Chapter 37
PATTERSON
The locker room is always extremely quiet before a game like this. It’s not silent though.
Guys are taping sticks, stretching, going through their routines, trying to get their minds right. But nobody’s cracking jokes or blasting music. It’s impossible to ignore what’s on the line right now.
If we win, we’re in the playoffs. If we lose, then we go home for the season. Even now, I can’t believe we’re so far behind. We were almost guaranteed a playoff spot, but now it’s all about which team goes out there and plays better.
Right now, I’m one goal away from tying Nick Banks’s all-time league record. Two from breaking it.
That thought keeps circling as I tape my stick against the ground, the same way I’ve done it a thousand times. Yesterday, I sat in Coach’s office and told him I’d have to think about whether I wanted to play for him, but I already knew I’d be here.
But I was willing to let a hockey record that could increase my value slip through my fingers to make a point about how Coach had treated her. If I were ever forced to pick between her and hockey again, I’d choose her without hesitation.
Callan drops onto the bench beside me. “Head back in the game?”
“Always.”
“Don’t think too hard.” He bumps his shoulder against mine. “Whatever’s going on with Coach, with Kendall, leave it in the tunnel. Tonight’s about hockey. Tonight is about us.”
“I know.”
“About you too. Ninety-one goals, Patty. You’re second in the league. One more, and you tie the record. Two more and you make history.” He grins. “But ya know, no pressure or anything.”
I smile wide. “You can very kindly fuck off.”
“Glad you’re back,” he tells me, giving me a pat on the back.
“Me too.”
He laughs and moves on to bother someone else, but his words still linger. He’s right. Tonight is about hockey. Everything else—the scandal, the suspension, the week of chaos—needs to fall away when I step on the ice. It will still be waiting for me when this game is over.
Then again, Coach has never had any issues with my off-ice activities. He knows I handle my shit better than anyone else on the team. Hockey, for me, is the one time the real shit in my world doesn’t matter.
Except for Kendall. She’s my everything.
Coach eventually comes in for his pregame talk, and the room goes still. He looks tired—because it’s been a long-as-fuck season—but his voice is steady as he runs through the game plan. It’s standard—nothing we haven’t heard before. But when he finishes with the x’s and o’s, he pauses.
“I’ve coached a lot of teams,” he says. “Won handfuls of championships and lost plenty of them too. But I’ve never coached a group of guys who fight harder than you do.” His eyes move around the room, landing on each of us. “Whatever happens tonight, I’m proud of this team.”
His gaze stops on me.
“All of you.”
It’s not an apology because Coach doesn’t apologize. But it’s something, and I give him a nod that he returns before he walks out.
Hunter whistles low. “Did Coach get emotional?”
“Shut up and grab your helmet,” Callan says. “We’ve got a game to win.”
The tunnel is loud with the roar of the crowd, and when we take the ice for warm-ups, the noise hits me like a fucking tidal wave. The arena is packed, every seat is filled, and I can feel the energy crackling through the building. Our fans know what’s at stake, but they also know what’s possible.
I skate lazy circles, and the crowd goes wild, screaming my name. I smile at them and scan the stands until I find her.
Kendall is in the family section, wearing my jersey, and even from here, I can see her watching me.
Addison is beside her, along with my mom and dad, and Jameson.
A few seats ahead, I spot Nick Banks with his arm around his wife, Julie.
The man who mentored me like an older brother until he retired.
He tips his head at me, and I tap my stick against the ice twice.
For luck. For her. For all of it.
The horn sounds, and we line up for the opening face-off. The Washington Kodiaks center is a big bastard named Volvo, or something close to that, who’s been talking shit all season. He grins at me across the circle, and he’s missing three teeth in the front.
“Ready to choke, Cross?”
“Ready to lose?” I smirk.
Callan shakes his head at me.
Volvo gets pissed, and before he can respond, the puck drops.
The Kodiaks are physical, targeting me every chance they get. I take a hit along the boards that rattles my bones and another in the corner that sends me spinning. Every time I touch the puck, they’re on me, doing everything possible to keep me off the scoreboard.
That’s when I realize there isn’t a person on the other team who wants to see me score.
Seven minutes in, I get a breakaway. The crowd rises to its feet, and I can hear them screaming as I move left and pull back for the shot. The goalie gets enough of his pad on it to deflect it.
Fuck.
The period ends 0 to 0, and I’m already sore from the hits I’ve taken.
Second period is when everything falls apart. It’s almost like I don’t recognize the team I’m playing with, but I shake it off.
The Kodiaks score twice in five minutes, and the arena is so quiet. I can feel the energy draining, and I can see the doubt on my teammates’ faces. We’re down 2 to 0 with a period and a half to play. Not impossible, but not good either.
I’m carrying the puck through the neutral zone when I see the hit coming—Kodiaks defenseman, six-four and two twenty, coming at me from my blind side.
I try to brace, but there’s no time. His shoulder catches me square in the chest, and I go down hard, helmet bouncing against the ice, stick flying out of my hands.
For a second, I can’t breathe or move. I hear the whistle blow, hear players circling, hear the arena go silent.
Get up.
I try to move, and pain shoots through my ribs.
Get the fuck up.
Gregory, one of the trainers for the Angels, appears above me, asking questions, shining a light in my eyes. I wave him off and push myself up on one elbow, then slowly climb to my feet. The crowd roars, and I skate to the bench, trying not to show how much it hurts.
“You’re done,” the trainer says.
“He knocked the wind out of me. I’m fine.”
“Patterson—”
“I said I’m fucking fine.”
I sit down and grab a water bottle, squirting some into my mouth while I catch my breath. My ribs are aching. Bruised? Absolutely. Cracked at worst. I’ve played through broken ones before.
Hunter drops onto the bench beside me. “Patty, you good?”
“Never better.”
“Then get back out there and score a fucking goal,” Hunter says with a grin.
He hops over the boards, and I sit there, trying to breathe through the pain. Coach watches me and waits to see what I’ll do.
I’m not coming out of this game when we’re this close.
The buzzer sounds, and we head to the locker room for intermission, down 2 to 0 with twenty minutes left in our season. Guys are quiet, frustrated, some of them already looking defeated.
I stand up, and the room goes still.
“Look at me,” I say. “Every single one of you.”
They do.
“We didn’t come this far to lose. We didn’t survive the bullshit to roll over in the third period.
” I make eye contact with each of them. Callan.
Hunter. Smiley. Wyatt. The rookies in the corner, who are terrified.
“They’re up by two. So what? We’ve come back from worse. We’ve beaten better teams than this.”
“Patty—” Callan starts.
“It’s the fucking Kodiaks.” I take a breath, and my ribs protest, but I ignore it.
“Everyone in this room has given everything they have this season. Every practice, every game, every fucking shift. And we can’t quit now.
” I point at the door. “There are twenty minutes of hockey left. Twenty minutes to choose if we’re going home or making the playoffs.
We have to decide who we are and what we’re going to be. Are we winners or losers?”
The room is dead silent.
“Here’s what’s going to happen. We’re going out there, and we’re going to play our motherfucking asses off. We’re going to play hockey like we’ve never played before. We’re going to hit everything that moves and put pucks in the net. Give it everything we have and make it count.”
I look around the room one more time.
“Who’s with me?”
Callan stands up first, and then Hunter, Tyler, Wyatt, Jacob, Smiley, and then the rest of the room. One by one, they get to their feet until the whole room is standing, sticks tapping against the floor in a sound that builds into a roar.
Coach gives us a pep talk, and by the time he’s finished, we’re pumped and ready to win.
“Let’s fucking go,” Callan says, and we head back to the ice.
The puck drops for the third period, and we come out like a completely different team. Every player fights for each inch of ice like their life depends on it. The crowd feeds off our energy, and the arena comes alive again. Hearing twenty thousand people screaming on their feet will never get old.
Four minutes in, Hunter feeds me a pass in the slot, and I don’t hesitate; I react. I one-time it toward the net before I even register what I’m doing. The puck rockets off my stick, and I watch it fly past the goalie’s glove. It hits the back of the net, and the red light flashes behind him.
The horn blares, and the crowd loses its fucking mind. I do too.
I spin toward the stands before my teammates even reach me, searching for her face in the chaos. Kendall is on her feet with her hands pressed to her mouth, tears already streaming down her cheeks. Our eyes lock, and she’s blowing kisses to me, laughing and crying at the same time.
I point my stick at her and mouth the words, I love you.
She mouths it back.
The Jumbotron flashes:
PATTERSON CROSS—92 GOALS—TIES ALL-TIME LEAGUE RECORD WITH NICK BANKS.
Nick Banks was twenty-five years old when he made the record, and they’d told him he’d never do it too. A decade and a half later, the title is now mine.