17. FINN
Chapter seventeen
FINN
Game day has a rhythm.
Not the pretty kind people talk about in interviews, where everyone says focus and preparation and other words that sound better on camera than they feel in a locker room full of grown men pretending their weird habits aren’t weird.
The real rhythm is louder.
Tape ripping. Blades being checked. Trainers moving through with towels and water bottles. Someone swearing because a lace snapped. Someone else laughing too hard at a joke that isn’t funny enough to deserve it.
Roman sits across the room with his stick balanced across his knees, taping the blade with slow, terrifying precision. Every strip is smooth. Every edge flattened. The man tapes a stick like a bomb squad technician, hoping something doesn’t blow.
I watch him for three seconds.
He looks up without lifting his head. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re staring.”
“Admiring the artistry.”
“No.”
“Respecting the process?”
Roman goes back to taping. “Better.”
Across the room, Gavin is already quiet.
That’s how we know it’s close.
Before games, Gavin moves like he’s saving every bit of himself for the ice. He sits in front of his stall, mask resting on his knees, hands still, expression unreadable. I’ve never asked what goes through his head before a game. I don’t think he’d answer, and honestly, I’m not sure I want to know.
I pull my jersey over my pads and settle it into place.
Santa Rosa Ravens across my chest.
Home ice tonight.
Second home game this season with Bailey in the building.
Not that I’m counting.
I found out she was coming two hours ago when Emerson texted Knox, and Knox, because he has the subtlety of a locked safe falling down stairs, mentioned it while I was taping my stick.
Women are coming tonight. Bailey too.
That was it.
No warning. No mercy. No respect for a man trying to stay focused.
I finish wrapping tape around the handle of my stick and stand.
My left shoulder still feels tight from practice yesterday, but it’s nothing that won’t loosen once I’m on the ice.
Standard November body issues. One sore shoulder, two bruised ribs, one knee that complains when it rains, and a lower back that likes to remind me I’m not twenty-one anymore.
Ty notices me rolling my neck. “You good, O’Malley?”
“I’m good.”
“Sure.”
I look at him. “What?”
“Nothing.” His grin says plenty. “Just wondering if I should ask the nurse in section one-oh-four for a second opinion.”
“Don’t.”
Jace grins from his stall. “Smart. She’d probably tell him the truth.”
“I hate this team,” I say.
“No, you don’t,” Dylan says. “You’d be bored anywhere else.”
Unfortunately, he is right.
The room settles when Coach walks in.
That part never changes. Doesn’t matter how much we talk, joke, push, chirp, avoid, or pretend. When Coach steps in, the air changes. He doesn’t need to yell. He’s not a speech guy unless we’ve earned one, and earning one is bad for everyone.
Tonight, he keeps it simple.
Come out fast. Don’t get cute with the puck in the middle of the ice.
Get it out of our zone clean, make them chase us, and hit hard without giving the refs a reason to send anyone to the penalty box.
Their second line likes to throw bodies around, their defensemen take risks and leave space behind them, and their goalie has trouble controlling loose pucks if we make him move side to side.
Good.
That helps.
Physical game means less room for thinking about Bailey in the friends-and-family section. Less room for remembering her a few nights ago, arms crossed like armor, while she agreed to three dates because she thought she’d prove herself right.
She won’t.
I probably shouldn’t be that confident, but I am.
Coach claps once. “Let’s go.”
The room comes alive. Helmets on. Gloves grabbed. Sticks lifted from stalls. The team funnels toward the tunnel with the clean, restless energy that always comes before home ice. The muffled sound of the crowd seeps through the concrete, low at first, then building.
I fall in behind Knox and Dylan.
At the tunnel door, I tap the frame twice with my glove.
Same as always.
Not superstition.
Routine.
Okay, maybe superstition.
I’ve done it since juniors, and the one time I didn’t, I took a puck to the mouth and lost part of a tooth.
Ty sees me tap and smirks. “Still flirting with the architecture?”
“Whatever works.”
Gavin passes us, mask now on, and says nothing.
Ty immediately shuts up.
We hit the ice for warmups, and the arena opens around us.
Lights. Noise. Cold air. The bite of blades under my skates.
The crowd pressed close behind the glass, purple jerseys, signs, phones out, kids with cheeks painted in Ravens colors.
Home games always feel different. There’s pressure, sure, but there’s also something that lifts under your ribs when the noise is for you.
I take a lap, easy at first, letting my legs wake up. Pucks scatter across the ice. Sticks clap. Shots thud into pads and glass.
I tell myself I’m not looking.
I make it through the first shooting line. One pass, one shot, top corner. Clean. Then another lap. Another drill.
Then I let myself glance toward the friends-and-family section.
Just once.
Bailey is there.
Purple sweater. Dark jacket. Hair down around her shoulders. One hand wrapped around her drink cup, eyes on the ice, sitting there like this is just another game and not another reason for me to lose focus.
Then I nearly miss a warmup pass from Dylan.
“Focus,” Dylan calls, skating past.
“I’m focused.”
“On the wrong thing.”
I shoot him a look.
He smiles like an asshole and keeps moving.
Good. That’s the reminder I need.
Hockey.
I circle back into line. The puck drops, the pass comes, and my shot goes where it should.
Better.
The anthem starts a few minutes later, and the arena goes still in the way arenas do right before they erupt. We line up along the blue line. Helmets off. Sticks grounded.
I keep my eyes forward.
Bailey is somewhere in my peripheral vision, which is dangerous because apparently my body has developed a radar for one particular nurse in a crowd of thousands.
I don’t look, but I want to.
Progress.
The anthem ends, the crowd roars, and we break from the line. The starters stay out for the opening faceoff while the rest of us skate back to the bench. Knox lines up with Dylan and Nico, Gavin settles into his crease, and the ref skates toward center ice with the puck in his hand.
This is the part I know.
Skates. Sticks. Bodies. Noise.
The puck drops.
The game starts hard, exactly like Coach said it would.
Their center wins it back, and their winger sends it deep. Knox turns with him, shoulder to shoulder, into the corner. The glass rattles. The crowd wakes up fast.
Physical right away.
I lean over the boards, watching the play develop, waiting for my line. Ty bounces once beside me, buzzing with energy.
Coach calls our line.
I’m over the boards before Ty can say anything.
For the next forty seconds, I don’t think about Bailey. I don’t think about anything except the puck sliding along the boards, the defender stepping up too high, and the space behind him. I call for it, catch the pass in stride, cut wide, and take the lane before it closes.
The defenseman angles toward me.
I should chip it deep.
Instead, I pull the puck in, drag it around his stick, and hear the crowd rise as I break toward the circle.
A body comes from my left, and I know the contact is coming a half-second before it happens.
I brace, absorb the hit against my shoulder, and keep my feet under me by pure stubbornness. The boards shake behind me. The crowd reacts. The defender tries to pin me, but I kick the puck loose to Ty, who snaps it across to Jace.
Shot.
Rebound.
Chaos in front.
Their goalie drops, and Jace jams at the puck until the whistle blows.
No goal.
But the bench is alive when I skate back.
Ty bumps my glove. “That was almost sexy.”
“Almost?”
“Don’t get greedy.”
I take my seat and roll my shoulder once to check for damage.
It feels all right.
Across the ice, the defenseman stares like he expected me to stay down or at least look bothered.
I smile at him with my official eat shit grin.
The game keeps moving.
Fast, hard, loud. The kind of game that leaves no room for pretty hockey. Every puck has to be earned. Every pass has traffic. Every lane closes before it fully opens.
I love it.
My second shift, I win a board battle and feed Dylan for a chance in the slot. Third shift, I block a shot off the outside of my leg and immediately get shoved into the boards. Their winger gets mouthy after a whistle, and Ty answers with something so filthy even the linesman looks surprised.
Then halfway through the first period, I catch a glimpse of Bailey.
I don’t mean to.
Play is stopped, and I’m circling near the bench, catching my breath. My eyes move toward the stands before I can stop them.
She’s leaning forward.
Her hands are clasped around the railing in front of her, attention locked on the ice. On me, I think.
I know she saw the hit earlier.
She’s a nurse. She probably watched the angle, the impact, the way I rolled my shoulder after. She probably cataloged ten possible injuries before I even got back to the bench.
Something warm and sharp moves through me.
Not because she’s worried.
Okay, partly because she’s worried.
But mostly because Bailey Sutton, who likes to keep everything under control, is sitting in the stands looking like she’s having trouble hiding it.
The ref blows the whistle.
Game back on.
I force my eyes away.
Later.
I’ll deal with Bailey later.
For now, I’ve got home ice, a physical game, and a defenseman across from me who keeps thinking he can knock me off the puck.
He’s wrong.
And tonight, I’m in the mood to prove a few things.
By the middle of the third, the game has turned into the kind that makes every shift feel twice as long.
Not because we’re playing badly.
We’re not.
That’s almost more frustrating.