Chapter 16 - Landon #2
I slammed my stick once against the boards and pushed off for the next shift. That was when I saw Nicole again. She was on her feet, clapping and shouting as if she was singlehandedly trying to keep the energy up. James stayed seated, arms crossed, expression carved from stone.
Something feral curled low in my gut.
“What a dick,” I muttered, and skated past.
Next shift, I stole the puck clean in the neutral zone and turned on the jets. Not selfish like my old style of play, but calculated. I drove wide and forced their defenseman to commit, then threaded a pass through his legs to Grayson cutting middle.
He faked the shot, pulled their goalie out of position, and slid it across to Mason.
Goal.
3–2.
The arena shook again, with our fans so loud I stopped hearing it. All I had in my head was my own heartbeat as it drummed to the rhythm of my skates.
“Holy shit,” Mason laughed as we lined up again. “Did you see that?”
“Looks like you’re almost good enough for the first team, Calder.” I jabbed him in the ribs right as the whistle blew, then shot off for the next play.
Utah pushed hard after that. Heavy forechecks, and bodies flying. Hunter stood on his head for a solid five minutes.
Then we got a break.
I blocked a shot with my shin, felt the sting all the way up my leg, but the puck squirted loose.
Grayson scooped it and yelled, “Go!”
So I went.
Breakaway.
The crowd rose as one, but it was only one set of eyes I felt burning into me from the stands. One pair of hands clasped together, and one mouth rambling a prayer nobody else would hear in the chaos.
I could’ve taken the shot. It was clean and easy. Old habits screamed at me to shoot.
But that was what they all thought I’d do. So instead, I waited until the last possible second and dropped it back between my legs to Grayson, who’d kept pace the entire length of the ice.
He roofed it.
4–2.
I didn’t even celebrate. Just skated straight to the bench, heart hammering.
Coach grabbed my helmet with both hands. “That’s it. That’s what I’m talking about, my boy!”
That was almost better than the assist and Grayson’s goal combined. His boy.
My high didn’t last too long, because Utah scored late in the second. A weird bounce off the end boards that looked like black magic.
4–3.
The crowd groaned loudly, booing their winger until he turned around and flipped them off. Everything tightened again.
During the intermission, Grayson sat beside me, elbows on knees.
“He’d be losing his mind right now,” he said, voice rough.
I swallowed a gulp of water. “I know.”
“He’d also tell us not to turtle.”
“He’d say worse than that,” I replied with a breathless laugh.
Third period we were back at it and ready for war. Not that it mattered much. Utah tied it five minutes in. A deflection off a skate that we all felt in our bones.
4–4.
The crowd went quiet in that collective inhale before panic. Something had to shift, and fast.
I pushed off the bench hard.
“Next shift,” I said to Grayson. “We end this once and for all.”
We didn’t score right away, but we tilted the ice. Shot after shot. Relentless pressure. It was do or die, quite literally. If we lost this game, we could kiss the playoffs goodbye.
Then Utah took a penalty. Hooking, right in front of the ref.
Power play.
On the ice, Grayson tapped his stick. “Same look?”
I nodded.
We set up. I carried high, sold the shot, and drew the defender. Slid it down low. Grayson jammed it to Mason, who kicked it back to me.
Everyone jumped to their feet screaming like crazy. I didn’t shoot.
Instead, I executed a backdoor shot to Grayson at the last second.
Goal.
5–4.
My name started up in a chant before the puck even hit the net.
“LAN-DON. LAN-DON.”
I looked up.
Nicole was screaming it, hands cupped around her mouth. James stood beside her so he didn’t look out of place, but he wasn’t saying a damn thing. I saluted her from the ice, and laughed my ass off when she lifted that giant foam finger to the side of her head in reply.
The final minutes crawled.
Utah pulled their goalie. Six attackers swarmed.
We blocked shots and cleared pucks as the seconds burned down. With ten left on the clock, Mason iced it.
Horn. Game. Ours.
The bench exploded. Helmets and sticks were tossed into the air as the guys crashed into an ecstatic pile-up.
Wild card entry was officially within reach, and tonight we’d celebrate as though we’d won the cup itself.
I got back to my apartment a few hours later, still buzzing, sweat barely dried on my skin.
Somewhere between the taste of beer in my throat and the echo of the crowd lodged behind my ribs, I was vaguely aware of how huge tonight was.
For the team, but mostly for my game. My gear bag thumped against my leg as I took the stairs two at a time, keys already in my hand.
I slowed when I reached my door, glancing to the one on the right. Nicole’s.
It was closed, quiet. Obviously, because it was late. She was already asleep. If not here, then at her boyfriend’s place. The thought tensed in my gut, and I pushed it out of my head as quickly as it had shoved in.
This was exhaustion, plain and simple. The dregs of adrenaline and too much beer in that cramped locker room. That was why I just stood here, staring at Nicole’s door as though it would burst open if I looked long and hard enough.
I shifted my weight and slotted my key. The hallway hummed faintly with pipes and distant TV noise, but no sound came from her place. Which meant she wasn’t there. She and James probably went for drinks after the game, a late dinner maybe. Doing normal stuff that normal people did.
I turned back to my own door, took a step, then stopped.
“Fuck it.”
With two determined strides, I was in front of Nicole’s front door, keys forgotten. I knocked before I could talk myself out of it.
The sound echoed louder than I’d meant it to, but it was too late now. I dropped my hand and waited, suddenly hyperaware of everything. The way my heart raced too fast, the dampness of my palms, the walls around me closing in…
What if they’d come back here instead of his place? What if James opened it?
I needed a cover for why I was beating down his girlfriend’s door at this insane hour. My brain lurched into slow, fumbling action and I knew I was doomed. Nothing I said would sound like anything but a—
“Landon?” The door had opened, and Nicole stood blinking at me through sleepy eyes. Barefoot and framed by the warm yellow light of her living room.
Her hair was piled on top of her head in a messy knot that looked like it had given up halfway through existing.
She wore a faded, oversized t-shirt that hung off one shoulder, soft and thin and very clearly not paired with anything else.
Her legs went on forever, bare and relaxed, toes curling slightly against the floor.
My mouth had gone dry. Which didn’t really matter since a total number of zero coherent thoughts occurred to me.
I just stood there, gym bag hanging off my shoulder, staring like I’d been dropped into a different life without warning.
She tilted her head, stifling a yawn. “Is everything okay?”
The question seemed to snap something back into place, and I cleared my throat. Once didn’t do it, so I tried again.
“Yeah,” I said, shoving my hands into the pockets of my training sweats. “Yeah. Sorry. I just—”
I hadn’t planned this part. Hadn’t thought about what I’d say.
Or do. I became acutely aware of the fact that I was still in my game clothes under my jacket.
That I probably smelled like sweat and beer and stale hockey socks.
And that she was standing here warm and relaxed and close enough that I could see the faint crease at the corner of her mouth as the ghost of a smile threatened.
“You’re staring.”
I dragged my gaze back to her eyes. “Sorry.”
“Two apologies in as many minutes,” she said, arms folded. “Either you’re dying, or you’re about to tell me it’s my days that are numbered.”
I huffed a quiet laugh, then sobered through nothing but my will to do it. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I just wanted to tell you something.”
Her expression shifted, attention sharpening. “Okay.”
“I got a text from my contact after the game.” I managed to hide my relief when this little tidbit popped into the front of my mind. “The one I asked to help with your holy grail…”
“And?” She was at full attention within a blink, eyes wide open.
I hesitated for half a beat, then said, “He confirmed it tonight.”
Her breath caught, just slightly.
“He tracked the helmet to Little Rock, Arkansas.”