2. Graham
Graham
The defender caught Graham across the shoulder before the puck reached the hash marks and drove him into the boards. Plexiglass rattled beside his helmet. His skates scraped sideways, one edge slipping before he forced his foot back under him and shoved off the wall.
“Middle’s open!” someone yelled from the slot.
Graham kicked free of the check and cut toward the crease. The clock above the far end bled down while bodies crowded the lane, sticks chopping at the puck, jerseys tangling at his elbows. He dragged the puck across his body once, waited for the defenseman to commit, then snapped his wrists.
The shot climbed over the goalie’s shoulder.
The buzzer detonated across the arena as the net jumped behind him.
For a moment, there was nothing to do but coast through the spray and stare at the red light burning over the glass.
Then his teammates crashed into him from both sides, gloves hammering his helmet and shoulders while the crowd rose in a wall of noise.
“Bench side!” a winger shouted near his ear. “Move before they bury you in the pile.”
“Give me room.” Graham shoved through the swarm with his stick still clutched in one gloved hand. “Shoulder took the glass.”
The Jumbotron above center ice replayed the goal from behind the net.
His release looked cleaner on the screen than it had felt in his hands: one lane, one opening, one shot before the horn.
The captain’s C on his jersey tugged beneath somebody’s fist as another teammate grabbed him around the neck.
One more game, and the Cup still lived.
That knowledge mattered more than the pain spreading across his shoulder. Riley had been there when skipping a ten-dollar skate sharpening kept their rent alive. Now the whole building shook because his wrist shot had bought them another night.
He shouldered his way toward the tunnel entrance, parting the cluster of celebrating teammates. His agent, Miller, was leaning over the glass, face red, one hand chopping at the air.
“You buried it, mate!” Miller bunched a fistful of Graham’s jersey and hauled him closer. “Unbelievable execution! They couldn’t even touch your speed tearing through that neutral zone!”
Graham braced his forearm on the boards. Sweat ran into the corner of his mouth, salty against his lip, while the arena lights strobed over the ice behind Miller.
“Defense left the gap wide open. Grab the trainers. I need ice on my shoulder now. Caught a brutal check on the boards.”
Miller’s grin gave way to the look Graham knew from a hundred postgame scrambles. “You can still lift the arm?”
“Enough to score.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Graham tested it again, smaller this time. “It moves. It just hurts.”
Miller released his jersey and pointed toward the opening beside the bench while teammates poured past them. The smell of scraped ice and sweat hung over the boards, mixed with rubber from the matting beyond the gate.
Graham glanced once more at the jumbotron. The replay had started again, his shot paused on the screen before the puck crossed the line. He could picture Riley’s face when he reached her. Not the cameras. Not the interviews. Her.
Miller snapped his fingers in front of him. “Celebrate later, Captain. They’re waiting.”
Graham turned back to him, still riding the roar of the arena.
“Ice it later, get your ass down the tunnel. The PR sharks are already circling the locker room for their sound bites.”
Graham stepped through the open gate, the crowd noise pressing at his back. An equipment assistant reached for the stick before Graham had taken three strides.
“Stick.”
“Rack it. Helmet too.”
He planted the blade against the mat, passed the stick over, then unclipped his chinstrap. The assistant took the helmet while another trainer moved in with a towel and a pair of skate guards.
“Shoulder or head?” the trainer asked.
“Shoulder. Head’s fine.”
The tunnel swallowed the worst of the crowd noise.
The chaotic volume of the rink collapsed into a muffled rumble behind concrete, broken by staff voices and the slap of rubber soles against the floor.
Industrial air conditioning hit the sweat trapped under Graham’s base layers and raised gooseflesh along his forearms.
He peeled off his gloves and handed them over. A trainer crouched at his skates, snapping guards over the steel so Graham could keep moving without chewing up the mat.
For one strange second, the cleanliness of the place stopped him.
No soot clung to the walls. No grinding dust coated a workbench.
No space heater coughed orange light into a room that never seemed to get warm enough.
Every tool had a place, every piece of gear had a set of hands waiting for it, and nobody had to bargain with an arena manager for another hour before lockup.
Riley had once done all of this alone.
She had stood over a screaming grinder with black dust on her fingers, checking his edges twice because he could not afford a second pair of runners.
Now there were technicians for the steel, trainers for the bruises, assistants for the gear.
He had promised her he would drag them out of that basement-level life, and this tunnel looked like proof that he had kept his word.
You don’t have to bleed over my skates anymore.
The thought brought a grin he could not quite kill.
A trainer glanced at his legs. “Any trouble below the knee?”
“Left edge kept slipping when I loaded the turn.”
The trainer motioned toward another staffer holding a tablet. “Third period?”
“Most of it.”
Graham took two more steps, then stopped and pointed toward the skate. “Strip the steel on the left skate, guys. That edge fought me on every tight turn in the third period.”
“We’re on it.” The trainer tapped the note into the tablet. “Fresh steel goes on before tomorrow’s morning skate to restore your edges. Go grab some water before you pass out.”
Graham rolled the shoulder once, testing the ache that had settled there after the hit. It hurt, but it moved, and that was enough for tonight. Game 7 was alive. The Cup was still within reach. None of that mattered as much as the person he wanted waiting beyond the tunnel.
Riley had probably screamed herself hoarse when the puck went in. He wanted the look on her face more than he wanted another replay on the jumbotron, more than another teammate hammering his helmet, more than the cameras already gathering somewhere ahead.
He handed the towel back to the trainer and looked down the corridor.
“Water waits until I see Riley. Did she catch that final shot?”
By the time Graham cleared the equipment station, a pair of assistants had stripped away his jersey and pads, leaving the damp base layer clinging to his back. He moved down the tunnel, searching past trainers and staff until a familiar face appeared near the rear wall.
Riley stood there with his hydration bottle in one hand.
He smiled before he could stop himself.
“There you are.”
“You need this before somebody drags you somewhere else.” She raised the bottle toward him. “You look wrecked.”
“Won’t argue with that.”
Graham started toward her.
A man in a team polo stepped across his path.
“Graham, arms through.”
A fresh track jacket opened between them before Graham had time to sidestep. The PR handler caught one sleeve and thrust it at him, already turning toward the opposite end of the corridor.
“Hold on.” Graham looked past the man’s shoulder. Riley was only a short walk away. “She’s right there.”
“I know where she is. Arms through.”
Graham shoved one arm into the sleeve because arguing would take longer than cooperating. The nylon dragged across his wet base layer and stuck near his elbow.
“Give me the zipper. I can dress myself.”
The handler grabbed the other side of the jacket instead. “Logo needs to sit straight.”
Graham looked past the handler again. Riley had lowered the bottle, but she was still watching.
Thirty seconds.
That was all he needed. Take the bottle. Kiss her. Let her tell him what the goal had looked like from wherever she had been sitting.
The handler pulled the collar of the jacket up to Graham’s throat.
“No time for a debrief, Graham! ESPN hits the air in three minutes, and they need the winner’s interview immediately!”
Graham caught the zipper tab and dragged it down enough to keep the collar from scraping his neck. “I’ll follow you out in thirty seconds. Let me just grab my water from my wife.”
“We don’t have thirty seconds! Get that jacket zipped and face the logo to the cameras while we walk!”
The handler took Graham by the elbow and started down the corridor.
Graham planted one skate guard against the matting and twisted back toward Riley. “Give me a second.”
The handler tugged again. “They’re already counting down.”
Graham swallowed his temper. He had just spent sixty minutes getting knocked around the ice and scored the goal that kept their season alive. Somehow, three minutes still belonged to everyone except him.
Still, Riley understood how this worked.
She had been there before the reporters, before the endorsement deals, before the staff waiting at every door. She knew what those interviews bought them now: the condo, the security, the freedom from wondering which bill could wait until payday.
This circus paid for the life he had promised her.
A few minutes under television lights was hardly a sacrifice.
He gave Riley an apologetic look and let the handler pull him another step away.
She no longer smiled.
Graham frowned, but a staffer opened the next door and voices spilled through.
He would fix it when the interview ended. He would take the bottle from her, kiss her until that expression vanished, and remind her why they tolerated this nonsense in the first place.
Three minutes. Maybe five.
Nothing worth making a scene over.
Riley stayed behind with his bottle while the handler steered him toward the cameras.
The PR handler pushed Graham through the media entrance and pointed him toward a strip of tape on the floor.