Chapter 16
Crosby
The play is unfolding a hundred feet away, and I’m already standing taller in the crease.
Clock’s under twenty seconds and we’re up by one against the Edmonton Grizzlies. We lost last night at home against the Washington Breakers in a back-and-forth game that was hard fought and harder lost.
The Grizzlies have pulled their goalie and every skater on the ice is pinched high, desperate and reckless. I track the puck as it rims along the boards in the offensive zone, bodies colliding, sticks hacking, a scramble that feels like it might tip either way.
Miller fumbles the puck at the blue line, and suddenly the ice tilts. A Grizzly forward pokes it free, and I see it immediately—the way the lane opens, the way two of them explode into space with incredible speed.
Miller is the closest, skating backward between the two attackers as they all race my way.
The crowd rises as a single organism, noise swelling but oddly distant, like I’m hearing it through water.
I glide out to the top of the crease, knees bent, weight forward, eyes locked on the puck carrier’s blade.
My mind is empty in the way it only ever is in moments like this.
No thought.
Pattern and muscle memory.
The puck carrier cuts in hard on the right, his teammate streaking to the left, stick tapping the ice.
Miller angles his skates, matching their speed, stick extended as he tries to split the difference.
He’s caught in the worst possible position…
too far from the puck to challenge cleanly, too close to the passing lane to fully commit.
The forward sells the shot, pulling the puck in tight, shoulders dipping enough to suggest he’s going to take it himself. Miller bites half a step toward him, blade shifting, and that’s all it takes.
I don’t bite.
The pass comes anyway—threaded across the slot, flat and fast, sliding beyond Miller’s reach. He lunges, stick scraping the ice, but he’s a fraction late. The puck clears his blade by inches and lands clean on the other forward’s tape.
I’m already moving.
I push laterally, pads sliding against ice, chest square as my body stretches to cover the far side. The shooter doesn’t dust it off. He snaps the shot immediately, trying to beat me high glove side, aiming for the narrow seam of daylight above my shoulder.
It’s often as if time slows.
I see the puck leave his stick.
See the black blur rising, tracking its arc instead of guessing where it might go. My glove hand reacts on instinct, snapping up and outward, fingers flaring open.
Impact.
The puck hits the back of my glove with a sound I feel more than hear.
For a split second, everything goes quiet, then the whistle blows, and the fans go berserk.
I’m on my knees, glove pressed tight to my chest, the puck sealed there like a secret I refuse to give up. My heart hammers so hard I can feel it in my throat.
I rise to my feet only to have Luca Marcelli crash into me, nearly knocking me backward. His left winger, Oakes Anderson, follows. Someone slaps my helmet hard enough that I grunt, and I see it’s the other second-line defenseman, Chase Whitaker.
And then Miller is there, tapping my leg with his stick. “Thanks for saving my butt.”
“Great job in threading them. You didn’t make it easy for them to get a shot off.”
Miller lifts his chin and skates away. The third line comes on but there’s only nine seconds left. Still enough time for a bad bounce or a lucky shot, so there’s no celebrating yet.
?
Axel’s house is already overwhelmed by the time we arrive, and that’s entirely his fault.
The win was barely five minutes old when he climbed up onto a bench in the locker room and announced the impromptu party at his place. I’m not sure how his wife will feel about having a house full of rowdy hockey players flying high after a victory against a really good team.
Axel lives five minutes from the arena, close enough that there’s no excuse, and after a finish like that—after that save—no one even pretended to hesitate. We earned this one and tomorrow is a travel day, so a party it is.
And now his place is shaking with the aftermath of it.
Music rattles the walls, people packed shoulder to shoulder, laughter spilling into every corner. Jerseys have been exchanged for hoodies and jeans. Axel has a fully stocked bar with what looks to be every liquor known to man, and the team is putting a hurting on it.
I scan the room, my eyes looking for the one person I’d hoped would be here but expect she won’t be.
Juno isn’t exactly a team member, not in the purest sense, so I wasn’t sure if an invitation got filtered down to her. I have no clue if she and Evan were filming this game or taking a night off. I didn’t see her in the locker room post-win.
I found that to be a little weird… given it was a win against a top-ranked team, but what do I know? I’m not a filmmaker or a storyteller.
Maybe wins aren’t where the interest lies.
“Here you go,” Arch says, handing me an ice-cold Bud Light. I grimace as I twist off the cap because I’m a bit of a beer snob.
“Cheers,” I reply, and we tap the necks.
Across the room, Boss is standing on the couch, twerking with some blond woman I don’t recognize.
“Gonna get crazy tonight,” Arch opines.
“Entire team is going to be hurting tomorrow at practice.” I take a sip of the Bud Light, and as bad as it tastes, I know I’m going to drink more than one.
“Not the entire team,” Arch mutters, and I know exactly who he’s talking about. “Can you imagine Locke up on that couch twerking like Boss?”
I take in the brash winger giving zero fucks about what others might think of his dancing abilities and shake my head. “I can’t imagine Locke even having a conversation with anyone, forget coming to a social event and letting loose.”
While my save tonight will be what’s on the highlight reel tomorrow, the game wasn’t without other notable moments.
Mainly, it was Locke Donovan, our first-line defenseman, causing mayhem on the ice.
He racked up an unbelievable thirteen minutes in penalties, two of which were for retaliation, causing Coach Monahan to nearly have a coronary.
Locke made the final cut at training camp and I’m wondering about that decision. Patrick has spared no expense on this franchise with the goal of building a winning team. Yes, that has a lot to do with talent, but it really boils down to the mindset of each of the players.
If I had to boil it down to what’s most important, I’d say it’s the pure love of the game. We all have it.
Except for Locke.
Granted, he has the talent. He’s an insanely good defenseman, but his head isn’t screwed on straight.
He seems angry all the time, picks stupid fights on the ice, and will be a league leader in penalty minutes if he doesn’t rein it in.
Our normally cool and collected coach loses his shit on Locke at least once every practice, and seriously, I can’t find one likable thing about the guy.
He doesn’t talk to anyone and I kind of want to ask him…
Dude, why are you even here? You seem miserable.
But I don’t, not because it’s not my place—as a captain, it might be—but because it’s still new.
We’re still new as a team and we are settling in.
Not every player has to be great friends, and we don’t have to bond personally to do our jobs. It might be that we need to get used to his churlishness, and the coaches will clean up his issue with bad penalties.
“Maybe he needs a hug,” Arch says.
“You get right on that.” I laugh, cheerfully lifting my beer in a mock toast.
We clink bottles again, easy camaraderie settling between us. This is the part of hockey I like. The debriefs after the noise. The shared language of mistakes and corrections that don’t need to be dressed up.
I’m mid-sip when I catch movement at the edge of my vision.
Juno has walked in and a burst of pure delight explodes within me.
She’s by herself, no Evan and no camera in tow.
She’s wearing jeans, a fitted blue top and leather jacket, hair loose around her shoulders, expression open and curious as she takes in the room.
She looks completely relaxed, but why wouldn’t she be?
She’s basically been embedded with the Wildfire for five weeks now, flying coast to coast with us, practices, games, social events.
I think most would view her as part of the team.
An invitation was probably extended to her because she belongs here in a way that has nothing to do with observation.
My grip tightens on the bottle and Arch follows my line of sight. We both stare at Juno and then she looks back at me slowly, eyebrows lifting a fraction, as if she’s having some sort of light-bulb moment.
“You’re staring,” Arch says mildly, taking a long pull from his beer.
“I’m not,” I answer automatically, even as my eyes flick back to Juno.
He snorts and angles his body toward me. “Buddy… you’re tracking her like she’s on a breakaway.”
I shift my weight, irritation flaring hotter than it should. “Don’t start.”
Arch doesn’t back off. “You’re watching her like she scored the game-winner in overtime.”
I level him with a look meant to shut him down. “Stop with the hockey analogies. They’re stupid.”
Arch’s mouth curves, unapologetic and entirely too perceptive. “I don’t lie to teammates.”
I tip the bottle back and take another drink, the alcohol barely registering as I buy myself a second to rearrange thoughts I don’t want to have. “It’s complicated.”
The grin fades—not completely, but enough that I know he’s serious now. “Why?”
“She’s here doing a film,” I say, lowering my voice, even though the room is loud enough to swallow it whole. “That’s a line you don’t cross.”
Arch studies me, eyes sliding back to Juno for a second before returning. “Is it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I open my mouth. Close it.
My jaw tightens as I stare at the floor like it might offer an answer.