33. Casey
Chapter 33
Casey
T he arena pulsed with noise, hitting deep in your chest and vibrating in your bones. This kind of thing gave me strength, knowing my city was behind me. I loved it. I lived for it. Fans cheered and shouted, their voices merging into a single, deafening roar that filled every inch of the space. This was where I thrived. The energy, the passion, the stakes, the purpose—it was the air I breathed. Pure sustenance.
But tonight, things were different.
This wasn’t about me or the team or even Atlanta. The story Gemma had published, and the scrutiny hanging over us all pressed down on me. Even if we won the game, Matthew was not guaranteed to keep me on. In fact, several clauses in my contract stated the exact opposite. He was within his rights to fire me. He could show up and with a wave of his finger, I was gone.
So, I had to make tonight count. If this was the end of my professional career, I’d damn well make my mark. That thought pushed me forward.
At least I tried to get caught up in the wave of it. But it was a struggle. Before we took the ice, I had texted and called Gemma, but to no avail. She knew what I wanted—for her to retract the article. It was the only way to save her from the public scrutiny.
So, she didn’t respond.
I understood her side of it, but I hated this. It ate at me every second I wasn’t with her. She shouldn’t have had to be the bad guy in this. There were no bad guys in this, only people doing their best at the time.
She made her call when it came to Winnie, and she wasn’t wrong to doubt me. She didn’t know me. How could she trust that I would have been a good father to our daughter? It would have been crazy to trust a stranger with your child, and I supported that decision once I had cleared my head about it.
I could have gotten caught up in the what-ifs of it, but that wasn’t going to move things forward. Neither was Gemma ignoring me. Or maybe she was. With her lack of response, I had no choice but to focus on the game. And even still, it was hard.
Nico was right. I had to trust Gemma. She had been a single mom on her own across the country for five years. She had no family, no friends in LA whom she spoke of. Pregnancy, labor, delivery, having an infant, and raising her into the quirky, sweet girl I knew, Gemma had done all of that on her own while making a name for herself in her industry.
That woman was stronger than I gave her credit for, which was my mistake. Nico was right about that. She could handle an article that she wrote about herself. She made that choice clear-eyed and level-headed. I had to stop underestimating her, and I vowed to do exactly that in the future.
The game itself was brutal. The Seattle Razor’s defense was air-tight, their reads sharp, and they’d studied us well. Every move we made, every play we tried to set up, they were a step ahead or countered us. Matthew had been right about me. I’d grown too predictable if the Razors could read my plays on the ice like this. It wasn’t just skill that we faced. It was strategy, discipline, grit, and the willingness to get their hands dirty.
The first period had been relentless, and I had to shift gears by the time the buzzer sounded.
The intermission came quickly, and I didn’t waste a second. During the game, my eyes had stayed locked on the ice, watching their defense's patterns. I saw the openings, the moments they overcommitted to speed, but we weren’t exploiting them yet. Speed and brute force were their strengths. We had to play to their weaknesses.
I grabbed the whiteboard and called my centers over.
“Nico,” I said, my voice cutting through the locker room noise, “when you’re back out there, fake left. Make it big—sell it hard. Their winger’s overcommitting every time. He spends too much time building speed. He doesn’t have enough power behind it, zero agility, and that’s your advantage. When he bites, drive the puck straight through the center. Lopez will be open. He always is because he’s new, and they think I don’t trust him yet. Let’s make them regret that.”
Nico’s grin stretched wide, the kind of confident smirk that only came from years of knowing how good he was. “Got it, Coach.”
“Don’t overthink it,” I added. “Just trust the play. They won’t see it coming.”
He nodded, and I watched as he carried that confidence back to the ice. Moments like these were why I loved this game—seeing the pieces fall into place, the adrenaline of knowing we were about to turn the tide.
When the team hit the ice together, it was like poetry in motion. Nico executed the play perfectly, faking left so convincingly that their winger nearly tripped over himself trying to follow. All his momentum had him going the other way, but Nico could pivot with the best of them. Lopez was in position in the blink of an eye, and his stick met the puck with a resounding clack before it sailed into the net.
The crowd erupted, and I couldn’t help the grin that spread across my face. Tied game.
Despite the brief rush of that victory, my nerves were shot.
I glanced at my phone, and still there was no response. I’d tried everything. I hated feeling disconnected from her. It felt like missing a limb. Whether it was her dead phone or intentional silence, I didn’t know, and it didn’t matter now. The truth was out there, and the fans were already reacting. They were quick to jump on any information about the team, and they certainly pounced on this one.
A secret child kept from her father? A sneaky mom who wanted to have her cake and eat it, too? It was scandalous enough to make the fans forget they were at the Stanley Cup. The signs in the stands were proof enough that they had bought her story hook, line, and sinker. Instead of anything about the importance of the game, the signs read things like, “Gemma Pucking Sucks!” “Coach is King!”
They were rallying behind me and had directed their anger squarely at her, just as she had planned.
It was sweet in a way. Fans were diehard loyalists in hockey, and most of the time, that was great. We needed that kind of loyalty. Hockey played a lot of games each season, and without loyalty, there were no ticket sales. Hockey was like any other pro sport—a business first.
But this wasn’t one of those times when people would see the signs and think they were sweet or supportive. I was glad we had rules about what they could write on their signs, but several pushed the boundaries of what we allowed. Sometimes, the P in Puck didn’t connect how it should have, leaving them to read, “Fuck Gemma!” Those signs would likely not get broadcast, I hoped.
But Gemma had gotten what she set out to achieve. She had flipped the narrative, just like she said she would.
It didn’t sit right with me. I didn’t want her painted as the villain while I came out looking like a hero. And Winnie…God, what about Winnie? Could she read those signs? Would she understand them?
The thought of my daughter seeing those signs and hearing the whispers about her mom made my stomach churn. I’d spent my career teaching my players to take hits, to get back up, but this was different. I couldn’t take these hits from them. I couldn’t cheer them on to get back up if this hit landed.
Life was not hockey. It was unpredictable and spun out in ways you never saw coming. As much as I tried to treat everything like hockey, there was no playbook for life.
This wasn’t about me anymore. I didn’t want this bullshit for my family. The more I thought about it, the more pissed off I got. I had to do something.
Whitney found me during the second intermission, her ever-present tablet in hand. She looked calm, but I knew her well enough to see the sharpness in her eyes. “You look like hell.”
“Feel like it, too, thanks,” I muttered, rubbing the back of my neck.
She stepped closer, lowering her voice so only I could hear. “The fans are with you, Casey. The story’s trending, and it’s working. People are rallying behind you. Matthew won’t touch you with this kind of support. You’re golden, so enjoy it.”
I shook my head, the tension in my chest tightening. At my age, I should have been worried about my chest tightening so much lately, but I had Gemma and Winnie to think about. “They’re rallying against Gemma. Nothing gets people riled up like a common enemy.”
“She knew what she was doing. This was her choice.”
“I didn’t want her to do this,” I said, my frustration bubbling to the surface. “She never asked me what I wanted. Not with Winnie and not with the article.” It was high time I made it clear what I wanted. I’d already planned to, but this solidified things.
Whitney studied me for a moment, her expression tensing. “Why do I see the gears turning in your head, Casey?”
It was funny how calm I felt after the decision was made. It felt like a puzzle piece falling into place in my mind. I smiled, finally feeling at peace for the first time in a long time. Maybe for the first time ever. “Sorry, Whit. Get ready for a long night.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’ll see,” I said, already moving past her toward the locker room.
Nico waited near the locker room, already suited up. His helmet was tucked under one arm, and there was a fire in his eyes that reminded me of why he was one of the best.
“You good?” I asked, stepping up beside him.
“Yeah. You?”
“Ask me after the game,” I said, trying to keep my voice light.
Nico smirked, but his eyes stayed locked on mine. “Plan B, then?”
I nodded. “I’m not even sure if there was a plan A, to be honest. This is the only thing that makes sense. It feels right.”
“You’re absolutely sure about this?”
“Are you trying to talk me out of it?”
He shook his head. “You saw the signs. If you do this, the fans could turn on you. They could make things very hard for you and Matthew.”
“Out of everything that’s happened today,” I said firmly, “this is the easy part.”
He tilted his head, studying me for a moment before his smirk softened into something closer to a smile. “All right, Coach. Let’s do it.”
I clapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s.” Whatever came after this—Matthew, the media, the fallout—we’d handle it.
The final period loomed, the crowd chanted, and I stood behind the bench, watching the team gather. This was it. Whatever chaos awaited me off the ice, it didn’t matter now. This moment was everything.
And I was ready.