Chapter 31 Harlan
THIRTY-ONE
HARLAN
APRIL
It was me or him.
One of us was walking away with a shutout, and the other with nothing.
I felt like Nick Oberbeck could see into my soul from the other end of the ice.
Strangely enough, Oberbeck’s wife, Annie, was my agent.
Hockey small world shit. Plus, Leroy and Sorrento used to play with him. Did they want him to get the shutout?
Clear your head.
That was stupid anyway. Of course, they wanted us to win.
We hadn’t fully clinched our playoff berth, and at this late point in the season, every game was critical.
I heard the guys talking through clinching scenarios in the locker room but tuned them out.
I needed to focus on this game, the one in my hands.
A peek behind me showed Emma standing there with Leroy’s wife and Sorrento’s wife, along with Colton’s girlfriend.
It was kids’ day or some shit like that, and all the dads on the team were supposed to go collect their kids and parade them around after the last buzzer.
Emma looked like she was helping them wrangle their kids. Should I have asked Liam to be here?
Clear your head.
Ridiculous.
The PA announced one minute remaining of overtime and play was headed my way. Three on three can be a train wreck, stripping the game down to its barest form. Choosing between defense and offense. Determining whether it was better to try to hold them or score one.
My stomach tensed as I shuffled to anticipate which way their forward would shoot. A shot ripped toward me and I dropped to deflect it with my leg pad.
What needs to happen next?
Get the rebounds.
It ended with me flopping on the ground, but when the buzzer sounded to end overtime, we remained at 0-0.
I stood to reset, putting my helmet, glove, and blocker on top of the net. I got a sip of water while the teams decided their shootout order. Stats swirled in my head: my shootout record, what I knew about L.A.’s potential shooters and their records.
I sprayed the water across my forehead and swiped a hand through my hair. When my vision cleared, I saw yet another familiar face standing in the tunnel.
Liam. And a couple of his friends.
Holy shit. Did Emma want me to include him? We were together. Secretly. We were still coasting along in this bubble where, thus far, we hadn’t been exposed and neither of us was interested in stirring things up before the playoffs.
But I knew sometimes she brought Liam to games to let him stand with her and stay there while she went back to the kitchen. But why hadn’t I noticed him earlier? He included me in his senior night. Should I include him in our night?
The buzzer sounded and it was go-time. Surprisingly, I was grateful for the distraction. I definitely wasn’t thinking about hockey, and that made it easier to get my head on again.
We decided to shoot first. Great. It would all come down to me. The last move would likely be on my end. My heart thundered as Leroy took the ice for the first shot.
Really? Leroy? Love the guy, but not exactly a sharp shooter.
And sure enough, he tried coming tight to the crease with a bunch of quick dekes, every one of which Oberbeck anticipated. As Leroy passed, he patted Oberbeck’s helmet. Right, they used to play together.
They sent Miknevicius out as my first opponent, a real cocky piece of shit. Great if he’s on your team, a menace if he’s not. He came in hot, probably trying to overwhelm me with his size.
I had just the solution for that.
As soon as he was in range, I sent my stick between his skates for a good old fashioned poke check.
He tripped, went flying, and got up bitching, but I just stood leaning on my goal post and laughing.
I made a boohoo hand motion at him and he acted like he was going to come after me.
I shooed him away and the ref held him back while he kept jawing at me.
Sorrento went next for us, trying to switch directions at the last second. Another thing Oberbeck anticipated and stopped with little effort.
And the same it went with L.A.’s next attempt, easily swiped away with my stick.
We had one more shot to win this thing or extend the shootout. Some mix of a goalie’s dream and nightmare.
With a beauty of a shot, Owen tucked it in the top of the net.
Fuck. It was just up to me to stop Guy Stelle. If there was anyone I was afraid of in L.A.’s lineup, it was him.
Clear your head. What needs to happen next?
I shuffled back and forth, because it looked like he was going to shoot from farther back. But at the last second, he came in tight and popped it up.
By some fucking miracle, I stuck my glove up and blocked it just before it passed the bar.
To that point, I’d never heard our arena that loud.
I collapsed onto my knees with a yell that came from somewhere deep inside me.
It was only my second career shutout, and damn was it hard-earned.
Owen skated up at top speed and slid on his knees until he ran into me and hugged me.
Yelling. Both of us just yelling. The rest of the team was there in seconds, joining the dogpile.
I’d fucking done it. Confetti rained from the rafters, and I kept hearing one word from my teammates: clinched.
Cap got on his knees in front of me. “Pittsburgh lost and we won. We clinched!”
I’m not sure what I said after that was English. I was so dedicated to not getting distracted by what-if scenarios that I completely missed the significance.
Not only were we going to the playoffs, but I got a fucking shut-out.
Things calmed enough for everybody’s partners to bring out their kids for our stick salute.
Leroy was surrounded by what felt like a hundred kids to me, the tiniest of which he held tight to his shoulders.
The flood of kids were handed off and Liam and his friends were turning to head back with Emma.
I called after him. “Liam!”
He turned around, and I beckoned him my way. “Come out!”
Emma looked alarmed.
I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Your choice.”
Liam glanced at his mom and she shrugged and sent him on. I skated behind him to the middle of the ice.
“I’m not a baby,” he said.
“No, but you’re Chef’s baby and she’s part of the team.”
He laughed and I put my arm around his shoulder to pull him into our circle, with Owen on my other side.
“Hey! Whose kid are you?” Owen yelled over the crowd.
“Chef’s son,” Liam clarified. “Liam.”
“Oh, cool. I’m Owen.” He cocked his head to the side and I could almost see the gears in his mind turning. Slowly, Owen turned my way, lifting a brow and pointing at me.
“I see Liam a lot when Chef and I cook together,” I tried.
“Right.” Owen still wasn’t convinced, but he put out his fist for Liam to bump.
Then the team swarmed us again, and we were lost to the mass of sweaty, happy bodies.
But I was missing one body in particular, one that was about five foot four, blonde, and full of smart comebacks.
Owen and I got mobbed by press in the locker room.
I sat in my stall to remove my pads and skates, answering questions while I put on my sandals.
By my fifth minute of interview questions, I was down to my base layers and had to call a timeout.
“Sorry, guys, I’m really hungry. I gotta go bother Chef. ”
That got a laugh from the reporters as I slipped past them to the dining room, then the kitchen. And there she was, my chef, my Emma, eyes sparkling as she took me in. I strode her way, eating up the space between us.
“Past your floor tile,” she said with a smirk.
“Like I give a fuck,” I said, and her chest went splotchy.
“Harlan,” she scolded me.
“Liam go home?” I asked, almost to her side.
“Yes, but—”
“Good,” I said, shoving her toward the storage galley we’d frequented so many times before.
“Miguel,” she warned me.
“I don’t care,” I said before I pinned us together and sent my mouth crashing down on hers.
Emma pressed herself up into me, pulling me tighter.
“You smell terrible,” she managed between kisses.
“I think what you meant to say, brat,” I said with a harsh bite to her lower lip, “is congratulations.”
She pulled out of our kisses and linked her hands behind my neck, gorgeous doe eyes glowing up at me. “Congratulations, Daddy. Thanks for getting us into the playoffs. And what a nice, sexy shutout that was.”
“That’s more like it.” I paused, all the hormones surging through me since the win catching up to me.
Everything was just good: the other men in her life approving of me, the win, the playoffs, the fucking shutout.
And now, those brown eyes were shining up at me.
I wanted to share one last good thing that had been echoing through me for weeks. “Em, I think I’m falling for you.”
Her eyes lit up even more. “Yeah?”
I nodded, a little sweat from my hair dripping onto her forehead. “Sorry.” I swiped it away. “Yes.”
She coughed out a laugh and her cheeks turned pink, but her smile spread as wide as I’d ever seen it. “Okay. Do you want to not be secret?”
“Are you ready?” I asked.
“Soon,” she said. “I don’t want to mess with your playoffs mojo.”
“God, that’s hot,” I said, and we both laughed until we were kissing again.
I was just starting to squeeze her ass when footsteps drew nearer, to just feet away from us. We stopped kissing long enough to look up and find Miguel, wide-eyed and mouth agape.
I put my fingers to my lips, and he rushed to put his hands over first his ears, then his eyes, then his mouth. He spun on his heel. “I didn’t see shit,” he said on his way out.
“Fuck,” Emma said, putting her hand on her forehead.
“It’ll be fine,” I said, then leaned outside the doorframe to make sure no one was close. “Meet me at my car in twenty?”
“What for?” she asked carefully.
“Celebrate with me.”