Chapter 24
LIAM
Anne smiled as she spoke to Rachel.
I watched her face.
It was the thing about Anne I'd learned over months of reading her in the training room — she couldn't hide what she was feeling in her eyes even when the rest of her face was completely still.
In those first seconds she gave nothing away, just said yes she had a few minutes and listened with the phone pressed tight to her ear.
Then, her free hand came up and covered her mouth.
I sat forward.
She looked at me. Her eyes were wet.
She nodded once — at me, not at Rachel — and I let out a breath I hadn't known I was holding.
"Yes," she said into the phone. "Yes, absolutely. July 1st. I won't let you down." A pause. "Thank you, Rachel. Really."
She hung up.
For a moment she just sat there, phone in her lap, hand still over her mouth.
"Anne."
"She said yes." Her voice came out small and disbelieving. "She's opening the St. Louis office. She wants me to run it. July 1st."
I was off the couch before she finished the sentence.
I pulled her up and held her, and she laughed into my shoulder — that particular laugh that was relief and joy and something close to disbelief all at once.
"You did it," I said. "You actually did it."
"We're staying." She pulled back to look at me, eyes still shining. "Finn and I are staying. For real. Permanently."
"For real. Permanently."
She kissed me — hard and certain — and I held her face in my hands and kissed her back and thought about how different this apartment was going to feel in two months with both of them in it every day.
Down the hall I could hear Finn talking to his stuffed bear.
"Finn," I called.
Footsteps. He appeared in the doorway, bear under his arm, expression alert. "Yeah?"
"Mommy has something to tell you."
Anne crouched down. "Remember how we talked about maybe moving to St. Louis?"
His eyes went wide. "For real?"
"For real. Permanently. You're going to start school here in the fall."
He processed this for exactly one second.
Then he launched himself at her like a missile.
She caught him, laughing, and I stood in the middle of my living room watching the two of them and felt something settle in my chest so completely and finally that I had to look at the ceiling for a moment.
This was it.
This was everything.
Sunday morning. Game 7.
I woke before Anne, lay in the dark for a while, and made a deal with myself: whatever happened today happened on the ice, not in my head before warmups. I'd done the work. The shoulder was as good as Anne could make it. The team was ready.
I got up and made coffee and stood at the window watching the city come alive.
St. Louis on a Game 7 morning was something. Even at this hour I could feel it — that particular energy that only existed when an entire city was holding its breath for the same thing.
Anne appeared in the kitchen doorway. "You've been up for a while."
"Couldn't sleep."
"How do you feel?"
I thought about it honestly. "Ready. Just ready."
She crossed the room and leaned into my side. "Good. That's the right answer."
The arena that night was unlike anything I'd experienced.
Every seat full. Towels on every chair. Eighteen thousand people who had been waiting for this moment as long as we had. The noise when we skated out hit me physically — not sound anymore, just pressure and heat and belief.
I looked up at the family section during warmups.
Anne. Finn. Both of them in Blaze jerseys, already on their feet.
Finn spotted me and waved with both arms.
For them, I thought. For all of them. LET’S GO.
First period was the kind of hockey that happens when two teams have run out of margin for error. Every shift a battle. Both goalies standing tall. The crowd so loud it was impossible to think.
We scored first — Carter, slot, one-timer, the building detonating around us.
Colorado answered before the period ended. 1-1.
Second period was physical and tight, the pace high, both teams knowing this was the last game of the year for one of them.
Midway through, we got a power play.
I set up at the half-wall. The puck moved from the point, to Carter, back to me. I saw the lane opening on the glove side — a half-inch of daylight that wouldn't be there in another breath.
I fired.
Bar down.
2-1.
The crowd — all eighteen thousand — made a sound I felt in my bones.
I didn't point to the stands. I didn't celebrate big. I just skated back to center ice and told myself we needed one more period.
Third period was the longest twenty minutes of my life.
Colorado pressed. They were desperate and fast and not done, and for twelve minutes we held them off by discipline and willpower and a goalie who had decided tonight was not the night anyone was scoring on him.
Eight minutes left. Jensen on a breakaway — clean look, five-hole — and suddenly it was 3-1 and the building was shaking.
Colorado pulled their goalie late.
We held.
The clock ticked.
I looked up at the family section with thirty seconds left.
Finn was jumping up and down, both fists in the air. Anne had her hand pressed over her mouth. My parents — who I hadn't even noticed arrive — were holding each other.
Ten seconds.
Five.
The buzzer.
I dropped to my knees on the ice.
We'd done it.
The celebration was pure chaos — sticks and gloves in the air, guys piling on each other, the kind of joy that had nowhere to go except everywhere at once. Carter hit me so hard we both went down. I didn't care.
Before leaving the ice I was pulled aside for a quick interview, microphone in my face, the noise still incredible around us.
"Liam, Game 7 game-winner and series win — what are you feeling right now?"
"I can't — " I stopped. Started again. "This team fought back from 0-2.
Nobody gave us a chance and these guys just kept showing up every single night.
" I looked at the camera. "And I want to say something to my son Finn, who's watching from the stands right now.
Buddy, that goal in the third was for you.
Everything this season has been for you. I love you."
They let me go.
I skated to the gate where Anne had brought Finn down.
I took him from her arms and put him up on my shoulders — this five-year-old in his oversized jersey with his fists still in the air — and I skated a slow lap while the arena screamed.
I could feel him bouncing above me, yelling something I couldn't hear over the noise.
It didn't matter. I understood every word.