Chapter 12
TWELVE
Connor
As the ref holds the puck above the ice I can feel all the eyes in the stadium are on me.
It’s the first official face off of the Olympics and I intend to win it.
My stick is poised, and my reflexes are ready.
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Gavin focused on Slovakia’s biggest man on the ice, Mrazek, who back in the States plays for Dallas.
Gavin’s glaring at him like a dog waiting to be given the command to attack.
Typical Gavin. My idea of a successful start is winning the first possession of the puck.
His is making the first hit. It makes me smile.
The ref raises his left hand. Here it comes. I keep my eyes trained on the ice, ready for that puck to fall.
In this moment, time stops. I drown out the crowd and hear nothing but the puck hitting the ice, followed by the scraping sound of my stick as I connect with it and send the puck zooming out of the scrum and over to Max Franklin.
I skate as fast as I can towards him, then fall in line a few feet beside him so we can pass the puck back and forth on our way to the net.
He passes to me, and I hear Mrazek nearby, chirping Slovakian obscenities at me that I can’t understand. Until, of course, he makes a sound I recognize. “Oof.” The noise everyone makes when they get hammered onto the ice by Gavin.
“Every time you come near him,” Gavin growls, “I’m gonna be right there to lay you the fuck out!”
Franklin passes the puck back to me and I take my shot.
The puck flies over their goalie’s left shoulder, right into the net.
The horn blares and the crowd goes wild.
The first goal of the Olympics is scored in less than eighteen seconds.
My team is ecstatic. Most of all, Gavin, who is in the center of my teammates on the ice, who are all giving me an uproarious hug.
Once they release me, I skate to the bench and tap gloves with the rest of my teammates as they yell and bang their sticks on the boards to celebrate.
Coach gives me his familiar nod of his head that I always get from him when I score for the Broad Wings. As the coach, he doesn’t get to celebrate like the rest of us. He needs to stay focused.
“Alright!” he yells. “That’s enough. There’s still fifty-nine minutes left to play. Keep your heads in the game!”
Gavin
Connor’s goal lit a fire under Slovakia’s team. They scored at the end of the first period and have made their own game of frustrating our offense now in the second. They keep stripping our forwards of the puck, and when that doesn’t work, they’re getting more aggressive with their hits.
Which is fine by me. Because Coach has given me the green light to go off. “Send them into the glass,” he says to me as he pushes me over the boards for my next shift.
Like a rocket, I skate straight towards Mrazek right as he’s about to hit Connor. He’s out of luck, as I reach him first and send him into the glass like Coach instructed. “I thought I told you to stay away from him!”
But as I’m yelling at Mrazek, Connor’s been hit by one of their defensemen. He hits the ice, then quickly jumps back to his feet and skates back after the puck. He snags it away and I skate towards him to be his shadow, knocking Slovakian players around like they’re buoys in a frozen harbor.
Connor drives down the lane and flicks the puck over to Bradley Warren, who’s keeping pace with us on the other side of the ice. He catches it with his stick, then flicks it right into the net, over their goalie’s gloved hand.
The horn blares, the lamps light, and Bradley lifts his stick over his head to celebrate. All of us in the zone rush him and press him into the boards, patting his head and slinging our arms over his shoulders.
“Nice shot!” Connor says to him with a high five.
“Nice assist!” Bradley says and actually hugs Connor.
I never thought I’d see the day, but I guess it’s like Bouchard said. Any resentment our team might hold against Connor would be forgotten once we got here and started to win.
Connor
Damn. We all made the mistake of thinking this game was gonna be an easy win. A warmup to the actual fight for gold. But as the horn blares, signaling that the Slovakian team has scored again to tie the score midway through the third period, we’re all swearing at ourselves.
Bouchard is taking it the hardest. He just banged his stick hard on the crossbar of his net.
“Hey,” I say and tap his helmet with my glove. “Memory of a goldfish. There’s still plenty of game left.”
He stares at me. His eyes are intense, but I see the moment in him when he steadies himself.
“Their goalie,” he says, his voice serious. I’ve never heard him be anything but jovial. “I’ve been watching him all game. He’s weak in his five-hole. Send one between his legs.”
I tap his glove with mine and skate off to center ice, readying myself for the next face off.
When the puck hits the ice, I snatch it with my stick and skate off like a dart right towards their goal.
Gavin is on my heels, keeping everyone away from me.
I fake left like I’m going to shoot over the goalie’s glove.
He takes the bait, leaving his five-hole wide open like Bouchard said he would.
I send the puck right between his legs where his lack of hip flexibility has left enough space for it to slide through cleanly.
Gavin
The hug I wrap Connor in lifts him off his feet.
I’m so overwhelmed with joy and pride that I’m tempted to kiss him right here on the ice.
Of course I don’t, but the temptation is there for sure.
Instead, I whisper into his ear through his helmet, “You are going to get the best fuck of your life tonight.”
“Slow down,” he says. “There’s still five minutes left on that clock. Let’s not start planning our celebration.”
I grin at him. “Yes, Captain.”
He pushes me off, smiling ear to ear. “Go beat somebody up, would you?”
“With pleasure,” I say and find my position for the next face off staring Mrazek down once again.
When the puck drops, we come out with all of our might. Every one of my teammates on the ice is determined to keep this lead. We all want to put this game away. No one is letting up.
“Keep it clean, boys!” Coach yells at us from the bench. He’s right. Any of us getting sent into the sin bin right now would make us shorthanded. Which is exactly what our opponents want.
They keep trying to bait me, but I won’t take it. I keep the hits I can’t avoid clean, which seems to frustrate them even more. They’re starting to skate sloppily.
Connor notices it too and at the one-minute mark, he passes the puck to Franklin, who chips it into the top right-hand corner of the net. The horn blares again and we’re back to celebrating.
The fire that was fueling the Slovakian players has burned out. They’re done, and they know it. All that’s left is for us to run out the clock and keep the puck away from our own defensive zone.
As soon as the time runs out, Bouchard is hauling ass away from the net to join the rest of the team as we congratulate each other by the bench.
I crash into him like we do back in Buffalo, then thump him three times on the back with my fist. He put in a lot of work tonight, blocking over thirty-eight shots on goal and only letting two slip through.
But I know him well enough to know he’s beating himself up over it.
“Tough game,” I say to him.
“And it’s only going to get worse,” he says. He points at Connor, who’s being jostled around by everyone on the team. He’s finally getting some proper respect from the group. “He played his ass off tonight.”
“Yeah, he did,” I agree.
Bouchard hits me with his elbow. “So did you. And you only spent four minutes in the box. That’s a record for you.”
“Couldn’t risk leaving him unguarded.”
Bouchard shakes his head at me, but he’s grinning. “What are we going to do with your throne in Buffalo?”
“Polish it. We’ll be home in two weeks, ready to kick some ass on our home ice.”
“Uh huh,” Bouchard says, like he has his doubts.
I look at him and question his tone. “What?”
“I’m just wondering if you’ve given any thought to how you’re going to deal with playing against him again once we get back to the real world.”
My cheeks go cold. I have thought about this.
At length, in the quiet moments I have alone with nothing but myself and my concerns for what’s to come next, for company.
I try to imagine what it will be like to play against him again and I can’t do it.
It makes my stomach clench. So instead I indulge in his presence, breathing him in, and try to think of every way around the inevitable I can.
We only have one more regular season game against the Broad Wings.
But after that, we’re bound to see them in the playoffs.
The Blizzards are the number one team in the east, and they’re the number one team in the west. Us meeting in the Stanley Cup finals is an inevitability.
I might get out of our regular season game.
I could take some time to separate myself from him and the feelings I have, but I can’t do that in the playoffs.
And truth be told, I’m too loyal to my team to leave them stuck with me as a neutralized player, left ineffective on the ice because I can’t play rough against my boyfriend.
All these years I’ve been worried about the league’s higher ups coming up with any reason they can to get rid of me, and here I could hand them the ultimate reason by falling for their golden boy.
It’s ironic really. They hate me for my brutality and strength, and in the end, it would be my soft, caring side that would allow them to fuck me.
At some point, I’m going to have to make a choice. It’s either Connor or my career.
Connor