Chapter 14 - Carissa #2
The next shift told the same story. Dallas clogged the middle.
Boone cut wide, calling for the puck with a tap of his stick.
Dawson held it a beat longer than usual, then sent it back to defense.
Boone slowed, checked back, frustration flashing across his face even from this distance.
Dallas intercepted. Another turnover. Another rush the wrong way.
I pressed my lips together.
They never played like this. Boone and Dawson usually moved like magnets, pulling the play into shape around them.
Tonight they kept missing each other by inches.
A half-step too far. A pass released too late.
Nothing obvious. Nothing you could point to and say that’s it.
But all the missed chances stacked up. Each small thing nudged the game closer to the edge of coming apart at the seams.
Dallas tested the goalie early. A shot from the point, and another from the slot. Pads kicked out. The crowd rose and fell with every save, tension winding tighter.
Gage threw himself into the mess again. He won a draw clean, tied up two Stars at once along the boards, and freed the puck with his skates. Boone jumped on it and flew down the wing, finally with space. He cut toward the net. Dawson streaked alongside him.
This was it. I leaned forward, only vaguely aware that Henry had clambered up to stand on his seat again.
Boone tried to slip the puck across, but Dawson wasn’t there. He’d peeled off a fraction early, angling for a rebound that never came. The pass skittered behind him to the soundtrack of miserable groans from the crowd. Dallas grabbed it and turned the play on its head.
A Stars forward split the defense and ripped a shot that rang off the post. The sound shot through the arena. The goalie covered the rebound. Whistles. Boos. Boone slammed his stick once against the ice and skated past Dawson without looking at him.
My stomach twisted. This was my fault. It had to be. Whatever line Boone and Dawson usually walked together, I’d knocked them off it. I could see it now, written in the space they kept missing.
Henry tugged my sleeve. “Why do they keep losing it?”
“They’ll figure it out,” I said, even though my own doubts crept in.
The rest of the first period was much the same grind.
Dallas pressing. The Knights absorbed hits and gave them back where they could.
Gage stayed glued to the action, crashing into corners, tying up sticks, dragging the game back from the brink again and again.
He took a hit that sent him into the boards shoulder-first, bounced off, and went right back into the fray.
The crowd fed off of it, breaking off into a chant to lift the guys’ spirits.
He nodded once in the direction of the bench, reading a signal from their coach, then lined up for the next draw.
No goals. Just bruises, a few bloody noses, and cut lips.
The second period came faster than I expected, and the pace didn’t ease up.
If anything, Dallas turned the screws tighter.
A Knights defender went down hard in front of the net.
The puck stayed live. Sticks chopped. Bodies piled.
Gage dove in, and shoved a Stars player clear so the goalie could smother it.
Henry covered his eyes, peeking through his fingers. “Is that allowed?”
I looked at the ref, who seemed okay with it, then nodded. “I guess.”
The misalignment in the Knights’ forward line cost them again a few minutes later.
Boone chased a loose puck into the corner, Dawson circling high, waiting.
Boone tried to bank it back. Dawson hesitated, then cut the other way, reading a play Boone wasn’t making.
Dallas stepped into the lane, took possession, and sent a clean pass up ice.
The Stars broke in two-on-one.
Time slowed just enough for me to see it coming. The shot snapped past the goalie’s glove and into the net. Red light. The arena fell silent for a heartbeat, then erupted with more boos.
Henry slumped. “They scored.”
I swallowed, but didn’t say anything back.
On the ice, Dawson stared at the goal for a long beat. Boone skated past him, mind already on the reset. They didn’t look at each other. Not once.
Gage slammed his stick against the boards as he skated by the bench, a chasm forming in his control.
He went right back out on the next shift and tried to drag the game back by stubborn force alone.
He leveled a Stars defender at center ice, and won another draw.
Then he fired a shot that forced a rebound that nearly tied the game.
The Knights finally answered late in the second period, when it felt as though everyone had given up on a comeback.
A messy scramble in front of the net. No clean lines.
No pretty setup. Gage jammed the puck loose with sheer will and someone buried it himself before Dallas could clear.
The arena exploded, and it felt like the sound ricocheted through my bones.
Henry was on his feet, yelling. I found myself yelling too, hands shaking.
By the horn, the score sat even. One goal each. The ice was carved up. Players skated off slower now, shoulders heavy, tempers barely leashed.
I sank back into my seat as the teams disappeared down the tunnels. My head rang with noise and guilt and the sense that this game was balanced on something fragile. And that it was all my fault.
Henry leaned against my side, finally looking like his ramped up energy was on the wane. I wrapped an arm around him and stared at the ice, wondering how many more small fractures it could take before something broke for good.
The third period burned down to its bones.
Dallas pressed hard, cycling the puck deep, forcing the Knights to collapse and scramble.
Gage stayed in the middle of it, taking hits, throwing bodies off balance, hacking the puck free where finesse failed.
He blocked a shot with his thigh and didn’t even check it before pushing back into the play.
Another rush came fast. He cut it off with his shoulder, skated the puck out himself, and dumped it down ice for a moment to gather the team.
The crowd rode every impact, every cleared puck, every save, noise cresting and crashing in waves that made my ears ring.
The goal came late, almost ugly in how hard-earned it was. A broken play thanks to the ongoing feud between Boone and Dawson. A rebound kicked loose after Gage barreled the net and took two defenders with him. The puck slid into open ice and a Knight buried it before Dallas could recover.
I was on my feet before I knew it, Henry yelling beside me, his hands gripping my arm.
Dallas threw everything they had left at the final minutes, but Gage went into overdrive to keep the lead, stepping into lanes, knocking rabid Dallas bodies aside.
He dragged the clock forward inch by inch.
When the horn finally sounded, the relief hit harder than the need for celebration.
The Knights had won. Barely. And watching Gage skate off, shoulders squared, sweat pouring down his face, I knew exactly who had carried them there.
*
The house had gone still in the way it only ever did late at night when everyone was asleep, when even the pipes seemed to give up and the walls stopped shifting.
Henry was up in his room, already a couple of hours into dreamland.
A sliver of light from the lamp in the hall cut across the living room carpet and stopped short of the sofa, like it knew better than to intrude.
I sat pressed into the corner cushion, knees drawn up, remote abandoned on the coffee table. The TV screen had gone dark half an hour ago. Maybe longer. Time slacked without anything to mark it.
This was what I’d wanted all day. Quiet. Space. The chance to let my shoulders drop.
It turned out to be totally useless.
Without the noise of skates or pressing flight practicals or Henry’s questions about whether actual knights could really fight stars in the sky, everything rushed in.
Boone’s grin, too close. Dawson’s face on the bench, fixed on the ice but never quite tracking the play.
That hitch between them I couldn’t unsee once I’d first spotted it.
Too many missed passes. The two of them suddenly unable (or unwilling) to read each other.
My fault.
I pressed my thumb into the seam of the cushion until the fabric bit back.
This job had been clean on paper. Temporary.
A paycheck, stepping stone with careful lines I hadn’t planned on crossing.
I would’ve understood if Dawson had fired me on the spot that night in the hotel.
It would’ve been easier. A hard stop instead of this dragging unease, this sense that I’d reached between two brothers and pulled something loose I didn’t know how to put back.
I tipped my head against the back of the couch and stared at the shadows playing on the ceiling. My phone lay face down on the table. I didn’t flip it over. I couldn’t bear reading any more of my dad’s apologies that did nothing but reach into the empty stretch where he should’ve been.
The first tear caught me by surprise. It ran down the side of my face, warm and annoying.
I scrubbed it away with the heel of my hand and sat up straight, then another followed, and another, until the effort of stopping felt pointless.
I folded forward, arms around my middle, face tucked into my sleeve to keep the sound in check.
The house held every noise. I couldn’t give it anything to echo.
But it came out anyway. Broken little pulls of breath that shook more than I wanted. Guilt pressed in from all sides. Boone. Dawson. Dad. The way I kept misjudging where to stand, who to trust, what I could afford to want.
I stayed that way until the ache behind my eyes dulled and my throat burned raw. When I finally lifted my head, the room looked the same. Couch. Coffee table. Dark window reflecting a smaller, wrecked version of me.
That was when I noticed the doorway to the kitchen.
Gage stood there, half in shadow, an ice pack pressed against his cheek. Purple bloomed along his jaw where the cut had already started to swell. His other hand hung at his side, fingers loose, like he hadn’t decided what to do with them yet.
“Sorry,” he said, shifting his weight. “Didn’t mean to… I couldn’t sleep. Face was pounding a little louder than usual.”
A huff of a laugh escaped me, thin and embarrassing. I wiped my nose with my sleeve. “You took a beating tonight.”
The ice pack slid. He adjusted it, winced, then tried again. “Why’re you crying? Do I need to beat up anyone? Because don’t let my current state fool you. I totally could.”
His attempt at levity struck me, and made everything worse. The tears started again, and this time there was no stopping the dam walls crashing in.
“I messed everything up,” I blubbered, and once the door opened, it all poured through without filter.
Boone. The night that should never have happened.
Dawson finding out, and how I was sure that was the reason they couldn’t get it together during the game tonight.
My dad not showing up. The dinner I’d so been looking forward to, cancelled.
My voice tangled over itself, skipping ahead, circling back, leaving holes I didn’t care to fill. I wasn’t talking to him. I was wrenching the muck out of me, discarding it so I could stand up straight again. So I could breathe.
Gage’s ears went red somewhere around my confession about sleeping with Boone. He stared at the floor, then the wall, then back at me, jaw working like he was chewing something tough. He didn’t interrupt. He didn’t offer fixes. He just stood there and took it.
When I ran out of words, my chest hitched and stalled. I dragged in air through my nose and waited.
And waited.
The air went icy cool between us. Then he nodded once, and disappeared into the kitchen.
I sagged back into the couch, humiliation settling in. Great. Confess your sins to the one person least equipped to hear them. I’d officially outdone myself. If everything wasn’t ruined before, they sure as hell were now.
Then his voice floated out to me. “Well, are you coming?”