Chapter 19
Chapter nineteen
Growing my baby the size of a blueberry
Reid
The arena feels colder in Texas, or maybe it’s just me. Dallas Dragons fans know how to show up, and tonight—on their home ice and with the series on the line—they’re baying for blood.
I go about my pregame crease routine, sliding my skate back and forth through the ice. The overhead lights glare off the rink, making it gleam too bright and look too clean. That won’t last long, though, not once we drop the puck.
The first mark I make is just a shallow groove, enough to feel the edge of it when I plant. The lines are faint, almost invisible unless you know what you’re looking for, but I do. It’s my ritual carved into routine, my own little map of certainty.
I move clockwise, left post to right, four notches in total. Same pattern every time and same breath held in the back of my throat until I finish.
When I stretch back upright, my knees creak, and my lungs expand all at once. I know better than to believe in magic, but I believe in muscle memory, in the superstition of routine. In carving grooves to hold myself steady.
And tonight, I need them more than usual. Not just because it’s win or go home, but because everything’s different now.
It’s been two weeks since she stood in front of me, shaking and trying to be brave, and said the words that cracked my fucking world open.
I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.
This is game six on the road. We’ve worked so hard to claw our way into the Western Conference division championship, but Texas is up 3–2, and if we lose tonight, our run at the Cup is over.
I stretch my shoulders back and settle into the net. The crowd is already loud with their cowbells and jeering, and chants I stopped trying to understand three games ago. I block it out. Narrow the world down to the blue paint in front of me, the posts on either side.
My eyes scan the ice. Eli’s jaw is tight at the faceoff circle, and Chase bounces on his skates behind him, tapping his stick twice against the ice like a war drum. Viktor’s already mouthing something in Swedish at the winger opposite him. Probably a curse.
The puck drops, and the first period is fast. Texas presses early, trying to rattle me, but I hold. I track clean, my glove is sharp, and my lateral movement’s as tight as it’s been since I came back.
It’s a good period. It’s a great period. Zeroes on the board, just the way I like it.
But the second is harder. They’re playing dirtier now, just like they always do. Stick taps to my pads, elbows in the slot.
I take a shoulder to the helmet midway through, with a sharp jolt of contact and a dull throb that blooms at the base of my skull. I stumble and snap the rebound into my glove, but the ref doesn’t call the penalty.
And all hell breaks loose.
“You don’t touch my fucking goalie!” Chase roars, gloves already sailing through the air.
He launches toward the winger who hit me with murder in his eyes, and it takes two guys to hold him back. Jake grabs him around the chest, and Viktor cuts him off at the blue line.
“Chase! Not now. Not now,” Jake grits out, arms locked tight.
Logan and Eli are already at the ref, full throttle and eyes blazing.
“You tellin’ me that was nothing? That’s fucking head contact!”
“You wanna try that again? Where’s the call?”
The ref shrugs. Should’ve been a five-minute major. Should’ve been a power play. Instead, they call roughing on Chase and the Dallas winger, and we end up with matching penalties.
The faceoff happens like I didn’t just take a blindside shoulder to the fucking head, and we don’t convert or capitalize. The rage sits low in my chest, thick and useless.
I can’t shout or swing, though. I just stand there in the crease, jaw locked behind my cage, and let it boil.
But I feel it behind me. Around me. In the way Chase paces the bench like a caged animal. In the way Logan slams the boards after his next shift, and how Eli doesn’t even look at me—because his eyes are on the guy who hit me, lining up the retribution.
They saw it, and they won’t forget it, because they always, always have my back.
By the time the buzzer sounds, I’ve stopped twenty-three shots, and it’s still zero-zero.
Third period doesn’t let up. It’s like getting dragged behind a truck through gravel—every clearance a test and a prayer in one. But I fucking hold.
We just can’t find the back of their net. Logan hits the crossbar with six minutes left, and Jake gets hauled down on a breakaway, but there’s no call. I think Chase actually chews through his mouthguard in rage.
And still, I hold.
It’s one of the cleanest games I’ve played since I’ve been back, but it’s one of the hardest, too. And with every glove save, every pad stack, every groan of frustration from the Texas fans, I feel that old flicker of pride burn through my ribs.
When regulation ends, we’re still scoreless. Overtime is always cruel, and this one’s no exception.
I stretch my neck and roll my shoulders. I should be thinking about the crease, about angles and rebounds. But my head flashes back to her sitting warm against me, that soft break in her voice when she told me she wanted to keep the baby.
We’re twelve minutes in when we go down one player—for too many men on the ice, of all the fucking things. A rookie mistake from one of the fourth liners. I don’t even know who it was, but it doesn’t matter right now. We’re on the penalty kill, with two minutes of white-knuckled hell.
I almost get through it. Almost.
It’s a rebound off the end boards, a fast bounce at a weird angle. I adjust and stretch out, but their center is faster. He buries it top shelf, glove side.
And just like that, it’s over.
Doesn’t matter how many saves I made before that, or that I held the crease through three periods and a half. When the goal horn sounds, none of that counts.
The arena erupts around me, fans screaming as the Dragons spill off the bench, mobbing their goalie at the other end.
I stay kneeling with my glove on the ice, breath tight in my chest. This is the kind of loss that hits deep, that lingers. The season ender.
Then I hear it—Logan’s stick against the crossbar. Three quick taps, a sound only meant for me. He does it after every game, no matter whether we win or lose.
I rise, and I’m instantly surrounded.
First come the helmet taps, one by one. The whole team does it, with quiet, heavy hands against the crown of my helmet, the curve of my back. It’s a rhythm of respect and solidarity.
My crew hangs back to be last. Eli, Chase, Logan, Jake, Viktor. It’s tradition. Brotherhood.
Chase tucks his chin in, forehead pressed to mine through the cage. “You were a fucking wall,” he mutters. “This wasn’t on you.”
Viktor’s next, his glove gripping my shoulder. “I will punch the rookie for you, yes?”
I huff a breath that’s almost a laugh, and Eli claps me on the back as if I just pulled off a win.
Because to them, I did. Because that’s what this team does. Even when the scoreboard says we lost, we remind each other that we showed the fuck up. That I held the line.
Jake squeezes the back of my neck as we make our way through the tunnel after handshakes.
Chase knocks his shoulder into mine and tells me he needs to punch something.
Logan mutters that he can finally take Zoe’s name off his waistband, and Eli has to physically hold Chase back as we enter the locker room with exhausted laughter.
No one speaks for a while as helmets and gear clatter to the floor. Tape gets ripped from sticks. Eli swears under his breath, and Viktor just sits in his stall, staring at nothing, his jersey peeled halfway off like he gave up partway through.
I shower and change quickly. Run my hand over each of the initials on my gear, like I always do after a game, and my eyes are drawn to my catcher’s mitt. The initials-free glove that didn’t catch the puck tonight.
The rookies and younger guys take off after Coach Benson’s debrief—likely to find bad beer, worse decisions, and whatever regret comes with being twenty-two and pissed off.
I tug my cap lower as I walk into the hotel bar an hour later with the boys. None of us wanted to go out. We’re older now. Some of us are married, some have kids or long-term partners. I don’t want noise. Just a chair, a cold beer, and enough distance from the crease to let my jaw unclench.
We take a corner booth with soft lighting and low music. Chase orders a round before we even sit.
No one brings up the loss; we don’t have to. It sits between us, heavy but not bitter.
Viktor appears a few minutes later, his usual biker jacket slung over one shoulder. He drops into the seat next to Jake and doesn’t say anything for a beat.
“You lose the kids?” Logan asks, lifting his glass.
“They were too sweaty,” Viktor says simply. “And one of them smelled like Axe body spray.”
Jake snorts into his drink, and Chase grins. “Not like you to not go clubbing with half the team and get mauled by beautiful sorority girls, Karlsson.”
Viktor shrugs. “I have outgrown being mauled. I prefer to have a mutual interest now.”
“Oh yeah?” Eli cocks one eyebrow. “Define mutual.”
“Someone who likes my motorcycle and doesn’t ask how much money I make,” Viktor replies. “And it is a bonus if she doesn’t say the letters L-O-L out loud instead of just laughing.”
Logan chokes on his beer. “Who the hell have you been hanging out with?”
“I am picky now,” Viktor says, ignoring him. “I like smart women… with drive and ambition.”
Chase’s brow lifts. “You mean like… physiotherapists?”
Viktor doesn’t answer, just takes a sip of beer.
Jake grins. “Oh no. It’s still happening, isn’t it?”
“What is?” Eli asks.
Chase leans forward, voice gleeful. “His crush on Heidi, that physio from the Moreno Clinic. You should’ve seen him at the fundraiser. Viktor didn’t take his eyes off her once.”
“I was admiring her posture,” Viktor explains. “And her shoulders… for rehab reasons.”
“Is that why you were admiring her ass, too? For rehab reasons?”