Chapter 36
Grant
The arena in St. Louis is hostile territory. Every time we touch the puck, the crowd erupts in boos. Every time the other team makes a move, the cheering swells like a wave trying to drown us out.
I don’t let it affect me.
I’ve played in louder arenas with angrier crowds. At this point, the jeering is just white noise, something my brain filters out automatically. What matters is the ice in front of me, the puck, and the few inches of space around my body I need to defend.
We’re up by one with eight minutes left in the third period, which means they’re going to throw everything they have at us. I can feel the shift in their energy and the desperation creeping into their plays.
“Stay tight!” I hear Sawyer shout.
Their center picks up the puck and starts skating, building speed. Declan moves to cut him off, but the guy slips past with a quick fake-out, and suddenly it’s just him and me.
Time slows down the way it always does in these situations. I track the shooter’s stick, watching for the tell that will give away his shot. My body coils, ready to move in whichever direction I need to go.
He winds up. I see the angle he’s going for and drop low, kicking my right leg out hard to seal the gap between my pads.
The puck hits my pad and deflects harmlessly into the corner. The crowd groans, and it’s music to my ears while my teammates tap their sticks against the ice to show their approval.
But something is wrong.
There’s a sharp pull in my right leg, just above the knee. Not excruciating, but enough to notice. Enough to make my jaw clench as I push back to my feet.
I don’t have time to think about it, though, because the puck is already back in play, and another shot is coming at me. My instincts take over again and I make the save. Then another.
The pain in my leg comes and goes after each play, but we only have eight minutes left, and I’ve definitely put up with worse pain for longer.
Except eight minutes turns into a tied score and five minutes of overtime that feels like forever. I need to get off my leg, but there’s still a game to win. So I push the pain down and focus on the next shot.
By the time the buzzer sounds and we head to a shootout, I’m running on pure adrenaline. My whole world depends on making these saves and keeping the team alive.
Their first shooter comes in fast, but I read him perfectly. Easy save.
The second tries to go high, but I get a piece of it and deflect the puck over the net.
Two down. One to go.
Their third shooter is their captain, and I know from previous run-ins that he’s the best player on their team, by far. He takes his time skating in, and I can see the confidence in every move he makes. He’s done this a thousand times before, and it shows.
He fakes left, but I don’t take the bait. He fakes right, and I still hold my ground. Then he goes high, and the puck is past me before I can react.
The red light flashes. The crowd goes fucking crazy. And just like that, we lose.
I immediately feel the cold, familiar weight of responsibility.
Of knowing that I let my team down again.
Around me, they’re already processing it in their own ways.
Theo slams his stick against the ice. Sawyer skates over to tap his stick against my pads, saying something in a reassuring tone that I’m not even trying to hear right now.
Noah just shakes his head and starts toward the bench.
They’re justifiably pissed off and frustrated. But I know most of them are already moving past it and thinking about the next game, or their next meal, or getting laid at the hotel tonight.
Sometimes I wish my brain worked that way.
Instead, I follow behind the group as we skate off the ice, moving as slowly and mechanically as the robot they always accuse me of being.
I’m replaying every mistake and providing my own harsh commentary. What the fuck was that angle I took on that third shot? Where was my head? Or the way I leaned too far to my left, leaving the top corner of the goal exposed. That split-second hesitation at the end cost us the whole damn game.
I should have been better. I should have read him faster and moved quicker.
My leg is throbbing constantly now, but this sick feeling in my gut is what’s really tearing me up inside.
The locker room is a mix of two parts frustration and one part forced optimism.
I strip off my pads in silence, going through the motions I’ve repeated thousands of times.
Chest protector. Leg pads. Skates. Each piece of equipment gets placed in its designated spot, the routine offering some small measure of control on a night that completely got away from me.
I head straight for the ice bath, lowering myself into the frigid water with a sharp inhale. The cold bites into my skin, numbing everything, including the ache in my knee. I stay under longer than usual, letting the ice do its work.
When I finally climb out and make my way to the showers, I can hear the guys doing their usual post-game analysis. Dissecting plays. Arguing about what went wrong. Planning where they’re going tonight to blow off steam.
“There’s a club on Washington Avenue that’s supposed to be good,” Declan says as I towel off and start wrapping my knee. “My buddy came through last month and said—”
“I’m in,” Theo cuts in. “Anything to forget that third period.”
“You mean the shootout,” Reese grunts.
“I mean all of it.”
I tune them out and focus on getting the compression wrap exactly right. Not too tight. Not too loose. Just enough support without cutting off circulation.
“Man, we needed April and Heather in the crowd tonight,” Theo says, his voice carrying across the room. “Those two are like good luck charms or something. We’ve won, what, the last six games they’ve been at? We were missing the hurricane.”
Every muscle in my body goes rigid.
Hurricane. My nickname for her. The one I use when I want to make her come. The one I use when I’m buried inside her, when she’s falling apart in my arms, when it’s just the two of us and nothing else exists.
It’s mine. She’s mine.
But Theo doesn’t know that. None of them do. To them, it’s just a friendly nickname they’ve heard me use in passing. Something casual and meaningless.
I force myself to keep wrapping my knee, to keep my expression neutral even as that possessive feeling threatens to win out against my good sense.
“Pretty sure our luck has nothing to do with who is or isn’t in the stands,” I say, because I apparently can’t help myself.
“I don’t know, man. The stats don’t lie.” Theo grins. “Maybe we should fly them out to away games.”
“Or maybe we should focus on playing better defense,” I shoot back, yanking the wrap tight.
A few eyebrows shoot up, Theo’s most of all, but the conversation moves on. Now they’re talking about plans for tomorrow’s practice, but I’ve finally tuned out most of their voices. I finish changing in silence, pulling on my suit and thinking back on everything that went wrong.
My team was counting on me to do better and play harder, and I let them down.
There are only two things keeping me sane these days—hockey and Heather. And I feel like I’ve lost a little piece of both tonight.
My hotel room is too quiet.
I toss my key card on the dresser and shrug off my suit jacket, loosening my tie as I move deeper into the room.
My knee is still tender, with a dull ache that moves up my thigh with every step, but it’s manageable.
Nothing I haven’t dealt with before. The ice bath helped, and the compression wrap is doing its job.
The physical pain isn’t what’s bothering me.
I change into shorts and a t-shirt, then sit on the edge of the bed. The loss keeps replaying in my head. That third shooter. The way he’d moved. The angle I should have taken. Over and over, like a shitty film reel I can’t shut off.
I should have had it. That’s the most frustrating part, and the part I keep coming back to. It wasn’t a question of skill. I wasn’t outmatched. I could have and should have made that save.
I reach for my bag to grab my phone charger, and my fingers brush against something small and hard tucked into the side pocket. I pull it out and stare at the tiny elephant keychain sitting in my palm.
I bought it yesterday at the airport after I saw it in one of those overpriced gift shops while waiting at the gate. The elephant is carved from some kind of gray stone, with its trunk raised up like it’s calling to the others in its herd.
Just a stupid impulse buy, but it reminds me of Heather. Of the way she collects these little trinkets and lights up over the smallest things.
My jaw tightens as I turn it over in my hand. I can’t fucking wait to see her face when I give it to her. I know she’ll love it.
I grab my phone and pull up her name, then type out a message before I can overthink it.
ME: Thinking about you right now. Are you still up?
The response comes almost immediately.
HEATHER: Yeah. Thinking about you too. I watched the game.
I exhale slowly and run a hand through my hair. Texting isn’t enough right now. I need more than words on a screen. I need her voice to pull me out of my own head the way only she seems capable of doing.
ME: Can I call you? I want to hear your voice.
Three dots appear, then disappear as my phone starts to ring. I swipe to answer before that first ring even finishes.
“Hey,” she says softly.
Just that one word, and that tight feeling in my chest starts to loosen. “Hey.”
“Rough night?”
“You could say that.” I stand and pull my shirt over my head, tossing it toward my bag. “That third shooter—”
“Was really good,” she interrupts gently. “Grant, you stopped the first two. That’s already incredible.”
“I should have had all three.”
“Contrary to what your teammates might think, you’re not really a machine. Even you can’t stop everything.”
I move to the bed and pull back the covers, settling against the pillows with the phone pressed to my ear. “It’s my job to stop everything.”
“Your job is one of the hardest positions on the ice,” she counters. “You know that, right? Everyone’s counting on you to be perfect every single time. That’s an impossible standard.”
“It’s the standard I set for myself.”
“Maybe that’s the problem.” Her voice is quiet but firm. “You’re incredible at what you do, Grant. The occasional loss isn’t going to change that.”
I close my eyes, letting her words sink in even as my brain tries to reject them. “Sometimes I don’t know what I’d be without hockey.”
The silence that follows stretches just long enough that I wonder if I said too much. Then she speaks, and her voice is softer than before.
“You’d still be a good guy. Funny and sweet when you let yourself be. Amazing with April—she adores you, you know that? You’d still be all of those things. Hockey doesn’t define you, Grant. It’s just something you’re really good at.”
No one’s ever said anything like that to me before. Everyone in my life has always seen me as the goalie first, the person second.
But not her.
“You really believe that?” I ask, swallowing back a wave of emotion.
“I know it,” she says simply. “Because I see it every day.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I just listen to her breathe on the other end of the line.
“I get it,” she says after a moment. “Feeling defined by one thing, I mean. I felt that way for a long time with Steven. I started seeing myself as… I don’t know.
Broken. Damaged. Someone who’d made terrible choices and had to live with the consequences.
It took me years to realize I was more than what happened to me.
That I could redefine myself on my own terms.”
“You did more than that,” I tell her. “You rebuilt your entire life from nothing.”
“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It felt like I was drowning every day.” Her voice drops lower. “Some days it still does. I still flinch at loud voices sometimes, even though I know I’m safe. My brain still tries to trick me even though I know Steven can’t touch me anymore.”
The thought of anyone making her afraid makes me want to pull her into my arms and keep her there. “If he ever comes near you again—”
“He won’t,” she says quickly. “And if he does, I’ll handle it. I’m not that scared woman anymore. But I’m also not going to pretend I don’t still carry pieces of it with me.”
I shift against the pillows and stare up at the ceiling. “I think I know how you feel. Losing my parents changed me as a person, and I’ll always carry that with me. But I’m learning to try not to let that grief define me. Trying to grow with my trauma, not just past it.”
“Maybe we can figure it out together,” she says. “I didn’t know how to let myself be happy for a long time, and it sounds like you didn’t either. But I think maybe we’re learning.”
I close my eyes and let her words settle deep in my chest. “Yeah. Maybe we are.”
Our conversation wanders from topic to topic, as she tells me about April’s latest obsession with making friendship bracelets, and I tell her about the rookie who keeps leaving his gear scattered all over the locker room.
Small things. Normal things. The kind of conversation I never thought I’d want, let alone need.
But with her, it’s different. Everything is different.
“It’s getting late,” she finally says, but there’s no urgency in her voice.
“Yeah.”
We both go silent again, but neither of us tries to end the call.
“Do we have to hang up?” she asks after another minute or two.
“I don’t want to,” I admit.
“Me neither.”
So we don’t. I settle deeper into the pillows, keeping the phone pressed to my ear. I can hear the rustle of sheets on her end, and the soft sounds she always makes when she’s really getting comfortable in bed.
“Tell me about tomorrow,” she says, her voice getting drowsy. “What time is your flight?”
“Noon. We’ll get back around three.”
“Will you come home after?”
Home. The word makes me smile. “Yeah. I’ll come home.”
“Good,” she murmurs. “April wants to show you her science project. Something about volcanoes.”
“I’m already looking forward to it.”
Her breathing starts to even out, getting slower and deeper. I should hang up now and let her sleep, but I can’t make myself do it.
Instead, I just listen to the steady rhythm of her breath and the occasional soft murmur as she moves an arm or a leg in her sleep. Being connected to her like this on the phone, even in complete silence, is intimate in a way I’ve never experienced before and never could have anticipated.
My own exhaustion from the game, from the travel, and from everything else finally catches up to me, and my eyelids start to get heavy.
But I don’t hang up.
I keep listening to her breathe, and somewhere between one breath and the next, I fall asleep too.