CHAPTER 33
Becker
WALKING INTO THE dining hall with Kane feels like entering a gladiatorial arena, except instead of lions, I'm facing two dozens hockey players with too much time on their hands and a collective IQ that drops by half when gossip's involved.
The second we step through the door—side by side, subtlety be damned—every single conversation dies mid-sentence.
Twenty something pairs of eyes lock onto us with the intensity of snipers acquiring targets.
"Oh, fuck me," I mutter under my breath.
Kane's hand brushes mine. "Pretty sure that's what got us into this situation."
I bark out a laugh that echoes way too loud in the sudden silence, and that's when all hell breaks loose.
"Finally!" Wall bellows from across the room, arms thrown up like he just won a game.
Groover slams his palm on the table. "Knew it! Called it!"
"You did not call shit," Ace argues.
"They're giving me whiplash," Petrov announces, rubbing his temples. "Up, down, together, apart. Is like soap opera but with more violence."
I'm about to defend our honor when I notice something that makes my eye twitch.
Money.
Money is changing hands.
Again.
A twenty slides from Coby to Snooze. Ace grudgingly hands Groover what looks like a fifty. Even Coach Martin—Et tu, Brute?—is pulling out his wallet, passing bills to Washington with the expression of a man who's deeply disappointed in his own judgment.
"How many bets do you guys have on us?" I ask, my voice climbing an octave into territory that could shatter glass.
Petrov doesn't even look up from counting his winnings. "All of them."
"ALL OF THEM?" I repeat. "What does that even mean?"
Wall specifies, "When you'd get back together, how long you'd stay broken up, who'd apologize first—"
"Whether you'd have angry makeup sex," Ace adds.
Kane makes a choking sound beside me.
"—what Kane's dad would do," Wall continues the list like he's reading off a grocery receipt.
"If Becker would cry," Cap chimes in.
"I did not cry," I snap.
"You were one sad country song away from it," Groover says, which—rude, but fair.
I throw my hands up. "You people have a gambling problem! This is an intervention-level situation. There are hotlines for this!"
"For the record," Wall announces, standing up like he's about to give a TED talk, "I'm taking full credit for this reunion. My strategic roommate reassignments—"
"You kicked me out," I remind him.
"Exactly." Wall looks deeply satisfied with himself. "You're welcome."
I'm about to tell Wall exactly where he can shove his credit when I catch Kane's eye. He gives me this tiny nod—the kind that says go ahead.
Right. Okay. We're doing this.
I step onto the nearest chair, which happens to be the one Petrov just vacated. It wobbles under my weight, but I'm committed now.
"Listen up, y'all," I shout, and the room goes quiet again. "We need your help."
There's a beat of silence.
Someone calls out, "With what?"
A grin tugs at my lips. “Creating chaos.”
And suddenly, I’m a conductor and the entire dining hall is my orchestra and everyone calls out in perfect unison, “I’m in!”
***
I'M ABOUT TO throw up. Or pass out. Or possibly both, which would be embarrassing as hell considering I'm about to skate in front of what our analytics are predicting will be 800,000 live viewers.
Eight. Hundred. Thousand.
I’m more nerve-wracked than that time I accidentally set off the fire alarm at 3 AM and the entire building evacuated to watch me explain to the fire department that no, there wasn't a fire, just a regrettable Tinder date I needed to evacuate via alternative methods.
This is different. This isn't just me being an idiot on the internet for entertainment purposes. This is—
"You're doing that thing again," Groover says, skating past me during warm-ups.
"What thing?" I ask, even though I know exactly what thing.
"That thing where you look like you're about to shit yourself." He circles back. "You good?"
"Peachy," I lie.
Groover studies me for another second, then shrugs. "If you say so. Try not to fall on your face when the cameras are rolling."
"No promises," I mutter as he skates off.
The rink is chaos incarnate—the good kind, the kind that happens before big games when everyone's energy is crackling like live wires.
Except this isn’t a big game. This is a scrimmage. Lat one of the camp.
Equipment scattered across benches, players stretching, taping sticks, chirping each other with the easy rhythm of guys who've spent way too much time living in each other's pockets.
Mateo's up in the broadcast booth—well, "booth" is generous.
It's more like a folding table with our streaming setup, but he's treating it like he's directing an Oscar-winning film.
He's wearing Groover's jersey, backward, and I can see him fiddling with camera angles while talking into his headset.
Coach Martin's up there with him, already mic'd up for commentary. I can hear snippets of their sound check drifting across the ice.
"—test, test, can you hear me?" Coach's voice booms through the speakers.
"Too loud, Coach," Mateo says, adjusting something. "We're going for 'professional sports commentary,' not 'angry dad at a Little League game.'"
"I'll show you angry dad—"
"And we're live in ten!" Mateo announces.
My stomach does another Olympic-worthy flip.
Kane skates up beside me, silent. I can feel the tension radiating off him in waves. His jaw's tight, and he's gripping his stick so hard it might break.
"You're going to snap that in half," I point out.
He loosens his grip fractionally. "I'm fine."
"Liar."
His mouth twitches. "Takes one to know one."
Fair point.
Wall glides past, tapping his goalie stick against the ice. "You two planning to stand there making eyes at each other all day, or are we actually playing hockey?"
"Fuck off, Wall," I reply automatically.
"Love you too."
Petrov's attempting to get the team hyped, shouting something in Russian that I'm pretty sure translates to either "Let's do this," or "I need vodka.
" Ace is stretching in a way that looks physically impossible, and Groover's doing his pre-game ritual of tapping every single post three times because he's secretly more superstitious than a Victorian ghost hunter.
The viewer count on the stream is climbing. Two hundred thousand. Three hundred. Four.
Fuck.
"Alright, listen up!" Coach's voice cuts through the noise, and everyone turns toward the booth. "We're doing player intros. Pre-season presentation. I call your name, you skate past the camera, wave, smile, try not to look like serial killers. Becker."
"Why do I always catch strays?" I yell back.
The intros start. One by one, guys skate past the camera Mateo's operating, most of them hamming it up.
Petrov does some weird flex that makes the chat explode with emojis.
Wall waves with all the enthusiasm of someone at a funeral.
Groover blows a kiss directly at the camera—at Mateo, obviously—and nearly wipes out doing it.
When it's my turn, I manage a cocky grin and a two-finger salute that I hope reads as "confident" and not "about to vomit from nerves."
Kane goes next, and of course he looks perfectly composed, giving a small nod to the camera like he's accepting an award. No one watching would guess that in about twenty minutes, he's about to blow shit up on live television.
No pressure or anything.
The teams are dividing up—I'm on the same side as Kane, which was strategic.
I need to be on the ice with him when this goes down.
"Five minutes!" Mateo calls out.
My heart's trying to escape through my throat. I skate over to the bench, grab my water bottle, and take a long drink that does absolutely nothing to calm my nerves.
Kane appears beside me, and for a moment, we're just standing there, two guys in full gear, surrounded by organized chaos, about to do something either incredibly brave or monumentally stupid.
"Becker," he says quietly, and there's something in his voice that makes my chest tight.
"Yeah?"
He doesn't look at me, just stares out at the ice. "Thank you. For this. For everything."
I want to say something meaningful, something that captures how fucking proud I am of him right now. But my throat's too tight, and anyway, we're surrounded by twenty nosy teammates who would never let me live it down.
So instead, I bump my shoulder against his. "That's what boyfriends are for, right? Helping you commit media suicide on the internet."
He huffs a laugh. "When you put it that way—"
"One minute!" Mateo shouts.
The teams line up. Coach and Mateo start their commentary intro, their voices streaming to hundreds of thousands of people.
"Welcome, everyone, to the final scrimmage of the Wolves' training camp," Coach announces in his best professional voice. "I'm Coach Martin, and with me is—"
"Mateo Rossi, anthropology student, Groover's boyfriend, and your guide to understanding hockey players in their natural habitat," Mateo finishes cheerfully.
"Did you just introduce yourself as my boyfriend before mentioning anything hockey-related?" Groover yells from the ice.
"You are hockey related, babe!"
I glimpse the live chat on one of the monitors near the bench, comments flying past faster than I can read them.
Kane's beside me in the lineup, and I can feel him vibrating with energy that he's trying desperately to hide.
His tells are subtle: the way he's adjusting his gloves for the third time, the slight tension in his shoulders.
The fact that he's been staring at the same spot on the ice for the past thirty seconds.
I lean in slightly, keeping my voice low enough that only he can hear. "Are you sure?"
He looks at me, and there's something fierce in his eyes.
He nods once, sharp and certain.
The referee skates to center ice, whistle poised.
This is it. No turning back.
The whistle pierces the air, sharp and final.