Chapter Thirty #2
The dressing room remained quiet after the win.
Nobody spoke about the sweep.
Nobody used the word Final.
“We haven’t done anything yet,” Viktor told reporters.
Matvei agreed.
Tessa asked whether surviving the opening period demonstrated something about the team’s growth.
“It shows we were bad early,” Matvei said.
Several reporters laughed.
Tessa did not.
She waited.
Matvei continued.
“Before, maybe game ends there. Now we stay.”
Her expression changed slightly.
The answer would become part of the story.
After the scrum, their eyes met across the room.
Tessa looked exhausted again.
Matvei wanted the series over.
Not only because the Final waited beyond it.
He wanted a night with her that did not begin after two in the morning or end before sunrise.
He wanted her at his kitchen island with papers spread around the laptop while he complained that she worked too long. He wanted to hear her defend another ridiculous movie. He wanted to wake with her hand against his chest and no arena scheduled within six hours.
The wanting made him impatient.
Impatience could not enter the crease.
One more game.
Ottawa played Game 4 as though the series had become personal survival.
The officials called two penalties in the opening five minutes. Neither involved the puck.
McCrae fought Ottawa’s largest defenseman after a scrum near the benches. Both men received additional misconducts. McDonough argued the decision until Viktor pulled him back from the boards.
Ottawa scored first.
Halifax tied it.
Ottawa scored again.
Joona tied it before the second intermission.
The third period produced no goals, though both teams generated chances that required saves neither goaltender should have needed to make.
Matvei stopped a breakaway with seven minutes remaining.
Ottawa’s goaltender caught Viktor’s shot near the post with less than three.
Overtime arrived for the third time in four games.
The series could not look less like a sweep.
Matvei reminded himself of that during the intermission.
Three wins meant nothing inside the next period. A sweep did not exist until the fourth game ended. Ottawa needed one goal to extend the series. Halifax needed one to end it.
The overtime lasted fourteen minutes.
Ottawa controlled the first half.
Matvei stopped five shots and watched another strike the crossbar. Halifax blocked three more. Every whistle gave players a few seconds to bend at the waist and recover enough breath to continue.
Viktor took a faceoff in Halifax’s zone.
He won it.
The puck moved behind the net, then toward the wall. Carver chipped it through traffic. Joona reached it near center ice.
Ottawa’s defense backed toward its own zone.
Joona entered on the left side with Viktor following through the middle.
Matvei watched from the opposite crease.
Joona delayed.
Viktor drove toward the net.
The pass moved behind him toward a defenseman entering late.
The shot came low through traffic.
Ottawa’s goaltender made the save.
The rebound moved into the crease.
Carver reached it first.
He pushed the puck beneath the pad.
The red light appeared.
For one second, the arena produced no sound at all.
Then Halifax’s bench emptied.
Matvei skated toward the celebration while gloves and sticks covered the ice.
The Convoy had swept Ottawa.
Four games. Three overtimes. Four one-goal decisions.
The clean series result contained none of the chaos required to reach it.
Matvei reached the pile and wrapped one arm around Carver’s shoulders. Joona screamed somewhere beside him. Viktor arrived late and struck Carver’s helmet repeatedly with one glove.
The Eastern Conference Trophy waited somewhere beyond the dressing room.
The Stanley Cup Final waited beyond that.
Matvei looked toward the visiting section high above the ice, where Halifax fans remained standing.
Four wins remained.
For the first time, the number felt dangerous to think.
The celebration stayed controlled.
Players wore conference championship shirts and hats. They posed for the required photographs around the trophy but followed tradition and did not touch it.
Joona moved close enough that Viktor pulled him backward by the collar.
“Do not even breathe on it,” Viktor said.
“I know.”
“You do not know anything.”
Matvei stood on the edge of the group and looked toward the trophy.
He had imagined it during childhood in Russia, though not this one specifically. The Stanley Cup appeared in broadcasts, photographs and stories. Conference trophies existed only as obstacles near it.
Now one stood several feet away.
A league official presented it to Viktor.
The captain accepted the congratulations and kept both hands at his sides.
Photographers shouted for the team to move closer.
Matvei joined the line.
Camera flashes filled the space.
He thought about his mother watching at home. His sister probably beside her, both awake despite the time difference. He thought of the father who would call once the Final began and speak as though he had contributed to the path there.
Then he thought about Tessa.
Nobody there knew she had slept in his bed. Nobody knew about the restaurant, the long drink or the green notebook.
Nobody knew that when Matvei imagined reaching the Cup Final, the person he wanted afterward was already in the room.
The thought felt too large to remain unnamed.
He turned toward the cameras again.
The team left the trophy untouched.
The Western Conference final went seven games.
That gave Halifax four full days before the Stanley Cup Final began.
McDonough gave the players the first day off.
The announcement produced the largest cheer inside the dressing room since the overtime goal.
Matvei completed treatment before leaving the arena. The hip felt almost normal. Not perfect, as he had told Tessa weeks earlier, but no player reached June without something requiring ice, stretching or careful movement in the morning.
He drove home alone.
The house appeared different after weeks of hotels and arenas.
Too quiet.
He left his bag near the entrance and walked into the kitchen. Mail had accumulated again. The refrigerator held almost nothing fresh. Tessa’s preferred tea remained in the drawer, untouched since the last time she visited.
Matvei sent one message.
Matvei: Come.
Her response arrived six minutes later.
Tessa: Hello to you too.
Matvei: Hello. Come.
Tessa: I have to finish a series notebook.
Matvei frowned at the phone.
Matvei: How long?
Tessa: Two hours.
He knew what that meant.
Matvei: Three.
Tessa: Probably.
Matvei: I wait.
The house remained quiet through all three.
Matvei ordered food because the refrigerator could not support dinner. He showered, completed his exercises and attempted to read. The same page remained open for twenty minutes.
He turned on television.
Every channel showed the overtime goal, the sweep or analysis of the possible Final opponents, Seattle and Edmonton.
Matvei turned it off.
Tessa arrived shortly after nine.
He opened the door before she knocked.
She looked as tired as she had in Ottawa, but softer without the credential. Her hair fell loose around her shoulders. She wore jeans, a t-shirt and her laptop bag on her shoulder.
Matvei took it.
Tessa stepped inside.
For a moment, they only looked at each other.
No cameras. No teammates. No series beginning the following night.
Matvei reached for her.
Tessa came against him immediately.
The first kiss carried weeks of delay. Her hands moved into his hair while his arms closed around her waist. Matvei pulled her closer until no space remained between them.
Tessa made a quiet sound against his mouth.
He had missed that. Missed all of it.
Not only her body. The weight of her hands, the way she rose slightly onto her toes and the small breath she took when his mouth moved toward her jaw.
Matvei kissed her there.
Then along her neck.
Tessa held him more tightly.
“I missed you,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
She drew back enough to look at him.
“Still not a complete response.”
“I missed you.”
Her expression softened.
Matvei touched her cheek.
The words inside him pressed forward.
He had not planned to say them near the front door. He had not planned them at all. Matvei had assumed a moment that important should arrive through preparation, perhaps during another private dinner or after finding language more elegant than the language he possessed.
Instead, Tessa stood inside his house with exhaustion beneath her eyes, ink still faintly visible along one finger and the entire Stanley Cup Final waiting beyond the week.
The truth did not need elegance.
“I love you,” he said.
Tessa became completely still.
Matvei’s heart struck harder against his chest than it had during overtime.
Her eyes searched his face.
He did not look away.
“I love you,” he repeated.
The second time felt less frightening.
More final.
Tessa’s mouth opened, but no answer came immediately.
Fear entered before he could stop it.
Perhaps the timing was wrong. Perhaps she understood the words as a demand for something the relationship could not yet give. Perhaps he had taken the private life they built and made it heavier before the most important games of his career.
Then Tessa touched his face with both hands.
“I love you too.”
Matvei closed his eyes.
The relief moved through him with enough force that his forehead lowered toward hers.
Tessa gave a shaky laugh.
“I’ve been trying not to say that for months.”
His eyes opened.
“Why?”
“Because everything is already complicated.”
“Love does not make less?”
“No.”
“More?”
“Probably.”
Matvei considered that.
“Fine.”
Tessa laughed again.
“That is your response?”
“Yes.”
“You tell me you love me, I tell you it creates another complication and you say fine.”
“I still love.”
The laughter disappeared.
Her eyes filled enough that Matvei felt immediate concern.
“Why cry?”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“A little.”
“Bad?”
“No.”
Tessa kissed him before he could ask again.
This time, the kiss did not feel delayed.
It felt chosen.