25. FINN
Chapter twenty-five
FINN
Leaving town feels wrong, even though it’s only one short road trip.
We board the bus in the morning, play at night, sleep in a hotel, and head back the next day. I have done this hundreds of times. Hockey seasons are built on leaving. Planes, buses, hotels, and arenas that are full of the opposing team’s fans. It should feel normal.
It doesn’t.
Not when Bailey is back in Redwood Grove, newly pregnant, nauseous, working hospital shifts, and pretending she is fine with a level of commitment I respect, but don’t believe.
She texts me before we head out.
Bailey: Stop worrying. I’m working today, then going home and sleeping.
I stare at the message from my seat on the bus.
Me: I wasn’t worrying.
Her reply comes fast.
Bailey: Finn. I know you. You’re worrying.
Me: I was thinking about you in a calm, mature way.
Bailey: That seems unlikely.
I smile despite myself.
Across the aisle, Dylan looks over. “You’re smiling at your phone.”
“I’m reading team strategy.”
“From Bailey?”
“She’s insightful.”
He grins. “She told you not to worry.”
“How do you know that?”
“You’re on a bus staring at your phone like it might give you a medical update.”
Ty leans between our seats. “In an effort to help, I made a road-trip playlist.”
Nico closes his eyes across the aisle. “No.”
“It’s calm and motivational.”
“The last one was motivational,” Dylan says. “I wanted to jump out of a moving bus.”
Ty looks offended. “That was the perfect pre-game theme.”
“That was a cry for help,” Knox says as he passes with coffee.
The bus hasn’t even left yet, and we’re already arguing about playlists, seat assignments, pregame meals, and who is allowed to pick the music.
Which, honestly, is no different than most of our road trips.
By the time we get to the hotel, eat the same boring pregame meal of chicken, rice, and vegetables, and head to the visiting rink, I’ve checked my phone a dozen times.
Bailey is fine.
She has told me this twice.
I still hate not being there.
Not because I think she can’t handle herself. Bailey can handle more before breakfast than most people can in a week. That is not the issue. The issue is that my body has apparently decided distance is dangerous. That if I am not near her, I am somehow less real in her life.
I know it’s stupid. But knowing doesn’t fix the way my chest tightens every time I picture her at home alone with ginger tea, crackers, and a future we are both still trying to understand.
The game starts badly.
Not disastrous. Worse. Sluggish.
The kind of slow start that makes everything feel one step off. Passes miss by inches. Guys are a step late getting where they’re supposed to be. Every time we try to move the puck cleanly up the ice, they’re already in our way, forcing us into rushed decisions and ugly plays.
By the end of the first period, we’re down one.
By the middle of the second, we’re down two.
Gavin keeps us from going down three when he stops their winger on a breakaway, glove snapping up so fast the home crowd groans.
I’m playing too hot. I know it while I’m doing it, which is the worst part. I’m skating hard, but not smart. Reaching for plays I should wait on. Forcing a pass through a lane that isn’t there. Taking checks and giving them back like physicality can turn into control if I just lean hard enough.
It can’t.
With six minutes left in the second, I chase a loose puck into the corner and get tied up with one of their defensemen. He angles his body between me and the puck. Clean. Annoying, but clean.
I shove back harder than I need to.
He goes down.
The whistle blows.
The ref’s arm goes up.
Two minutes.
Roughing.
“Are you kidding me?” I snap, even though he is absolutely not kidding me, and I absolutely deserve the penalty.
From the bench, Knox’s disappointed eyes cut to mine.
I skate to the box with my jaw locked while Coach says something I’m lucky I can’t fully hear over the crowd.
Their power play scores thirty-seven seconds later.
The rest of the game feels like we’re chasing something that keeps sliding just out of reach.
We score late in the third and cut their lead to one, but that’s as close as we get.
Their goalie stops everything he should, plus a few he probably shouldn’t.
Their defense keeps shoving us away from the front of the net, and every chance we create dies before it turns into enough.
Final score, 4-3.
We earned that loss.
Still tastes like metal in my mouth.
In the locker room, everything is quiet in that exhausted, irritated way that follows a game we didn’t steal from ourselves completely but definitely helped give away.
Coach keeps it short. Too many forced plays. Too many turnovers. Bad discipline. Learn from it. Move on.
His eyes flick to me on bad discipline.
I peel off my gear without looking at anyone.
Knox comes by first. “That penalty was dumb.”
I look up. “Really? I thought it showed initiative.”
His expression doesn’t move.
I drag a towel over my face. “I know.”
“You’re playing like you’re trying to hit something that isn’t on the ice.”
That gets under my skin because it’s too close.
“I said I know.”
Knox holds my gaze for another second, then nods once and walks away.
Dylan drops onto the bench beside me a minute later.
Great.
The emotional clean-up crew has arrived.
“You want to be left alone or told you’re acting like an idiot?” he asks.
“Both sound bad.”
“Then I’ll pick.”
I lean back against my stall. “Can we not?”
He looks toward the showers, then back at me. “Bailey doesn’t need a lunatic with a diaper bag.”
Despite myself, I almost laugh. “That's your pep talk?”
“That’s the headline. The article has more detail.”
“I’m not a lunatic.”
“You took a dumb penalty because you’re wound tighter than stick tape.”
“I had a bad game.”
“You had a scared game.”
I hate that because Dylan says it like a fact, not an insult.
“She’s fine,” he says.
“I know.”
“And you being away for twenty-four hours doesn’t make you less committed.”
My throat goes tight, and I look down at my skates.
Dylan is quiet for once.
Then he adds, “But if you start panic-buying tactical baby gear, I’m intervening.”
That does get a laugh out of me. Small, tired, but real.
“What the hell is tactical baby gear?”
“I don’t know, but I’m sure you’ll be researching it tonight.”
I shove at his shoulder. “Go away.”
After showers, video, and the bus back to the hotel, I call Bailey from my room.
She answers on the third ring, her voice sleepy. “Hey.”
Something in me eases so fast it almost hurts.
“Did I wake you?”
“No. I was resting my eyes.”
“That’s sleeping.”
“Not if I’m vertical.”
“Were you vertical?”
A pause.
“No.”
I smile and sit on the edge of the bed. “How are you feeling?”
“Better than this morning. I ate toast and some soup that Sienna dropped off.”
“That’s good.”
“How was the game?”
I look toward the dark hotel window. “We lost.”
“I’m sorry.”
“We earned it.”
“Still sucks.”
“Yeah.”
I should tell her I played recklessly. That I took a bad penalty. That being away from her made me feel unsteady in a way I didn’t know how to name.
For once, I don’t reach for the easy joke, “I had a bad game.”
She’s quiet for a second. “Bad game as in the team lost, or bad game as in you’re blaming yourself?”
“Both.”
“Okay,” she says, softer now. “Tell me.”
I lean back against the headboard and stare at the dark hotel window. “We started slow. I got frustrated. Took a dumb penalty in the second, and they scored on it.”
“That sounds frustrating.”
“It was stupid.”
“That wasn’t what I said.”
My mouth curves a little, but it doesn’t last. “I know.”
“Were you hurt?”
“No.”
“Were you angry?”
“At first, I thought so.” I drag my thumb along the edge of the comforter. “But not really.”
Bailey waits.
She’s good at that. Too good. She doesn’t rush in to fill the silence for me, and after a while, the truth has nowhere else to go.
“I hated leaving you,” I admit.
Her breath changes through the phone.
“I know that probably sounds dramatic,” I say.
“It’s one road game. I’ll be home tomorrow.
This is literally my job. But I got on the bus, and all I could think about was you back in Redwood Grove, pregnant, tired, pretending toast counts as dinner, and me being in some other city acting like that’s normal. ”
“It is normal for your life.”
“Yeah.” I close my eyes. “That’s the problem.”
She’s quiet again, but not in a bad way.
“It felt temporary,” I say. “The bus. The hotel. The away rink. All of it. Usually, I don’t care.
Road trips are easy because nothing is supposed to feel permanent.
But now I have you, and this baby, and this whole thing I want so badly I don’t know how to act normal about it.
Then I leave for twenty-four hours, and suddenly I feel like I’m outside of it. ”
“Finn,” she says, but this time it’s not a warning. It’s gentle. Careful.
“I know I’m still in it,” I say. “I know that. I just don’t think my nervous system has received the memo.”
That gets a soft laugh out of her, and I breathe easier for half a second.
“I’m not going to forget you exist because you’re on a bus,” she says.
“That’s generous.”
“I might forget if you send me six links about humidifiers at midnight, but otherwise, you’re safe.”
The laugh comes out of me before I can stop it. “Noted. Keep the humidifier research under five links.”
“Under zero links tonight.”
“Message received.”
“Finn.”
“I heard you.” I look down at my hand, flexing against the blanket. “No links tonight.”
“Good.”
The quiet settles between us, warmer this time.
“I don’t need you beside me every minute to believe you’re here,” she says. “I need you to tell me when it feels hard instead of turning yourself into a problem on the ice.”
My throat tightens.
There’s my Bailey. Not fragile. Not waiting for me to fix everything. Just Bailey, tired and pregnant and still steady enough to hand me the truth without making it feel like punishment.
I smile and press my head back against the headboard. “I miss you.”
“I miss you too.”
“How are you really feeling?”
“I’m okay,” she says. “Not perfect. Definitely not glowing. But okay.”
“I don’t need glowing.”
“Good. Because you’re getting nauseous and cranky.”
“Lucky me.”
“You say that now.”
“I’ll say it tomorrow too.”
She doesn’t answer right away, and I know she heard the promise tucked under the words.
“Get some sleep,” she says finally.
“You too.”
“And Finn?”
“Yeah?”
“Tomorrow, when you get home, you don’t have to show up with any big plans or solutions to world hunger.”
I swallow. “What should I show up with?”
“Yourself. Maybe soup.”
“I can do that.”
“Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Bailey.”
When the call ended, the hotel room is still quiet, but I told her the truth, and she stayed with me through it.
For tonight, that feels good.