Chapter 31
Mason
Thirty-two seconds left on the clock.
My lungs burned, sweat stinging my eyes beneath my helmet as I crouched in the slot. One-goal lead. Just hold the line. The crowd roared, a wall of sound pressing in, but I shut it out and locked onto what mattered: the ice, the puck, and the opposing players swarming our zone.
Everything else dropped away. The arena. The noise. The ache in my legs. Everything except the job at hand. Kill the clock. Win this game.
In a desperate push to tie the game, Boston pulled their goalie. Six-on-five.
I dug an edge into the ice and settled lower, coiling tight. Our forwards cleared it from the zone, but their defensemen corralled it at center ice, resetting for another attack.
“Get set!” King shouted from my left as he slid into position.
Their captain ran the point, his head up, scanning. I read his shoulders, his hands, the way his weight sat on his inside edge. He wanted a seam. He wanted one hesitation, one stick out of place. These plays were designed to create chaos, force a breakdown in coverage.
Not happening. Not with me on the ice.
“Watch the point!” Hunter called from behind me, his voice cutting through the noise.
Boston’s point man settled the puck at the blue line, faked left, then snapped it to his partner. My body answered first, weight shifting, stick angling, hips turning just enough to choke off the middle and force him outside.
Twenty-one seconds.
The puck snapped around the perimeter, a blur of black on white, quick enough to tighten the space in our defensive zone. They weren’t trying to score yet. They were trying to make someone blink. I kept my stick active and stayed between their forwards and our net, patient.
The puck went to their right winger. I shifted into his lane, forcing him wide, and took away the short pass.
He didn’t panic.
He pivoted and threaded a bullet through a seam I hadn’t seen.
Fuck.
Their center took it on his tape and spun toward the crease.
Time compressed. He wasn’t looking to shoot.
His eyes flicked left, the tell so small most people would miss it.
I lunged to take the lane, but the puck was already gone, sliding past my reach to their sniper set up near the side of the net.
Hunter exploded across his crease, pads flashing as Boston’s sniper loaded up for the one-timer.
The shot rocketed toward the net.
Hunter dove, his body stretching, leg pad extended to the limit.
The puck struck Hunter’s pad with a dull thud. Not a clean save. It rebounded, spiraling through the air like trouble. I tracked its arc, knowing where it was going before it landed.
Right onto the trailing forward’s stick.
Open net with Hunter sprawled out of position.
My entire world narrowed to that one player.
The forward’s eyes widened at the gift he’d been handed. I was already moving, calculations firing fast and cold. Distance. Angle. Timing. I’d never get my stick on it.
There was only one option.
I launched across the ice, technique gone, pure instinct left. He pulled his stick back, eyes locked on daylight. I stretched every muscle, throwing my body between his stick and its target.
Time dragged as his blade met the puck and sent it firing straight at me.
Impact.
The puck slammed into my ribs like a sledgehammer. Air ripped out of me, replaced by a white-hot spike that lit my side on fire. The puck skidded to the corner, harmless, where King got to it and rifled it down the length of the ice.
I forced myself upright. Every breath was a fight with my own rib cage. Seconds bled down as Boston scrambled to reset, legs churning, frantic now. My vision tightened until it was puck and threat and nothing else.
Nine seconds.
Their defenseman collected it and surged up ice like he could outrun the clock.
Seven seconds.
I held my ground in the neutral zone and angled him wide, giving him nothing clean.
Five seconds.
He floated a last-ditch pass toward the middle that Sawyer swatted out of the air.
Three seconds.
The puck skittered toward the boards.
Two seconds.
I pinned their forward to the glass, shoulder into his chest, keeping him off the loose puck.
One second.
The buzzer wailed, slicing through everything.
Victory.
My teammates converged on me in a blur of turquoise jerseys and exhilarated shouts. King reached me first, slamming into me hard enough to make my ribs scream.
“What a block!” he shouted, pounding my back.
The rest of the team piled on, a tangle of sticks, gloves, and sweaty bodies. Hunter skated across the ice to join us, his mask pushed up to reveal his grin.
“Callahan, you crazy bastard!” He shoved me playfully. “You saved my ass out there.”
“Just doing my job,” I managed, though each word sent a fresh spike of pain through my side. Bruised ribs at minimum, maybe worse, but I’d deal with it later.
The arena shook with noise. As the initial crush of celebration eased, I scanned the stands, eyes going straight to the section where Lila had been sitting with Gideon. I wanted to see her face. Her reaction.
But the seats were empty.
For a second, I didn’t believe it. I checked again. Same row. Same gap between the couple in neon and the college kids with painted faces. Lila’s seat, and Gideon’s beside it, sat conspicuously vacant.
Unease slid under my ribs, sharper than the bruise under my pads. Where the hell had they gone? The game had barely ended. Had they left early to beat traffic? That didn’t sound like Gideon, who lived for the drama of a close finish. Not unless something was wrong.
“Hellooo,” Sawyer said, waving his glove in front of my face. “You joining us for the victory lap or what?”
I snapped my attention back to my teammates, forcing a grin. “Yeah. Right behind you.”
We circled the ice, soaking in the roar of the home crowd, but my eyes kept pulling back to that blank stretch of seats. She’d left. Before the buzzer. Gone before the one moment I wanted her to see. The gritty work that won games. The work I’d made a career out of.
I’d built my career on being the guy who did the unglamorous work, the defensive specialist who prevented goals instead of scoring them. I’d never needed anyone in the stands. Yet here I was, scanning the stands one last time as we headed to the bench, hoping I’d somehow missed her.
I’d barely made it off the ice when Riley Compton from WMPN caught me at the tunnel, microphone in hand, her cameraman right on her heels. The last time she’d cornered me, she’d tried to ambush me about the leaked photos of my bedroom decor, so I was on guard.
“Mason Callahan, what a finish!” Her voice carried the practiced enthusiasm of a seasoned reporter. “That shot block saved the game. Take me through it. What was going through your mind in those final seconds?”
My ribs throbbed with every breath, but I kept my face neutral. “Hunter made a great initial save, but the rebound bounced right to their guy. I saw he had an open net, and there wasn’t time to get my stick on it, so…”
I shrugged. In my world, eating a puck at ninety miles an hour counted as routine.
“Pure instinct,” I finished.
Riley leaned in slightly, her green eyes sharp. “You joined the Fusion less than two months ago after the trade from Toronto. How does it feel to be making game-saving plays for your new team already?”
“It feels good to contribute,” I said, rolling my shoulder to ease the stiffness. “It’s what they brought me here to do. The guys have been great about making me feel like part of the team from day one.”
The answers came out clean and practiced. My eyes stayed on Riley, but my brain kept replaying the moment I’d looked up into the stands and found Lila gone.
Riley smiled. “Well, the fans certainly appreciate that game-saving block. Thanks for your time, Mason. Congratulations on the win.”
The cameraman lowered his equipment, the light clicking off. Riley lingered after the camera stopped rolling.
“You okay, Callahan? How are the ribs feeling? That looked like it caught you pretty solidly.”
“They’ve felt better,” I admitted, the throbbing in my side making itself known. “Nothing serious.”
“Go get some ice on them.” She stepped back, professional boundaries back in place.
I said a quick thanks and continued down the tunnel toward the locker room, the celebration growing louder with each step.
Music blasted from someone’s portable speaker as I took in the chaos: equipment scattered across the floor, sweaty jerseys hanging or discarded, teammates in various states of undress as they celebrated.
“There he is!” Roman called out as I entered. “The human wall!”
A chorus of cheers and stick taps against lockers greeted me. Several guys thumped me on the back or shoulder as I made my way to my stall. Hunter, already stripped down to his compression shorts, tossed me an ice pack, which I caught one-handed.
“Thought you might need this,” he said with a knowing grin. “That puck caught you pretty good.”
I nodded my thanks, lifting my jersey to press it against my side. The cold sent a sharp jolt through me before numbing the worst of the throbbing. A mottled bruise was already blooming across my ribs, an ugly purple-red stain spreading beneath my skin.
“Looks worse than it is,” I insisted, though the ache when I pulled in a deeper breath suggested otherwise.
“Sure,” King said dryly. “Just like that time Sawyer took a stick to the face and said it was ‘just a scratch’ right before they put in twenty-seven stitches.”
Sawyer flipped him off good-naturedly from across the room.
“Sin Bin in thirty,” King announced to the room at large. “Victory shot for everyone!”
A cheer went up. The Sin Bin was the Fusion’s unofficial headquarters for home wins. The Fusion Intrusion, that unholy concoction of whiskey, lime juice, and Tabasco, was a sacred team ritual.
“You coming, Callahan?” Brody asked, already half undressed. “Your shot block earned you the place of honor tonight.”