Chapter 30
Honey
Lenzin
“You look like shit,” Kilovac says as we skate onto the ice. I glare at him, and he shakes his head. “Please tell me you didn’t—”
“Lucy wanted to be here. I told her no.” He nods once, understanding without me having to tell him why. “I promised the Boston game, the three of us.”
“Good compromise,” he says as we make our way around the ice.
“It didn’t feel good. I do not like playing bad cop.”
He looks up at the box and chuckles.
“Stop pouring salt in the wound.” I huff.
“Not even a grain.” He winks and nods up.
My eyes drift to the glass suites above the lower bowl. The fishbowl thing, as Lucy calls it, and I nearly run into the boards.
Lucy’s pressed against the glass, grinning, Hildy standing behind her, smiling as she jumps, waving both arms, then grabs Hildy’s hand and holds it up against the glass.
Their fingers meet in the middle, forming a crooked little heart shape. One small hand. One steady one.
Stone skates by and bumps my shoulder. “You good?”
“I am.”
Hildy points behind her, and I see Scotti, and they both give me two thumbs up.
“Who’s the brunette?” Callahan asks.
I glance back up and see Erin with them. “That’s none of your business.”
“Interesting name,” he chuckles and skates off, eyes on the fishbowl thing. “Give her my number.”
Never going to happen.
“This is gonna be brutal,” Aleks says as Kyle Dingy, Claudia’s ex, our ex-teammate, and an all-around piece of shit, skates out to LA’s goal, and the Bears fans boo him.
They do so loudly.
“That’s gotta make him feel the hate he deserves,” Aleks grumbles.
Deacon skates out to our goal, and the whole place roars.
“We’re going to have our hands full tonight.”
“LA has no idea what it’s like to play for a true family,” I mutter, “not one they want to destroy.”
We line up for puck drop. Stone at center, Smith on right wing, Giulietti on the left. Behind them, Aleks is on right defense, I’m on left, and Deacon is on goal.
The puck hits the ice, and Stone wins the draw clean. LA crashes the zone immediately. They came ready for blood. Their winger barrels down the boards and tries to slip past Giulietti. I step up and drive my shoulder straight through his chest.
The hit explodes against the glass. The crowd roars.
The puck kicks loose, and Smith grabs it, fires it across center ice, but LA’s defense steps up hard and shoves him off the play. Bodies everywhere. No space. No breathing room.
Stone chases the puck behind their net and gets hammered into the boards. Giulietti swings wide for the rebound, but Dingy drops low and sweeps the puck away.
They counter fast. Too fast. Their center cuts through the neutral zone and fires a rocket from the slot.
Deacon drops, glove out, and snags it clean. The whistle blows, and the LA players shove us Bears. Gloves in chests and sticks locked.
“Back off,” Aleks snaps at their winger.
“What are you gonna do?” Trevally spits.
Deacon pushes up between us. “Save it.”
We reset, but Coach D calls for a shift change.
Theo Rivera hops the boards at center, Koa on left, Dash on right. Kozlov and Callahan take over D.
The puck drops again, and Theo wins this one forward. Dash takes the lane hard along the boards while Koa cuts through the slot like a freight train. LA tries to trap the puck along the wall, but Dash digs it out and flicks it to Theo, who doesn’t hesitate.
Quick pass across the ice, Koa catches it mid-stride. One defender steps up. Koa lowers his shoulder and plows through him like the man isn’t even there. The puck slides free. Koa snatches it back and fires from the low circle, in the top corner, the net snaps back.
The arena explodes.
Koa throws both arms up while Theo crashes into him, and Dash slams into them from the side. 1–0 Bears.
LA answers immediately. Their next rush comes hard and fast.
Kozlov and Callahan barely have time to set up as two forwards drive straight for the crease while a third fires from the point.
The puck deflects off a skate and drops right in front of Deacon.
Callahan clears one guy with a brutal cross-check to the ribs. Kozlov ties up the other and shoves him backward just as he swings at the rebound.
Deacon drops to his knees and smothers the puck under his glove.
The game grinds like that for the next two periods. Hits, blocks, scrums in front of the net.
Dash nearly starts a fight halfway through the second when one of their defensemen takes a cheap shot at Theo, very off-brand for him, and Callahan drags him away before it escalates.
LA finally slips one past Deacon late in the third, tying the game, 1-1.
We’re back on D, Stone, Smith, and Giulietti forward, Deacon still in the goal. Stone cycles the puck deep with less than a minute left. Giulietti works it loose behind the net. Quick pass to the slot. Giulietti steps into it and fires.
2–1.
LA pulls their goalie, Kyle Dingy, in the final thirty seconds, so we now have six attackers coming at us.
Aleks and I plant ourselves in front of Deacon like a wall.
Shots hammer toward the net from every angle. One clangs off my shin pad. Another smashes into Aleks’s stick. Deacon stops the last one as the horn sounds.
Game ends.
Brooklyn Bears 2, LA Lancers 1.
My phone buzzes in my locker before I even finish unlacing my skates.
Hildy.
I tap the screen, and a video loads.
Lucy is standing in the suite, practically vibrating, her hair half wild from jumping around and the sleeves of her jersey shoved up unevenly. She looks exhausted and completely wired at the same time.
“She’s fucking adorable.” Hank chuckles from over my shoulder.
“My daddy is the best number nine on the whole team!”
“She’s not wrong,” Aleks chuckles.
Behind her, Hildy is laughing, clearly trying to hold the phone steady, Scotti is clapping, and Erin leans into the frame and gives two thumbs up.
“Just saying, she’d look good on me.” Callahan snickers.
Lucy squints at the screen, in concentration. “That guy tried to do a goal,” she announces very seriously and throws both arms out wide. “But Daddy said nu uh, no way.”
“Denied.” Hildy laughs.
Lucy leans even closer to the camera, eyes heavy but determined. “Daddy stops them.” She pauses, thinking very hard. Then nods once, as if she has solved an international problem. “And German should be able to play in that game.” Another pause. “Especially my Daddy, Lenzin Faulker, number nine.”
The video cuts off, and Hildy’s laughter with it.
I close out the video and read the next text,
Hildy:
We headed home before the celebration ended. You did amazing. See you after Icehouse. Love you.
I used to live for this. The music, laughter, fans who knew they could count on us showing up after a win, the bunnies, but now I’d rather be home.
Aleks and I head straight to the bar, and Mick is already setting two chilled shots of Beluga Gold Line on the bar.
“We can always count on you, Mick,” I say, dropping a hundred on the bar. “For the other night when we didn’t show up.”
Mick lifts his chin, “Rough games lately.”
“Everyone wants to see what you look like when you fall from the top.” I hold up my shot. “To disappointing the haters.”
Aleks tapes my glass, and we shoot them back, and Mick slides our pints of Paulaner to us.
Aleks glances at the beer and raises it up. “To German and Russian diplomacy.”
“Exactly.” Mick chuckles, moving down the bar to grab another order.
We take the first pull of beer right as the door behind us swings open again.
Stone, Smith, Giulietti, Koa, Dash, Hank, and Deacon, but the rest of the team.
“Look at these two,” Stone calls out, “Already started without us.”
“Tradition,” Aleks replies calmly, and we follow them back to our section.
Before we get there, a woman approaches. Tall. Blonde. Confident. “You were incredible tonight.”
“Thank you.”
Her hand slides lightly onto my arm. “You celebrating?”
“With my team.”
She leans closer. “I could help with that.”
I gently remove her hand. “I met my future wife and am very much in love.”
She blinks and then laughs, “Oh yeah?”
“I’m serious.”
She studies my face for a moment, then shrugs. “Well, I don’t mind if you don’t.”
“I mind.”
“Well, good luck with that.”
“Thank you.”
She walks away, and Aleks bursts out laughing as we sit.
Dash sits, “You just rejected your first fan in the middle of Icehouse with the words future wife.”
I shrug, “When you know, you know.”
Koa points his glass toward me. “I respect it.”
Stone lifts his beer and stands, turning toward the fans who have already begun drifting closer to our section.
This is the part they come for.
“Alright,” he says, voice carrying easily over the music. “You all know the tradition.”
A cheer goes up immediately.
Stone grins. “Winning game, goal scorers, shit talk.”
More cheers.
“And since none of you paid to hear me talk,” he nods toward the end of the table, “let’s start with the man who apparently decided the LA defense needed to see what we were made of.”
The crowd laughs.
“To the LA Lancers.” Koa stands waiting just long enough for the booing to start. “Thank you for politely skating out of my way.”
The bar erupts in laughter.
He raises his drink again. “And to Bears fans, our barn and this place grows louder every time we knock another team down. Keep that shit up.”
Stone gestures to the other end of the table. “And the man who finished the job.”
Giulietti stands next. He doesn’t rush it, just lifts his beer and looks around the bar. “You know what I noticed tonight?” he says.
Someone yells, “What?”
“LA thought they were coming into our house.”
The crowd starts booing again.
Giulietti shrugs. “They forgot one small detail. Ice in Brooklyn doesn’t belong to them, it belongs to you.”
The cheer is louder this time.
“And to Dingy,” Giulietti adds with a crooked grin. “Thanks for standing exactly where I needed you to be when that puck slid past you.”
The bar explodes.
Stone lifts his drink again. “To another win.”