23. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE #2
She blinks hard. “I tried really hard not to care this much. I promise I would have supported you if you left.”
I smile, letting her have that.
“But I would have been miserable.” She laughs and drops her forehead against my chest.
I kiss the top of her head.
For a few seconds, neither of us moves.
Then she looks up. “What about hockey?”
I knew that was coming. “Nothing concrete.”
Her expression sharpens. “But something?”
“Fuller’s had conversations with a couple AHL people.”
Her mouth opens.
I clarify, “It’s not an offer.”
“That’s still something.” She stares at me. Then a smile starts. “You got into grad school, you’re going to the Frozen Four, and professional hockey teams are asking about you.”
“Teams are generous.”
“And you have me.”
I look at her.
She grins. “That’s obviously the most impressive one.”
I pull her closer. “Obviously.”
I kiss her before she can make it bigger than I know how to handle.
The grad-school news spreads through Hawthorne by dinner because Stanley has no respect for private information.
My parents call that night. My mom cries. My dad tells me he knew I would get in, which is a lie because two weeks ago he asked what my backup plan was.
Gianna’s parents text me.
Benson knocks his shoulder into mine in the kitchen and says, “Guess I can leave now.”
“You were leaving anyway.”
“Yeah, but now she has supervision.”
Gianna stands three feet away, hands on her hips. “Oh, whatever.”
I look at Benson and agree. “She probably needs supervision.”
That night, when everybody finally clears out, I find G upstairs sitting cross-legged in the middle of my bed. My acceptance email is open on her phone. She smiles down at the screen. Then she sets the phone aside.
“Another year.”
I close the door.
She looks around my room. “Are you staying at Hawthorne?”
“I don’t know if I can. I thought I could, but probably not.”
Her expression changes.
“G.”
“No, I know. Seniors leave. Graduate students probably don’t live in hockey houses.”
“Usually.”
She presses her lips together. “That’s weird.”
“Yeah.”
“Who gets your room?”
“No idea.”
I sit beside her. She leans into me, so I put an arm around her.
Then she says, “I’m glad it won’t all disappear at once.”
I know exactly what she means. Benson. Hawthorne. Hockey. Me.
Maybe none of us are ready for all of it to change in the same week.
“It won’t,” I say.
She takes my hand and threads her fingers through mine.
By the time we leave for Vegas, the acceptance email already feels like it happened a month ago.
The Frozen Four takes over everything.
Monday is our last full practice at Camden. Tuesday morning, we fly.
Vegas looks like Vegas from the bus. Stanley points out three things nobody cares about. Owens takes pictures through the window. Some of the guys keep their eyes closed through it all.
When we get to the hotel, Coach and the other staff get our room assignments at the desk. They hand out keys to everyone and tell us what time we’re eating.
Mackey and I are on twelve. Stanley and Benson are on eleven. Percy is with Blue. We have forty minutes before we’re downstairs again.
Wednesday’s the day before, which means it’s all obligations.
Breakfast at eight. Meeting at nine. There’s a media thing at eleven that four of us have to do, and I am one of them, which I’d been hoping to avoid.
It turns out to be twenty minutes at a table with a microphone in front of me, answering questions from people who mostly want Benson Reeve.
One of them asks me what it’s like to be part of the first Camden team to get here in a decade.
“It’s good,” I answer.
He waits for more.
“We’ve got a hockey game tomorrow,” I say.
He writes that down like it’s something.
Practice is at two, and it’s the first time we’re on that ice.
The building’s enormous. It’s an NHL arena, and it’s built like one.
The seats go up and up, and the sound of a puck in it during an empty practice goes off into somewhere that doesn’t send it back.
The ice has the tournament logo at center, and both blue lines are painted with things I’ve never skated over before.
We get forty minutes. It’s flow drills and touches and Percy facing about sixty shots.
Mackey and I do the thing behind the net that we’ve done before every game since November, and he doesn’t change his angle on me, because it’s the day before.
Coming off, he says, “It’s big.”
“Same size ice.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah,” I say.
Gianna lands, and she texts me right away.
Gianna: VEGAS BABY!
There’s a photo attached that is of her and the girls with the Welcome to Vegas airport sign. The same one I took with the team.
Gianna: Aspen has been reading Minnesota’s zone entries for four hours. FOUR HOURS on a plane.
Gianna: My parents are arriving at nine, and they already planned dinner.
Gianna: Where are you?
Me: Hotel. Meeting at 7.
Gianna: Okay.
Gianna: Boyfriend.
I’m smiling at my phone at the end of a hotel bed, and Mackey’s on the other one with his laptop open.
“Gianna?” he asks.
I nod. “Yeah.”
“You two are official?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“Huh.”
I look over. “What?”
“Nothing,” Mackey says. “You make a good couple.”
I look at him. “Thanks.”
I get twenty minutes with G because there’s a family window before the pre-game meal. The hotel’s got a room off the lobby set aside for it, because thirty players have about a hundred and forty people between them in this building. It’s noisy.
Gianna comes across the room in a Camden hoodie with her hair up. She smiles when she sees me.
“Hi, boyfriend.”
I grin. “What’s up, G?”
She kisses me. “Have you eaten?”
“Not yet. Twelve-thirty.”
“What is it?”
“Chicken and pasta.”
“Every time?”
I laugh. “Every time.”
“That’s insane.” She’s got hold of the front of my shirt with one hand. “That’s genuinely insane. You eat the same lunch.”
“It works.”
Across the room, her mom is talking to Aspen with both hands on Aspen’s arm.
“Are you nervous?” Gianna asks.
“Yeah.”
She stops. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t look nervous.”
“What am I supposed to look like?”
She thinks about that for a second and doesn’t have an answer to it. She shrugs, and then she says, “I’m really proud of you.”
I could say something to move that along. There are about four things available.
“Thanks, G,” I say instead.
She nods at me. Then she holds up two fingers. “Two.”
“Yeah.”
“Go eat your chicken.”
Minnesota owns the first ten minutes.
We’ve beaten them twice this season, so they come out looking nothing like the team we saw in January and not much like the one we beat in March.
They’re taking away the middle on every retrieval and sending the second man down the wall before Mackey or I can turn.
Percy sees nine shots before we have five of our own, and by our third shift Fuller is yelling for shorter exits instead of trying to stretch the ice.
It takes us a while to listen.
By eight minutes, Mackey and I are going every other shift against Minnesota’s first line. I get to the bench, take maybe three full breaths, and Fuller points at us again.
Mackey looks over. “Again.”
“Yeah.”
We go.
Minnesota traps us after an icing a few minutes later, and Percy freezes the puck long enough to skate toward the corner while the linesman sorts out the faceoff. He taps the back of my leg with his stick.
“They’re sending the weak side early.”
“I know.”
“No. Earlier.”
I look toward their bench.
He’s right.
The next time the puck goes behind us, I stop short instead of chasing it around. Mackey takes the wall. I stay inside, and Minnesota’s weak-side forward comes exactly where Percy said he would.
There’s nobody there for him.
Mackey strips the puck and moves it up.
Thirty seconds later, we finally get a shift in their end.
Benson loses the next offensive-zone draw, but the puck gets tangled under three sets of skates before Minnesota can get it clean. It squirts toward the wall, and their defenseman tries to chip it out under pressure.
Blue is already on him. He knocks it down with his glove, drops it to his stick, and cuts inside before anybody can close the lane. He has maybe nine feet and a defender coming from his right.
Blue doesn’t wind up. The puck is off his blade almost immediately. Glove side. Net.
Our bench comes up all at once.
Blue gets one stride toward the corner before Stanley hits him from the side. Benson gets there next, then everybody else.
1-0.
Minnesota gets it back three minutes later on a point shot Percy never sees through traffic.
1-1.
That’s how we go to the room.
Fuller is at the board before most of us have our helmets off. Minnesota has changed the forecheck, so we change the exit. Winger comes lower. Center stays underneath. Stop forcing the wall when the wall isn’t there.
“Make them get impatient first,” he says.
The second period gets meaner without getting louder. The long change catches Stanley out for almost two minutes on one shift. By the time the puck finally clears, he misses the open door entirely and skates to the far end of the bench before folding over with both hands on his knees.
I come off ten seconds later and sit beside him. “Great shift.”
“Fuck yourself.”
I grab my water. “Okay.”
Neither of us has enough air to laugh.
Halfway through the period, Minnesota drives wide and sends a puck through the crease. It hits something in front. Percy goes down. Mackey goes down. I lose it completely.
Their bench jumps up. The red light comes on. For two seconds, I think we’re down.
Percy is already waving his glove. “No.”
The officials come together while the building gets louder. The replay goes up on the board: Percy has it underneath him, Minnesota gets a stick in after the whistle, and the puck appears across the line afterward.
The referee waves it off.
The Minnesota side of the building loses its mind.
Fuller is already pointing toward the ice. “Next shift.”
So we go.
At the next whistle, one of their forwards gives Blue a shove between the shoulder blades after Percy covers the puck.