
Lucky shakes his hand. “You’re Hannah’s daddy,” she says, startling not only Coach but me too because… holy shit… I am officially a fucking idiot.
“I sure am,” Coach says with another confused smile. “You know my Hannah?”
I swear, it’s as if time stands still, everything around me fading to black, my heart beating so loud it’s almost deafening.
And as I watch Lucky nod, her curls swirling around her head with the movement, all I can do is stand here, stunned as she says with such pure innocence, “Hannah’s my daddy’s girlfriend. ”
Fuck. Me.