Chapter 42
Forty-Two
Cassie stood frozen for half a second in the press box, hands hovering over her keyboard, pulse roaring in her ears.
From her perch above the ice, she watched Luke and Tanner get swallowed by bodies as the bench emptied in a blur of gloves and helmets.
Luke’s face broke open in a way she hadn’t seen all season, something unguarded and raw, and the sight of it made her chest ache.
She wanted—viscerally, irrationally—to run.
To be there the moment he came down the tunnel, to grab him by the arms and tell him how happy she was for him, what it had felt like to watch him sell out his body for the season, for the team, for this.
She wanted to tell him she’d seen it before anyone else did—that the play started with him.
But the press box was already emptying. Deadline clock ticking. Obligation snapping her back into place.
Cassie slung her bag over her shoulder and headed for the elevator, mind shifting gears as hard as it ever had.
This was Tanner’s night. It had to be. Now forty years old, two decades of wear and near-misses, one clean look in overtime that put him closer to the Cup than he’d ever been.
The story wrote itself whether she liked it or not.
The locker room was chaos—music blaring, cameras crowding. Luke stood near his stall, towel around his neck, still breathing hard, eyes bright and unfocused like he hadn’t quite landed yet. Their gazes found each other across the room for a fraction of a second.
Not now.
Cassie turned away before the pull could become visible.
She waited for Tanner Brooks to finish with his television interview, recorder steady in her hand despite the tremor in her chest. When he finally reached his locker, he was sweat-soaked and grinning like a man who knew exactly what this moment meant. She slipped seamlessly into her role.
“Tanner,” she said, voice even, professional. “You’ve been chasing this your whole career. What went through your head when that puck came to you?”
As he answered—talking about trust, about timing, about staying ready—Cassie nodded in all the right places, asked the follow-up she’d already written in her head. She filed away quotes, framed the arc, did exactly what she was there to do.
Still, every so often, her eyes drifted—just briefly—back toward Luke’s stall.
He was laughing now, arm slung around Elias Johansson, the adrenaline still humming through him. He hadn’t looked her way again, and she was grateful for it. There would be time later.
When she finally stepped back into the hallway, recorder off, heart still racing, Cassie leaned against the cool concrete wall and closed her eyes for a moment.
They were going to the Preston Cup Final.