Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Leif
Protecting the Crease (and Your Sanity)
After I hang up, I text Hailey right away.
Leif: You up?
Hailey: It’s almost midnight. Of course I’m up. Who do you think you’re talking to?
Leif: A well-adjusted adult with a normal sleep schedule.
Hailey: Rude. Also, incorrect.
Leif: Good. I need a distraction before I overanalyze myself into an early retirement.
Hailey: Still shopping around for the right team?
Leif: Yep.
Hailey: Anything good so far?
Leif: Seven years, $110 million. Highest-paid goalie in the league. Should be excited. Instead, I feel like I’m about to have a nervous breakdown.
Hailey: I mean . . . that’s kind of your brand.
Leif: Fuck off.
Hailey: You know I’m right. You get stressed choosing what socks to wear before games.
Leif: Excuse me, those choices MATTER. Sock consistency correlates directly to save percentage.
Hailey: Oh, sorry, I forgot you’re a highly sensitive, delicate creature.
Leif: That’s correct. Respect the process.
Hailey: I do. Deeply. So, what’s the actual problem? You don’t like the contract? The money? The years? The fact that you’ll have to move to another city?
Leif: That last one is high on the list of concerns.
Hailey: If it’s New York, just say yes. It’s the place I visit the most. We might end up hanging out more often.
Leif: You’re not making a good case.
Hailey: I knew it. You fear my influence.
Leif: I fear many things about you.
Hailey: Like what? Be specific.
Leif: Your ability to befriend strangers in the span of two minutes. Your terrible taste in men. The fact that you think pineapple belongs on pizza.
Hailey: Okay, first of all, I don’t THINK. I KNOW. Second, what’s wrong with my taste in men?
Leif: Do you really want me to answer that?
Hailey: No, actually. Moving on. Back to your crisis. You don’t like change, but you also know you need this. So what’s holding you back?
Leif: Everything. The new team. The new locker room. The new crease. I have to find a new fucking corner to stretch in before games. My entire pre-game ritual has to be reworked.
Hailey: Oh, no. Not the corner.
Leif: Don’t mock me. This is fucking serious, Hailey Jean.
Hailey: Don’t middle name me. I know it’s serious. I’m just saying . . . maybe this is good for you? You wanted the change, why are you being so reluctant?
Leif: Because now that it might be real, I have my doubts. Is the money enough to go through this fucking shitshow?
Hailey: It is. Just take it and stop overthinking.
Leif: You sound like Jacob.
Hailey: Your agent is smart. Also, he doesn’t coddle you, which I respect. That man deserves a raise for dealing with all your goalie neuroses.
Leif: I don’t have neuroses.
Hailey: You re-tape your stick in the exact same pattern before every game, step onto the ice in the same order, and once refused to sit on the team bench during warm-ups because the energy was “off.”
Leif: . . .
Hailey: Yeah. That’s what I thought.
Leif: Whatever. I just need to make a decision.
Hailey: Are you stalling because you’re afraid of making the wrong choice? Or because you’re afraid of making the right one?
Leif: You’re insufferable.
Hailey: And yet, you texted me.
Leif: Bad habit. Should break it.
Hailey: Good luck with that, Crawford.
Leif: Fuck you.
Hailey: Awww, is that goalie-speak for “thank you for always talking me through my existential crises?”
Leif: I don’t like you.
Hailey: You love me. You just don’t know what to do with someone who actually gets you.
I stare at the screen for a long moment, fingers hovering over the keyboard. Because she’s right. She’s always fucking right. Instead of responding, I do the only thing that makes sense. I hit call before I can overthink it. It rings twice before Hailey picks up, and I can already hear the smirk in her voice.
“Wow. You caved fast.”
I exhale, rubbing a hand down my face. “You were being unbearable over text.”
“Sure, it was all me. Let’s highlight who called whom—you did. Not me. Like a man who needs comfort but refuses to admit it.”
Why does she have to be so—so—so . . . fuck. If only she could be right here and not in fucking Greece. “I’m hanging up.”
“No, you’re not,” she states. “You need to solve this now and if I don’t listen, no one else will.”
She’s right. Of course she’s right. I drag a hand through my hair and pace across my kitchen, socked feet sliding over the hardwood.
I lean against the fridge, pressing my forehead to the cool metal. “I hate how much sense you make sometimes.”
“Yeah, that must be really hard for you.”
A beat of silence stretches between us, comfortable in the way that only exists when someone knows you down to your worst habits, your messiest thoughts. The fridge hums behind me. My fingers tap against my thigh. A leftover piece of packing tape curls at the edge of the counter.
“I can’t stop thinking about how wrong it all feels,” I murmur, half to myself. “Like it’s already off before I even step onto the ice.”
Hailey sighs, soft but knowing. “Maybe ask for time on the ice before training begins. The sooner you say yes, the better. Then you can be there until you break the ice—and you become one with it.”
“Stop using so much logic,” I groan, because seriously why does she have to be right instead of telling me that I should demand more time, more money, more . . . something.
“You’re going to take it, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do.”
I flex my fingers, roll my shoulders back. “I might know.”
She hums, the sound slow and smug. “Mmm. Sounds like a man who’s already picked out which new corner he’s going to claim in the locker room.”
I groan. “I knew you were going to bring up the fucking corner.”
“It’s your thing, Leif. You literally sit in the exact same spot before every game, with the same weird stretching routine, and act like the universe will implode if someone breathes in your direction before you’re done.”
I push off the fridge and cross to the window, staring out over the darkened skyline of Arizona. “It could implode. You don’t know.”
She laughs, and it’s infuriating how much it steadies me. “You’re ridiculous.”
“I am a goalie.”
“A deeply neurotic goalie.”
“You’re the one who willingly associates with me.”
“I’m charitable like that.”
I let out a slow breath.
“What if I hate it?” I ask, voice lower now. “The contract. The move. The change. The everything.”
She doesn’t answer right away, and the silence is heavier this time. Not uncomfortable, just full of all the things I can’t say.
“First of all, you won’t hate it. Also, this is what you and your career need. The change . . . you’ll figure it out. You always do, Leif. That’s your real superpower—you adapt, even when you hate it,” she says finally, and somehow it lands deeper than anything Jacob could say, any reassurance my brothers could offer. “You know how to control things, your surroundings. You always do. This time won’t be any different.”
She says it like it’s fact. Like it’s already written somewhere in stone that I’ll get through it because I always do.
“Besides,” she adds, voice lighter, “I’m in New York more often.”
I groan, dragging a hand down my face. “Yeah, you’re not making this more appealing,” I joke, but honestly, that little piece of information is more valuable than the money I’m being offered.
She gasps, overdramatic and fake-offended. “Wow. Hurtful.”
“Brutal honesty is part of my charm.”
“I don’t think charm is the word you’re looking for.”
A corner of my mouth lifts despite myself. “So, if I move there, are you coming to the home opener?”
It’s not a question.
Hailey snorts. “Obviously. Gotta be there for your first meltdown when the ice feels wrong and you threaten to retire mid-game.”
I groan, letting my head thunk lightly against the glass. “God, you’re the worst.”
“I’m the best and you know it,” she says smugly. “You also know that I’m here for you, right? If you retire today, I’ll drag you with me around the world until you feel like you can take on something else.”
And she would. I close my eyes, my fingers tightening around my phone. Yeah. I called her. Because when everything feels wrong, she’s the one thing that still makes sense.