Chapter 12 Away Game #2
Seattle came out hard, hungry, their crowd behind them like a living thing. Their defense was collapsing on our shooters, clogging the neutral zone, making us work for every goddamn inch of ice.
I took a hit along the boards that rattled my teeth—their D-man, number 44, a big bastard who played mean. He caught me with my head down, and the impact sent me into the glass hard enough that I saw stars for a second. The crowd loved it, roaring like they'd just won the Cup.
Get the fuck up.
I pushed off the boards and chased the play, my shoulder throbbing but my head clear. Clearer than it had been in weeks, actually.
Midway through the second, we caught a break.
Benny stripped the puck at their blue line with a smart poke check. He dished it to me in the high slot, and suddenly I had space. Their goalie was cheating left, overcommitted, and I had the angle.
I didn't think. Just fired.
The shot was clean—low blocker side, right where I wanted it—and it beat him clean. The red light flashed. The sound that came out of our bench was pure chaos.
Two to zero.
I raised my stick as the guys swarmed me, gloves pounding my helmet, voices shouting over each other. Finn nearly took me down with his enthusiasm, yelling something incoherent. Rook grabbed my jersey and yanked me close, eyes fierce. “That's it. That's the fucking shot.”
I grinned, breathless, and skated back toward the bench. My eyes went to Coach automatically—couldn't help it, didn't even try to stop it—and he was watching me.
He gave me a single nod.
Good.
Seattle didn't roll over.
They came back with a goal early in the third—a garbage goal off a scramble in front of the net where three guys crashed Elias and the puck somehow squeezed through. Two to one Their crowd exploded, suddenly believing again, and the noise was deafening.
Coach called a timeout.
We huddled around the bench, breathing hard, and he kept it simple. No panic, no speeches. Just adjustments. “They're pinching their D. That means we have numbers on the rush. Hartley, Rook, Cho—you're first line over the boards. Play fast. Play smart. Don't give them momentum.”
I nodded, sucked down water, and went back out.
Seattle threw everything at us. They pulled bodies forward, crashed the net, took chances that would've been reckless in the first period but made sense when you were desperate.
Volkov was a fucking beast on defense, shutting down their top line with hits that echoed through the arena. Mace blocked a shot with his shin that had to hurt like hell, but he didn't even flinch. Elias was standing on his head, making saves that had no business happening.
With three minutes left, Seattle pulled their goalie.
Six attackers. Extra chaos. The ice felt smaller, more dangerous. Every pass had to be perfect. Every decision had to be instant.
I was on the ice for the final two minutes, my legs screaming, my lungs burning. The puck was a live grenade, bouncing around our zone, and we couldn't clear it. Seattle kept it in, kept the pressure on, and I could feel the game tipping.
Then Rook did what Rook did.
Their shooter wound up for a one-timer from the point and Rook threw himself in front of it. The puck hit him square in the chest, and he went down hard, but the puck deflected wide.
I grabbed it off the boards and chipped it out of the zone, finally, finally giving us a breath.
Rook got up slow, wincing, and skated back to the bench. The crowd was screaming. The clock was ticking down. Forty seconds left.
Seattle came again. Of course they did. They had nothing to lose.
But we held.
Volkov cleared the puck with ten seconds left, icing it, and that was it. The final ten seconds ticked off with the puck in their end, and when the buzzer sounded, the relief was palpable.
We'd won.
Barely. Messily. But we'd won.
I bent over at the blue line, hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath. My whole body was shaking—adrenaline, exhaustion, the comedown from almost losing my shit in the first period and then somehow holding it together.
Elias was getting mobbed at his crease, rightfully so—he'd stolen that game. Rook was leaning against the boards, catching his breath, probably nursing a bruise the size of a dinner plate on his chest. Finn was yelling something at the Seattle bench, because of course he was.
When I straightened up and skated toward the bench, my eyes found Coach first.
He was standing behind the bench, arms crossed, watching the team celebrate.
His expression was calm, controlled, the same look he always had after games—like he was already analyzing what went wrong and what needed fixing.
But when our eyes met, something shifted in his face.
Just for a second. Just long enough for me to see the relief there, the pride, the same thing I was feeling.
I looked away before anyone else could notice.
But I hated that it was becoming a pattern. Hated that the first person I wanted to see after a win—after almost falling apart—was him.
The hotel was a fucking zoo.
We rolled in around midnight, and the lobby was chaos.
Guys were loud, wired from the win, talking shit and shoving each other like we were still in high school.
Finn was trying to convince Mace to go find food.
Tate was already Facetiming someone, probably a sponsorship rep or a model or whoever the fuck Tate talked to.
Rook was doing his captain thing, making sure everyone had their key cards and knew the curfew.
I hung back near the entrance, waiting for my room assignment, trying to look like I wasn't scanning the crowd for Coach.
I found him near the front desk, and he looked pissed.
The desk clerk looked terrified. “I'm so sorry, sir. We have a convention that overbooked, and we're doing everything we can, but—”
“How many rooms short are we?” Coach's voice was dangerously calm.
“Three, sir. We've called other hotels in the area, but everything is booked because of the convention and—”
“So what's the solution?”
“We're going to have to double up some of your staff and players. We have roll-away beds we can bring up, and—”
Oh fuck.
Rook appeared at Coach's elbow, captain mode fully engaged. “Alright, who's doubling up?”
The clerk checked her computer screen. “We have rooms for the bulk of your team, but we're short on singles. We'll need three pairs.”
“Fine.” Rook was already mentally sorting through the roster. “Callahan and Mercer can room together. Volkov and—”
“And Coach Sutherland with someone named Jace Hartley,” the clerk interrupted, reading off her screen. “Those are the assignments we have available based on room size and—”
“Wait, what?”
Every head in the vicinity turned toward me.
Rook's eyebrows went up. “Problem, Hartley?”
Yes. Massive fucking problem.
“No.” I forced my face into something resembling neutral. “No problem.”
Finn leaned in with a shit-eating grin. “Oh man, Hart's rooming with Coach? This is gonna be amazing.”
“Shut the fuck up, Callahan.”
“I'm just saying, you better be on your best behavior. No leaving wet towels on the floor, no—”
“I will end you.”
He was still laughing as I grabbed my key card from the clerk—room 412, one key for me, one for Coach—and headed toward the elevators before anyone else could comment.
This was fine. This was totally fine. We were adults. Professionals. We'd shared a locker room, shared ice time, shared the same air for months now. This was just logistics. Just a hotel fuckup that meant nothing.
Except it meant everything, and we both knew it.
The elevator ride up was mercifully empty, giving me sixty seconds to spiral in peace.
By the time I reached the fourth floor, I'd convinced myself this was survivable.
We'd probably both just pass out from exhaustion.
He'd take the bed, I'd take the roll-away, we'd sleep, wake up, and pretend it never happened.
Simple.
I unlocked the door and stepped inside.
The room was standard hotel mediocre. One queen bed. A desk. A chair. A bathroom. A window overlooking the parking lot. And notably, horrifyingly, no fucking roll-away bed yet.
Just one bed.
“Fucking hell,” I muttered, dropping my bag on the floor.
I pulled out my phone to text the front desk about the roll-away situation when I heard footsteps in the hallway. Heavy. Steady. Unmistakable.
The door opened, and Coach walked in.
He stopped just inside the doorway, took one look at the single bed, and I watched something flicker across his face. Not panic. Coach didn't panic.
“They said they'd bring a roll-away,” he said, his voice carefully neutral.
“Yeah. Great.” I shoved my hands in my pockets because I didn't know what else to do with them. “I can take it when it gets here.”
“We'll figure it out.”
He moved further into the room, setting his bag down near the desk, and the space suddenly felt about ten times smaller. I could smell his deodorant, something clean and understated.
I needed to get out of this room.
“I'm gonna grab ice,” I said abruptly, grabbing the plastic bucket off the desk.
“Hartley—”
I was already out the door.
I stood in front of the ice machine at the end of the hallway longer than any reasonable person would need to fill a bucket.
The machine hummed and clunked, spitting out ice cubes one at a time, and I focused on that sound instead of the fact that I was about to spend the night six feet away from the man I'd watched come less than a week ago.
Get it together. You've handled worse than this.
Except I hadn't. I really, really hadn't.
I'd handled playoff pressure and hostile crowds and my own spiraling panic, but I had no fucking idea how to handle this. How to be in a room with him and act normal. How to sleep knowing he was right there. How to pretend I didn't want to close the distance between us and—
“Fuck,” I muttered, slamming the ice bucket down harder than necessary.
When I got back to the room, Coach was on his phone, pacing near the window. He glanced up when I walked in, and I saw the tension in his shoulders, the tightness around his eyes.
“Roll-away's not coming until morning,” he said flatly. “They're short on staff and equipment.”
Of course it wasn't.
“So...” I set the ice bucket down on the desk. “What's the plan?”
He exhaled slowly, rubbing a hand over his face. “One of us takes the bed. One takes the floor.”
“I'll take the floor.”
“No.”
“Coach—”
“You played thirty minutes tonight. You need actual rest.” His voice had that edge to it, the one that said the discussion was over. “I'll take the floor.”
“That's bullshit. You're—” I stopped myself before I said anything else. “You need rest too.”
“Hartley.” He turned to face me fully, and the look he gave me was so tired, so fucking done, that I almost backed down. Almost. “I'm not arguing about this. Take the bed.”
We stared at each other for a long moment, neither of us willing to give ground.
“Fine,” I said finally, because I was too tired to fight about something this stupid. “But I'm giving you the extra pillow and blanket.”
“Deal.”
He moved toward the bathroom with his toiletry bag, and I exhaled slowly once the door clicked shut.
The sound of running water came through the door.
I tried not to think about him on the other side, tried not to imagine what he looked like right now—shirt off, splashing water on his face, the same routine I'd watched him go through in the locker room a hundred times but never this close, never this intimate.
I sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled out my phone, scrolling through nothing, just needing something to do with my hands.
When he came out, his hair was damp, and he'd changed into a t-shirt and sweats. The t-shirt was old, worn soft, and it clung to his shoulders in a way that made my mouth go dry.
Stop. Fucking stop.
“Bathroom's yours,” he said, already moving toward the desk to pull out the extra blanket from the closet.
I grabbed my stuff and disappeared into the bathroom before I could do something stupid like stare at him.
The shower was scalding, and I stood under it longer than necessary, trying to wash off the game, the adrenaline, the want that wouldn't quit. By the time I got out, my skin was pink and my head was clearer.
Or at least, that's what I told myself.
I pulled on boxer briefs and a t-shirt, brushed my teeth, and stared at my reflection in the mirror.
You can do this. One night. You've survived worse.
When I came out, Coach had made a nest on the floor between the bed and the window using the extra blanket and pillow. He was already lying down, one arm behind his head, staring at the ceiling.
I turned off the main light, leaving just the lamp on the nightstand, and climbed into bed.
The mattress was decent. The sheets were clean. Everything about this should have been fine.
Except I could hear him breathing.
I stared at the ceiling and tried to will myself to sleep.
“Hartley.”
His voice cut through the darkness, low and rough.
“Yeah?”
A pause. Long enough that I thought maybe he'd changed his mind about whatever he was going to say.
“You played well tonight.”
“Thanks, Coach.”
Another pause.
“Get some sleep.”
I wanted to laugh. Wanted to tell him that sleep was the last thing that was going to happen tonight.
Instead, I said, “You too.”
I was so fucked.