Chapter 37
ICED (NATE)
The Garden roar has nothing on the noise in my head.
We’re in the third, up by two, and I should be locked in—seeing it early, taking the ice, shutting it down.
Instead, my eyes keep sliding to the bench.
Eden stands behind Coach, iPad pressed to her chest, face smooth and unreadable.
As far as I can tell, she hasn’t looked at me once all game, not even when I stretched out for that save in the second.
Normally she’d be watching, ready with a signal, planning how to patch me up if needed. Tonight? Nothing.
She treats me as she would any other player. And it’s driving me insane.
Focus, Russo.
The puck drops.
Their winger explodes down the left. He’s fast, slick through traffic. Two-on-one forming. Wesley had pinched, and now he’s hustling, hips open, trying to close the gap.
“Backcheck!” He barks, cutting an angle.
But it’s too late. The opposing winger hits the circles with speed, his linemate crashing the net. I push out of my crease, read the hands, take the ice I need. Eyes on the shooter. Trust the angle. Cut the shot.
My hip fires clean. No drag, no hesitation. Weeks of working with Eden are paying off, as she promised. Her hands. Her voice echoing in my head, “Hold your line. Trust your edges.”
The winger winds up. Fake shot. I hold. Pass across—there it is.
One-timer coming.
I drop and slide, glove hand exploding high as the rubber screams off the blade.
Crack.
Puck meets leather. The crowd gasps, then erupts.
“Holy shit, Russo!” Finn bellows.
I pop back to my feet, toss the puck to the ref. My chest heaves, sweat burns my eyes, but my hip holds rock solid. I could take a hundred more of those.
I steal a glance at the bench.
Eden’s staring at her iPad as if it holds the secrets of the universe. Not even a flicker in my direction.
Fine. If you won’t look at me here, you’ll damn sure have to look at me after the game.
Play resumes. I settle back into my crease, pushing everything else out. Puck movement, shot angles, traffic patterns. The game flows around me. Hits are rattling the boards, skates carving ice, sticks cracking together in the corners.
A slapper from the point. I track it through bodies, shoulders shifting left as it deflects off a shin pad. Glove save. Easy.
Another rush. Cross-ice pass, one-timer from the slot. I butterfly down, pad stacked, rubber pinging off my chest protector into the corner.
“Attaboy, Russo!”
My rhythm finds me. This is who I am when everything else falls away—just instinct and ice and the next save. Eden trained this hip, rebuilt it stronger than before. And if my hip doesn’t need her anymore...
Don’t think about that now.
Wesley buries an empty-netter in the final seconds, and the horn answers. Game over. We win 5–2.
The boys stream onto the ice, helmets rattling, gloves slapping backs.
“Beauty!”
“About time you hit the net!”
“Drinks on Alaska tonight!”
I lift my stick to the crowd, but it lands empty. Wins are supposed to matter. Not tonight. Not when she won’t look at me.
Frustration climbs. I don’t know how to make this right. Me and Leo going at each other wasn’t a banner moment. Two guys posturing in front of the woman we both say we’re protecting doesn’t help her out of anything.
I skate for the tunnel, peel off my mask, fall in with the sweaty, chirping line.
I keep my mouth shut. All I want is to get home and rewind the last week, find the cut that keeps bleeding and stitch it closed.
Ryan’s right. Leo and I need to sort it out and do something useful, not make it worse by cracking each other’s heads.
Cameras flash. Reporters bark questions we’ll take later.
I towel off, strip my gloves—
And then I see them. The finance bros.
Suits and loafers, red-faced from the club lounge bar, lanyards swinging on their VIP passes. They throw stupid money at these seats just to get a whiff of us after a win, to snap a handshake they can brag about in the office on Monday.
I keep my head down, hoping to slide past, but they’re watching. These guys aren’t here for the game. They’re here for escape. Finance chews them up faster than hockey chews us. By thirty-five most are out, burned through, replaced by the next hungry kid. Different grind, same brutality.
One of them breaks from the pack, barreling at me, voice too loud. “Russo!”
His buddies hang back, phones up, hunting proof.
I slow because I have to. I put on a half-smile, extend a hand. His grip is firm, showy, for the camera.
“Hell of a game,” he says, teeth flashing. “Knew you’d make it big. Always told everyone you were a stone wall in net.”
The voice lands a beat late. The posture. The swagger.
Max Miller.
Older now, bulked up, designer cut. Same smirk that soured every bonfire.
“Max,” I say, polite but flat. Part of the job.
He keeps pumping my hand, playing to his audience, pretending we were tight. Truth is, Leo was the one who called him a friend—until that night. The night Max tried to put his mouth on Eden and I gave him a warning. After that, Leo was done with him.
Max finally lets go, turning back to his buddies, riding high on the performance.
Coach’s voice slices through the tunnel.
I don’t need to look—I feel her—but I do anyway. She’s beside Coach and Rowan, hair yanked back, face set in that cool, untouchable mask she’s worn all week. Every time she throws it up, it guts me. Shuts me out.
Max glances over mid-laugh. The second he clocks her, his grin turns mean.
“Well, if it isn’t Carverette,” he says, loud enough to carry down the tunnel.
Eden stops dead. Color drains from her face. Her grip on the iPad goes white.
My stomach knots. Something’s off. She looks like she’s staring at a past she didn’t invite.
Her lips part, close. She drags in a breath that doesn’t want to obey.
“Max Miller.” It scrapes out of her.
What the fuck is this?
He chuckles, oily. “Still remember me, huh?”
She isn’t smiling. She isn’t blinking. I watch it hit her in waves—recognition, then horror, then something older and sharper. Her knees dip, lock. Shoulders set.
Her eyes cut up to him, then down, then to me, and back. A fight is happening inside her, and it’s not a small one.
I move a step, ready. “Eden—”
She shakes her head once, eyes on Miller. Her voice is raw, bare.
“You.”
Not recognition. Not greeting. An accusation.