Chapter 20 #2
Overtime is five minutes of pure terror. Both teams playing cautious, looking for the one mistake that ends it. Their forward gets a breakaway that Tommy stops with a glove save that'll be on highlight reels. Jax hits the crossbar on a shot that misses by inches.
Three minutes left. Two. One.
Then their defenseman makes a mistake—an outlet pass that's just a fraction too high. Jax intercepts, feeds it to me breaking across the blue line. One defender back. Their goalie moving out to cut the angle.
The world narrows to just me, the puck, and the net. This moment. This shot. Everything.
I don't think. Thinking is the enemy. Just muscle memory and instinct and twenty-one years of shooting pucks at nets.
The shot goes short-side, just under the crossbar. Clean. Perfect. Done.
The goal light flashes red.
The buzzer sounds.
The arena loses its collective mind.
We win.
We actually won.
My teammates pile on top of me—the whole bench emptying onto the ice in a mass of black and gold jerseys, everyone screaming and laughing and pounding my helmet.
The crowd's on their feet, the noise shaking the building.
Somewhere in the chaos, someone starts a "LOCKWOOD" chant that spreads through the arena like wildfire.
When I finally surface from the celebration, gasping and grinning, the first thing I see is Sage. She's screaming, jumping up and down, tears streaming down her face. Next to her, Piper claps with both hands pressed to her chest, and she's crying too, but she's also smiling so hard it must hurt.
Our eyes meet across the ice.
She's proud of me. The realization hits harder than any check. She's proud, and she's happy, and something in her expression is also heartbroken. Because we both know what comes next.
The scouts.
Preston's waiting at the bench before I even unlace my skates. His phone's already out, already recording. "That was incredible! The scouts want to talk to you. Now. Conference room in ten minutes."
"I need to—" Talk to Piper. Tell her everything. Explain.
"Ten minutes, Ryder. Don't keep them waiting." He's already walking away, phone pressed to his ear.
The conference room is exactly as sterile as expected. Three scouts, all men in their fifties wearing team polos and the kind of watches that cost more than my truck. They sit on one side of the table. I sit on the other, still in my base layer, hair damp with sweat.
"Ryder Lockwood." The scout in the middle—Stevens, I think—opens a folder. "That was an impressive performance tonight."
"Thank you, sir."
"We've been watching you all season. The maturity you've shown, the leadership, the way you've handled pressure." He exchanges glances with the other scouts. "We're prepared to make you an offer."
My heart stops. Actually stops.
"Multiple teams are interested," Stevens continues. "We'd like to fly you out for meetings this week. Get you in front of management, start contract discussions."
This is it. The thing I've been working toward since I was four years old and Dad first put skates on my feet. The NHL. The dream.
It's real.
"That's—" My voice cracks. "That's incredible. Thank you."
"You've earned it." Stevens stands, extends his hand. "Your agent has the details. We'll be in touch."
They leave. Just like that. Thirty seconds to change my entire life.
Preston's waiting outside the conference room, practically vibrating. "I told you! I told you the girlfriend angle would work! The maturity narrative, the stability—they ate it up!"
The girlfriend angle.
Piper. Not Piper the person, Piper the strategy. Piper the compelling narrative that helped sell scouts on my maturity.
My stomach turns.
"I need to go," I tell Preston.
"Where? We need to discuss logistics, figure out the meeting schedule—"
"Later." I'm already walking away, back toward the locker room, looking for her.
But the arena's emptying. Piper's not in the stands anymore. Sage is talking to Tessa and Patrice. Gage has Grayson. Everyone's celebrating, and I'm standing in the middle of it feeling like I'm drowning.
I should be happy. This is everything I wanted.
So why does it feel like I'm losing something more important?
The locker room eventually clears out. The team heads to Moosehead Lodge for the championship celebration. I promise I'll meet them there later, and Jax gives me a look that says he knows exactly why I'm stalling, but he doesn't push.
When everyone's finally gone, I sit in my stall and pull out my phone.
Two notifications waiting.
First: Chief Walsh.
Chief Walsh: Lieutenant promotion answer due Friday. Need to know if you're in or out.
Second: Preston.
Preston: NHL meetings scheduled Thursday 9am and Friday 2pm. I'll send flight details. This is huge, Ryder.
Two futures. Both waiting. Both perfect in completely different ways.
I could go to the NHL. Play professional hockey. Make millions. Live the dream that's been in my head since Dad first took me to a game when I was six.
Or I could stay. Take the promotion. Be Lieutenant Lockwood like Dad was before me. Fight fires. Coach youth hockey. Build a life in Ashwood Falls with people who matter.
Both paths are good. Both make sense.
But only one of them includes Piper.
I sit there in the empty locker room, championship trophy sitting on the bench where Coach left it, and stare at my phone like it holds answers it definitely doesn't have.
My phone buzzes. Sage:
Sage: Where are you? Piper's asking.
The firehouse is quiet when I pull up at midnight. No active calls. Just the trucks sitting silent in their bays, ready for the next emergency. I let myself in with my key—perks of being on the volunteer crew—and head straight for the memorial wall.
It's in the hallway between the bays and the offices. Plaques with names and dates going back sixty years. Firefighters who died in the line of duty. Dad's is third from the left, second row.
DAVID LOCKWOOD 1975-2014 GAVE HIS LIFE SAVING OTHERS
There's a photo—Dad in his turnout gear, helmet tucked under his arm, grinning at the camera with soot on his face. He looks exactly like I remember. Strong. Confident. Happy.
"Hey, Dad." My voice echoes in the empty hallway. "I could use some advice."
The photo doesn't answer. Obviously.
"I got the NHL offer. Multiple teams interested. They want to fly me out for meetings this week." I lean against the wall across from his plaque, sliding down until I'm sitting on the floor. "This is everything we talked about. Everything you wanted for me."
But is it what I want?
"Chief offered me lieutenant. Same rank you had.
Same job. I could stay here, run the department someday, matter to people the way you did.
" I scrub my hands over my face. "And there's this girl.
Piper. She's—complicated. And temporary.
And I'm pretty sure I'm in love with her, which is terrifying because I don't know what she wants or what I'm even allowed to want. "
The memorial wall is silent except for the hum of fluorescent lights.
"I keep thinking about that roof collapse. The thirty seconds you had to choose. You could've gotten yourself out. You should've. But you went back in because that's who you were." My throat tightens. "Were you scared?"
The answer comes not from the wall, but from memory. Dad's voice in my head, clear as the day he said it: "Courage isn't not being scared, Ry. It's being scared and doing the right thing anyway."
But what's the right thing here?
The NHL is glory. Achievement. Everything a kid could dream about.
But staying? Staying is purpose. It's choosing the people who matter over the dream that might not. It's deciding that being a big deal in a small town means more than being anonymous in a big league.
Dad didn't chase glory. He chose purpose.
He could've been anything—he was smart enough, driven enough. But he chose the fire department. Chose this town. Chose being there for the people who needed him over being somewhere else being someone else.
And he was happy. Right up until the end, he was happy with that choice.
I look at the photo. At the soot and the grin and the man who taught me that mattering to the people you love is the only success that counts.
"I know what I want," I tell the photo. "I know what I'm choosing."
The photo doesn't argue.
I stay there on the floor for what feels like hours but is probably twenty minutes. Just sitting with the decision. Testing it for cracks, for doubts, for anything that feels wrong.
It feels right. Terrifying and right.
"Thanks, Dad," I tell the photo.
The grin in the picture seems to widen, but that's probably just the fluorescent lights playing tricks.
When I finally leave the firehouse, it's almost one in the morning.
The championship party's still going at Moosehead Lodge—Jax sent three increasingly incoherent texts demanding to know where I am.
Preston sent four about the Thursday meetings.
Sage sent one that just says "WHERE ARE YOU" in all caps with a lot of question marks.
But my truck doesn't go toward Moosehead Lodge or Twin Pine Cabins.
It just sits in the firehouse parking lot while I stare at my phone.
Two text drafts I've written and deleted:
Me: Can we talk?
Too vague.
Me: I made my decision and I need to tell you before anyone else.
Too dramatic.
I delete both and shove my phone in my pocket.
Tomorrow. I'll tell her tomorrow. Morning. Over coffee. Like a normal person having a normal conversation about completely turning his life upside down.
Except Preston's probably already drafting press releases. The scouts will leak it to their networks. By tomorrow afternoon, the whole league will know Ryder Lockwood got NHL offers. And by tomorrow evening, when I turn them down, everyone will have opinions about why.
Piper needs to hear it from me first. Before Preston spins it into a narrative. Before the town gossip machine turns it into a story. Before it becomes news instead of a choice.
She needs to know I'm choosing this. Choosing us. Choosing the life we could build together if she wants the same thing.
If she wants me.
That's the part that makes my hands shake on the steering wheel. The uncertainty. The possibility that maybe this is all one-sided. That maybe the fake arrangement felt more real to me than it did to her.
But then I remember the way she looked at me in the stands tonight. The tears. The smile. The bittersweet expression of someone watching the person they care about win everything while knowing it means losing them.
She feels it too. I know she does.
I just have to tell her before someone else does.
My phone buzzes. Preston:
Preston: ESPN wants a comment about tonight's performance. What should I tell them?
I stare at the message, then at the firehouse behind me, then at the road that leads either back to the cabins or toward Moosehead Lodge and the celebration. I ignore his text.
First thing in the morning, I'll go to her cabin, wake her up if I have to, and tell her everything. The NHL offers. The lieutenant promotion. The choice I'm making.
The fact that I'm completely, terrifyingly in love with her.
I pull out of the parking lot and head toward home, phone notifications still buzzing in my pocket, championship trophy still sitting in the arena, and the biggest conversation of my life waiting twenty-three feet away from my front door.
The cabin's dark when I pull up. Piper's light is off. She's asleep.
Good. She should rest. Tomorrow's going to be complicated enough.
I let myself into my cabin and sit on the couch without turning on any lights. Through the window, I can see her place—dark and quiet and close enough to touch if I just walked across the driveway.
My phone buzzes again. Sage this time:
Sage: You better not be having a crisis alone in the dark. That's what sisters are for.
I text back:
Me: I'm fine.
Sage: Liar. But I'll let you be a liar tonight because you won and I'm proud of you.
Then:
Sage: Whatever you're deciding, choose what makes you happy. Not what you think you should want.
I stare at that message for a long time.
Choose what makes you happy.
The NHL would make a lot of people happy. Preston. The scouts. Every coach who ever believed in me. Dad would've been proud. Mom will probably cry either way.
But staying? Staying makes me happy. Being lieutenant like Dad was. Fighting fires. Mattering to the people who matter to me.
Being with Piper.
I set my phone on the coffee table and lean back, staring at the ceiling in the dark.
Tomorrow. I'll tell her tomorrow. Before anyone else can. Before the world weighs in. Before this becomes anything other than what it is—a man choosing the life he wants over the life everyone expected.