Chapter 19
Blake
There are rivalry games, and then there are nights like this one.
A night where the air inside the arena feels heavier than usual.
An event where every shift of the crowd carries a kind of anticipation that settles into your bones long before the puck ever touches the ice.
One where you know, without anyone needing to say it out loud, that something personal is about to happen, whether you are ready for it or not.
I feel it the moment I step onto the ice for warm-ups.
Not in the noise. Not even in the tension rolling through the stands.
I feel it when Perth skates out from the opposite tunnel and doesn’t look anywhere else before looking directly at me.
And then he smiles.
Not the casual kind, players give each other across the rink before a game starts. Not the respectful kind you exchange with someone you’ve battled against for years. The other kind.
The kind that says he’s already decided how tonight is going to go. The kind that says he remembers the bar. The kind that says he remembers Lisa. The kind that says he still thinks he owns something he never actually earned.
Normally, rivalry noise fades once the game begins.
It turns into something distant and rhythmic that disappears behind the speed of the ice and the instinct of movement.
Tonight, however, the energy in the arena doesn’t fade at all; it sharpens instead, tightening around every shift as if the building itself is waiting to see who breaks first.
I don’t look up toward the stands during warm-ups. I don’t let myself. Because I know exactly where she’s sitting, and if I look at her before the game starts, I won’t stop looking.
The puck drops, and everything narrows the way it always does when the game actually begins.
The crowd dissolves into background pressure while the ice becomes the only real place that exists.
Every movement is faster and cleaner, every pass automatic, every decision already made before my brain catches up with it.
Zane is fast tonight.
Not just sharp.
Not just focused.
Fast in that deliberate way he gets when something matters more than a regular-season game should.
And I know exactly why. Because Perth doesn’t just want this win, he wants control back. And none of us is giving him that.
The puck breaks loose near center ice, sliding clean across the neutral zone before I catch it on my blade.
I cut left slightly ahead of Johnson’s reach, pushing forward with speed that feels almost effortless as the crowd rises around us in a wave of sound that builds with every stride I take toward their goal.
I hear Holt yelling something behind me. I don’t catch the words. I don’t need to. I already know the play. Perth reaches me first. Johnson closes in from the other side a second later. They slam into me at the same time.
The impact lands hard enough that it knocks the breath out of my lungs in a single sharp burst. My body folds forward before I even realize I’m dropping toward the ice, my stick scraping across the surface as the puck slides away from my control.
The arena explodes into boos immediately. Not scattered. Not uncertain. Loud. Unified. Angry.
I stay bent over for half a second longer than I want to. Then Zane’s beside me.
“Are you alright?” he asks.
I nod even though my chest is still catching up with my breathing.
“All good,” I manage. I force myself upright again and give him the same player smile I always give after a hit like that, because that’s what teammates do, we keep moving.
“Let’s do this,” he says.
I smirk.
We reset the play the way we’ve done a hundred times before. We let instinct carry us forward as the puck returns to our line and Zane cuts ahead with speed while I shift my position. I shift it just enough to block the Hawks’ defense from closing in on him too quickly.
Their goalie already knows what’s coming. He squares his stance early. Drops low. Waits. Zane shoots anyway. The puck hits the net clean. And the arena explodes.
I don’t even remember skating toward him before I jump him in celebration. Holt crashes into both of us a second later, hard enough to send all three of us sideways in a pile of sticks and laughter and noise while the scoreboard flashes above us.
“Legend!” Holt shouts.
For a moment, everything feels easy again. Like, rivalry games are still just games. Like the night isn’t carrying anything heavier underneath it.
The rest of the first half shifts exactly the way Coach wants it to. The Hawks grow more aggressive with every shift while we tighten defensively around our zone, forcing them wide, forcing them slow, forcing them frustrated as their passes lose precision and their tempo starts slipping.
Perth gets impatient. I can see it in the way he skates. In the way he hits. In the way he stops looking at the puck and starts looking at me instead.
In the locker room during intermission, Coach’s voice cuts through the noise immediately.
“They are going to come for you,” he says, pointing directly at Zane.
His head is shining. That’s how we know he’s serious.
“They will go for Miller first. Protect Miller and pass to Saxon. Blake, make sure you’re ready.”
“We got you,” I tell Zane automatically.
He nods once. We both know what that means. They’re not playing hockey anymore. They’re playing strategy.
When the second half begins, the arena feels louder than before. The crowd is jumping hard enough that the vibration runs through the boards and into the ice beneath our skates, turning every shift into something heavier than it should be.
The puck comes to Zane early. I see Perth and Johnson closing on him immediately.
He sends the pass to me exactly the way we planned. And that’s when I see the other two Hawks moving behind me. Too fast. Too coordinated. Too deliberate.
All four of them collapse on me at once. The hit lands wrong. Not just hard. Wrong.
Something shifts in my shoulder before I even hit the ice. A sharp, tearing sensation shoots down my arm so suddenly that the sound that comes out of me isn’t controlled at all.
The arena goes silent. And then everything explodes again.
Holt is already fighting their goalie. Zane is dragging Johnson off me. Perth is still there. Still leaning in. Still pushing. Still making sure the damage sticks.
The referees finally pull them away. Too late. My shoulder’s gone. I know it immediately.
“It’s my shoulder,” I tell Zane when he reaches me.
His face tightens instantly.
“It’s dislocated. It hurts,” I admit through clenched teeth.
“Those bastards,” he mutters, looking straight at Perth. Perth’s smiling. Of course he is.
“I can’t play,” I say.
The words feel wrong in my mouth.
“I can’t play. The asshole got me.”
“We’ll win this for you,” Holt tells me as I skate off.
The crowd applauds while I leave the ice. It doesn’t help. Not really. Because I’m not supposed to be leaving. Not tonight. Not this game.
Jenna wants me gone immediately. She tries to tell me it’s the Grizzlies policy, but I refuse.
I stay on the bench anyway, shoulder hanging useless at my side while I watch the rest of the game unfold in slow motion.
Every second stretches longer than it should as Zane throws himself into blocks that should never reach him, and Holt fights for possession like he’s trying to make up for me not being out there beside him.
One minute left. Perth takes a shot. Zane blocks it with his knee. The buzzer sounds seconds later. And the arena explodes.
“We did it!” Holt shouts.
“Where’s Blake?”
I’m already there. Waiting. Watching them skate toward me. They slam the plexiglass hard enough to make it shake.
“I told you we would win!” I shout back at them, because even with my shoulder screaming with every movement, this still feels like the only thing that matters right now.
Jenna steps in again.
“You have to get this checked now,” she says.
She’s been trying to move me for ten minutes. I know it. I just wasn’t leaving before the buzzer.
As she finally pulls me toward the tunnel, I look up into the stands automatically.
Gwen’s there. Tess. Leo. Celebrating. Laughing. Relieved. But Lisa… Lisa isn’t there.
And for half a second, the victory feels incomplete without her.