Chapter Five
Free to Explore
Carter
“Atta boy, Carter! Let’s fucking go!”
The praise from Jaxson hit my ears as soon as I won the draw against the San Francisco Sea Dawgs’s center. We were on the penalty kill, and I won the draw clean in our zone, snapping it back to Vince to start the breakout.
And we were off.
Up by one with three minutes left in the game, every single one of us was locked in.
It was always a toss-up in a game like this — either every minute flew by in the blink of an eye, or every second dragged like the game would never end.
It was the latter in this case, my muscles screaming, lungs aching as I struggled for breath.
We were in battle mode, defense doing everything they could to keep that puck away from where Will Perry, also known as Daddy P, guarded the goal while the rest of us looked for a breakaway to seal the win.
The last three minutes of a matchup were ripe for surprises. Just because we’d played the stronger game didn’t mean they couldn’t come back and tie it, forcing us into overtime, or, worse — score twice in a row and send us into the locker room with our tails tucked.
We had to be focused, all of us, to see this through.
And in a time where it should have been the last thing I was thinking of, I couldn’t help but channel what went down at Livia’s condo last week.
I should have been focused on the puck, on getting it down the ice and into our opponent’s net. Instead, I found myself thinking about those last couple of minutes of our first lesson, of how tightly strung I’d been, how hard I’d fought to focus enough to get her there before I let myself go.
I needed that energy right now.
I needed to channel that determination, that drive to fight against every bruised and battered part of my body begging me to stop skating and fall into a heap on the bench.
Finish strong, I chanted.
Don’t fuck up, the voice of my old coach echoed.
I shook him off just as the puck went sliding down the ice toward our zone and the penalty kill ended.
Jaxson Brittain and Dimitri Volkov were ready, kicking into defense as Daddy P braced himself in the crease. And when Jaxson sliced the puck hard and fast to where I was at the center of the ice, I was ready, too.
I caught the pass, zipping toward the goal, but one of their wingers took advantage of a slight hesitation in which direction I was going to go and stole the puck away.
As soon as he crossed the blue line, their goalie bolted for the bench.
It was six on five, open net, less than two minutes to go.
It was all we could do then, working as a line to prevent San Francisco from scoring. We fought like we were all on defense, blades digging into the ice, bodies thrown against the glass, thighs screaming, lungs on fire. The stadium was roaring with noise, Sea Dawgs fans screaming for their team.
But when the final buzzer sounded and we’d managed to fend them off, all that noise died in an instant.
“Fuck yeah!” Vince toted his stick overhead as he skated around in a victory lap, Jaxson on his heels. They ended up in a tackle-hug as I bent at the waist next to Daddy P, gloved hands on my knees, wheezing like I had fucking asthma.
Will removed his helmet, squirting water into his mouth as he arched a brow at me.
His long hair was dripping wet with sweat, but he was breathing normally, like those last few minutes hadn’t fazed him at all.
That was the mark of a true veteran. He wasn’t even celebrating.
This was just another game for him, and he wouldn’t let himself hit a celly dance until we had the Cup in our hands.
“You good, Fabio?” he asked with a sly smirk. “Look like you might puke.”
“I haven’t ruled it out.” I managed to stand on a wince, nodding at him. “How the fuck are you so calm?”
He shrugged. “I knew we had them.”
A laugh burst from me then, making my stomach cramp more. “Cocky bastard.”
“Take notes. We need you to have that same confidence,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder with a gloved hand. Then, we were skating toward the bench to join the rest of our team.
And all I could think was that we were halfway through the season now. And with this win, we had solidified ourselves as a division leader.
We had a shot at the playoffs.
My nerve endings danced like I hadn’t just played three periods of grueling hockey with just the notion that we might make it again, that we might find ourselves in position to play for the Cup. But on the tails of that buzz came the ever-present doubt.
Would I be an asset to the team, help us get to the playoffs?
Or would I hold us back?
I’d played decently in the game tonight — but that was just it.
Decent. Not great, not terrible, just somewhere in-between.
I’d won the majority of my face-offs, holding strong in key moments like when we were on the penalty kill.
I’d set up Aleks Suter with a slick pass that led to a goal, our chemistry effortless, vision clear.
But I’d also tried to dangle through two defensemen and lost the puck in the process.
I’d whiffed a one-timer, a wide-open slot and great pass that should have equated to an easy goal. Instead, I’d straight up fanned on it.
It was those little mistakes that frustrated me most, the ones that could have been avoided if I held a bit more confidence, if I thought less and felt into the rhythm of the game more.
When my adrenaline spiked and I felt the hum of an opportunity vibrating through me, it was tough to tune out the voice in my head telling me I was going to blow it.
And then, half the time, I would.
I tried to focus on what I’d done well as we made our way to the locker room, which quickly turned into a chamber of noise — equipment shuffling, pads hitting the floor, guys laughing and razzing one another.
The energy after a win was always palpable. It was impossible not to float on that cloud, not to feel unstoppable even if we all knew one bad period could have had the game swinging the other way. All that mattered right now was that we’d secured the win.
Coach McCabe stepped into the doorway, his hands shoved into the pockets of his quarter-zip, his sharp eyes scanning over us like a hawk surveying prey. The second we noticed him, the chatter dimmed — not completely, but enough to make the shift in energy obvious.
That was the effect Coach had.
He didn’t yell often. He never had to. He was one of the youngest coaches in the league and had taken Tampa from a team barely considered competition to one of the best. The respect the team gave him was well-earned.
He’d always been a bit of an enigma to me, though.
I understood him as a coach, as someone who loved hockey.
But I had no idea who he was off the ice.
Unlike most coaches in the league, he didn’t have a wife and kids to go home to.
And yet, he never went out with the players, never indulged in a way that landed him in any sort of limelight.
I had no idea who he was when he left the rink.
But I knew he was a damn good coach, one I trusted implicitly — one who was healing me from a coach who’d royally fucked me up years ago.
“You played like you wanted it tonight,” he said simply, his voice cutting through the room like a skate blade over fresh ice. “That’s the standard. That’s who we are.”
He paused, his gaze dragging from one end of the locker room to the other, resting on each of us in turn.
And for a moment, there was a flicker in his eyes — something unreadable, something almost…
tired. But then it was gone, replaced with the same unrelenting fire I’d seen since the day I joined the team.
“Celebrate the win. You earned it. But don’t get comfortable,” he finished, lifting his chin. “Shower up, ice baths if you need them, and bus leaves in forty-five.”
With that, Coach stepped aside, the roar of the locker room returning as quickly as it had quieted. But I couldn’t help watching him as he lingered in the hall for a second longer, jaw tight, like his mind was somewhere far away.
“Jesus, Fabio, you got magnets in your glove or what?” Aleks Suter asked, smirking at me as he stripped his base layer off. “Give the other centermen a fighting chance.”
I couldn’t help my goofy grin at the compliment, especially considering Aleks had given me a harder time than anyone else on the team.
He was one of our newer players, a transfer from Seattle, and he had a reputation around the league — and the gossip magazines — for getting into trouble.
He was absolutely deadly on the ice, though, which made it impossible not to want him on your team — even if he did end up in the penalty box more than on the bench.
He’d been downright mean to me last season — but that was before he and Mia got together. He’d turned as soft as a bunny then.
Okay maybe not that soft, but at least he wasn’t riding my ass all the time now.
I had earned a fraction of his respect, proving to him that I could show up for him and the rest of the team the way the veteran center before me had.
The Ospreys paid a lot of money for my contract. With that deal, they said they believed in me, that they saw my potential to fill the shoes of the player retiring ahead of me.
It was an honor.
It was also an insane amount of pressure that felt like it could crush me at any minute if I stopped long enough to think about it all too hard.
“Yeah, you were on fire that first period, Fabri,” Jaxson piped in. “That no-look pass to Suter was slick.”
Jaxson Brittain was a defenseman and a close friend, one of the few who had given me pep talks and told me I could achieve what I wanted well before anyone else took the time.
And it wasn’t because he’d felt bad for me.
I knew he genuinely wanted me to stay in The Show.
He wanted me to play for the Ospreys and not be sent down to the AHL.