Chapter 6
The second game against Vancouver is louder, meaner, and more personal than the first. The arena is packed, the crowd hostile, black and silver jerseys everywhere.
We are leading by one goal early in the second period, but the satisfaction I should feel is buried under something darker. Something I have no right to feel.
Jealousy.
Luca Moreau has been flirting with Cole the entire game.
Every faceoff, every stoppage, every time they skate near each other — Luca is there.
Leaning in too close during line changes, saying something that makes Cole laugh that bright, sharp laugh I know too well.
Touching Cole’s shoulder with his stick.
Grinning at him like they shared something last night that I have no claim to.
I have no right to be pissed.
I was the one who pulled Cole against my chest last night and told him to sleep. I was the one who could not give him more. And yet every time Luca looks at him, my blood burns.
The puck drops again in the neutral zone. Elias wins it cleanly and sends it back to me at the point. I carry it forward, eyes scanning. Cole is streaking up the right wing, still riding the adrenaline high from whatever chaos he and Elias got into last night.
Luca cuts across to challenge him. He overcommits, chasing Cole with that cocky grin still plastered on his face. I accelerate hard, legs burning, and step into the lane with perfect timing. The hit is legal. Clean, but brutal.
My shoulder drives into Luca’s chest at full speed, lifting him slightly before slamming him into the boards with a thunderous crash. The sound echoes through the arena. He folds, his stick flying, breath knocked out of him. The whistle blows immediately.
I stand over him for half a second, breathing hard, staring down at the man who thought he could put his hands on Cole last night. Who thought he could flirt with what is mine.
The crowd boos. My teammates tap their sticks on the boards in approval.
Cole skates over, eyes wide, but there is something else in them too—surprise, heat, maybe even understanding.
“Jesus, Petrov,” he mutters as he passes me on the way to the bench, quiet enough for only me to hear.
“You trying to kill him or just marking territory?”
I do not answer. I just skate toward the penalty box—two minutes for boarding, completely worth it.
I should not feel this possessive.
Luca Moreau is already back on the ice, cockier than ever. The hit I laid on him only seemed to fuel him. He skates faster, chirps louder, and makes a beeline straight for Cole the moment the puck drops again.
Not to score. Not even to play the game.
He times it perfectly — catches Cole along the boards with a hard, deliberate slam. He’s taller, broader in that moment, pinning Cole against the glass with his body, forearm across Cole’s chest. They’re tangled up, sticks clashing, Luca leaning in close enough that I can see his mouth moving.
Cole twists violently, trying to break free, but Luca holds him there a second longer, saying something directly into Cole’s ear.
Whatever it is, it lands. Cole’s entire body goes rigid for half a heartbeat, then explodes with movement.
He spins hard, shoves Luca off with surprising force, and breaks away.
The crowd roars as Cole explodes up the ice. Elias is already there — reading him like they share the same brain. Cole threads a perfect pass through traffic. Elias one-touches it right back, and Cole buries it glove side, top corner.
We go up by two.
From the box, I watch Cole crash into Elias near the net, both of them yelling. But before he skates back, Cole’s eyes find me through the glass. There’s fire in them — anger, adrenaline, and something hotter.
I can’t help it.
I smirk. Just a small tilt at the corner of my mouth, but Cole sees it. His expression flickers — surprise, then that dangerous, bright grin that always ruins me. He taps his stick against the boards as he passes the penalty box, close enough that I can read his lips.
“Enjoying the show, big guy?”
The two minutes end and I step back onto the ice. Luca is glaring daggers at me from across the zone, but I do not care. Let him be cocky. Let him flirt. Let him try.
The third period is a war.
Vancouver is desperate, throwing everything they have at us to try and claw back into the game.
The score sits at 5-3 in our favor, but the energy on the ice is vicious.
I am on the bench for a shift change, breathing hard, my towel draped over my shoulders as I watch the play unfold.
Cole is out there with Elias and the second line, still buzzing, still loud, still dangerous despite the exhaustion I know is weighing on him.
Damian stands beside me behind the bench, leaning heavily on his cane, his eyes locked on the ice with that sharp coach’s focus. But I feel him shift slightly toward me before he even speaks. “Petrov,” he says, low and knowing.
I already know exactly where this is going. We have been friends long enough — through too many seasons, too many fights, too many late-night conversations — that I recognize that particular tone in his voice. The one that says he sees everything and is about to call me on it.
“Don’t start,” I mutter, not taking my eyes off the ice. Cole streaks up the wing, dekes a defender cleanly, and fires a shot that the goalie barely kicks out. My hands tighten around my stick.
Damian huffs a quiet laugh, the sound almost amused. “You nearly took Moreau’s head off in the second. Legal hit, sure. But we both know that wasn’t just hockey.”
I clench my jaw. “He was all over Cole. Again.”
“And that bothers you because…?” Damian lets the question hang, glancing at me sideways. He knows. Of course he knows. He has known longer than anyone else on this team.
I do not answer. Instead I watch as Cole circles back after the missed shot, chirping one of the Vanguard defensemen with that bright, reckless energy that makes my chest feel too tight. Luca is still out there too, still shooting looks in Cole’s direction, still grinning like he has any right to.
Damian taps his cane once against the boards. “You keep playing like that and you’re going to draw more than a two-minute penalty next time. And Cole… he’s been off all day. You two figure your shit out yet, or are you both still pretending the hotel room assignment was an accident?”
I exhale sharply through my nose. “It is not that simple.”
“It never is with you,” Damian says, almost gently. “But you keep watching him like he’s going to disappear, and one day he might actually try to. Just something to think about.”
“You know damn well why I don’t go for him, Kade.” The words taste bitter coming out. The fear. The guilt. The constant shadow of my father’s voice in the back of my head telling me I will only dim anything bright I try to keep.
Damian lets out a quiet huff, almost amused but edged with something sharper. “Sure. I also know if you don’t… someone else will.”
The statement lands like a body check I was not ready for. The image of Luca Moreau’s arm around Cole last night, the way Cole admitted he almost let it happen, the way he looked at me in that hotel bed — drunk, hurt, and still reaching — flashes through my mind.
I reject the mere idea with every fiber of my being.
Without another word, I stand up, grip my stick, and jump over the boards for the line change the second the opportunity appears.
Elias and Cole come flying in for their break, both of them breathing hard, faces flushed from the pace of the game.
Cole’s eyes flick toward me for half a second as we pass — bright, questioning, still carrying the weight of last night — but I do not stop.
I hit the ice with the rookies and Tyler Brooks.
Jace Moreno looks eager but nervous on defense beside me, Tyler is trying too hard on the wing like always, and Noah Kova? is doing his best not to get burned.
The puck drops and I throw myself into the play with more aggression than necessary, clearing the zone with a hard, clean hit that sends a Vanguard forward into the boards.
I should not be thinking about Damian’s warning right now. I should be focused on the game.
But the words keep echoing.
If you don’t… someone else will.
I find him at the bench as we cycle through. Cole is drinking water, laughing at something Elias said. He looks exhausted but alive. Bright. The kind of bright I have been terrified of ruining since the day I first touched him.
Tyler feeds me the puck on the point. I do not hesitate. I fire it hard and low toward the net, creating a rebound that Jace jumps on. The rookies are improving, but they are still raw. I stay back, anchoring them, protecting the zone like it is the only thing I can control right now.
A big Vanguard defenseman crashes the net hard, screening Roman and banging away at a loose puck. Another forward joins the pile, elbows and sticks flying. Roman makes a desperate glove save, but the rebound kicks out dangerously. The arena erupts as the pressure mounts.
From the bench, Shane loses his fucking mind.
“Left! Left! Tighten the fucking post, Roman — move your feet! Jace, clear the goddamn crease, you’re not a statue!
” Shane is screaming, leaning halfway over the boards like he can will himself onto the ice.
“Block the lane! Eyes up! That’s your fucking house, protect it! ”
His instructions are chaotic, half-curses, half-genius — the same unhinged goalie brain that makes him terrifying in net.
And somehow, it works. Roman kicks out a pad on pure instinct, Jace clears the rebound with a desperate poke check, and I step in to hammer the puck up the ice and out of danger.
The whistle blows for a stoppage. I skate back toward the bench, breathing hard, and look at Shane. He is still muttering curses under his breath, looking like he wants to climb over the boards and strangle someone. Roman taps his stick against the post in thanks as he resets.