Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Monty
This isn’t the first time I’ve walked through the Boston Blackbirds visitors’ tunnel.
But it’s the first time since they kicked me out of this building—sorry, traded me—that I have to do it wearing enemy colors and pretending I don’t hear the way the concrete remembers my name.
I’ve won in this arena. I’ve stolen games here. I’ve made this crowd go silent with a single save. Tonight, I plan to do it again.
Not as a goodbye.
As a “fuck you.”
The Blackbirds’ arena is loud for warm-ups, louder than it needs to be, like the building itself is trying to get under my skin before I even step onto the ice. Their fans are already in their seats, already pointing, already putting on their outrage like it’s part of the pregame ritual.
Like the jerseys in their closets didn’t have my name stitched across the back last month.
Trade a goalie and suddenly he’s a traitor.
Fine.
Let them hate me. Hate is predictable. Pucks are predictable. Even hate has patterns if you stare at it long enough and refuse to blink.
What isn’t predictable is being here with a forward who used to be my problem—my constant aggravation, my favorite punching bag—now my teammate.
The locker room hums with that familiar pregame tension: tape ripping, blades clicking on concrete, the low mutter of guys trying to sound like they aren’t thinking too hard.
I sit and keep my mask on my lap. I don’t put it on yet. Not until my breathing is mine again.
Six seconds in through my nose.
Six seconds out.
I stretch the way I always do—slow and methodical, not because I’m calm, but because routine is the only thing that keeps my brain from taking the wheel and driving me straight off a cliff.
Hip flexors first. One ankle across the opposite knee, gentle pressure, a quiet burn. I roll my neck left, right, then drop my chin and feel the pull down the back where tension likes to live. I lace my fingers and press my arms forward until my shoulders protest. Then I release.
I flex my hands inside my gloves. Open. Close. Open. Close.
I check my skates even though I checked them ten minutes ago. Lace tension. Tongue straight. Blade guards off, then back on again because I need something to do that doesn’t involve thinking about the tunnel.
Across the room, Callaway is talking too much.
He always talks too much, but it’s new that I can’t tune him out. New that his voice keeps finding me like it’s looking for a fight or a reaction or something worse—connection.
I hate that.
Belonging to the same team, traveling together, hearing him breathe in the hotel room next door—it’s been exhausting. I need space. I need quiet.
I need my solitude like other people need air.
And yet he hovers close enough to remind me he’s there, but never so close I can shove him away without making it a scene.
I can’t tell if it’s intentional, or if I’m the one losing my grip on what I’m good at.
That’s the part that makes me ache. Because I’ve always hated being moved from team to team, but I’ve never had trouble adjusting. New systems, new coaches, new cities—it’s all numbers and angles and habits.
This time . . . it’s almost impossible.
Two nights ago, I let a stupid goal slip through. It didn’t cost us the game because Callaway scored two and added an assist like he was trying to make the universe apologize on my behalf.
But I still know.
One goal is one too many in my book.
“It’s going to be amazing,” I hear Callaway tell one of the rookies.
Not rookies, technically. First year in the league, but they’ve been grinding for it long enough to earn the right to look tired.
Callaway is wearing the Orcas black-and-white like he was born in it.
It should piss me off.
It does. A little.
Then he grins at the kid and claps his shoulder, and the kid looks like he just got handed a winning lottery ticket, and something tight inside me loosens without asking permission.
Callaway is annoying.
Callaway is also a connector. He makes everyone around him better because he refuses to let the room go quiet long enough for fear to settle in.
My chest feels too full for no reason.
I stand, roll my shoulders, and do the last stretch—forward fold, fingertips grazing my shins, hamstrings pulling. I straighten slowly, letting my spine stack one vertebra at a time. The equipment manager tosses me a look. One of those silent check-ins that says, You good?
I nod because nodding is easier than answering.
Then we’re out.
We take the ice for warm-ups, and the cold hits my face like a slap I asked for. The rink smells like clean ice and rubber and adrenaline, like every game I’ve ever played and every game I’ve ever lost.
The crowd swells when I step onto the sheet.
My blade bites into the ice. I glide toward my crease and take my place, stretching my legs wide, dropping into a butterfly and pushing side to side. Post to post. Edge work. Short pushes. Controlled slides.
Everything precise, contained.
A goalie is not allowed to be anything else.
I’m about to settle in, to lock everything down, when Callaway skates up beside my crease like he owns the damn arena.
He leans in just enough that I can hear him over the roar.
“You ready to break some hearts, babe?”
I don’t look at him. I stare straight ahead like he’s a mosquito and I’m trying not to swat. “Stop calling me that.”
“Make me,” he says, pleased with himself.
My jaw tightens. “You have to stop fucking teasing me.”
“What’s the fun in that?” He winks and skates away like he didn’t just light a match and toss it at my feet.
Asshole, I mutter in my head, because if I say it out loud he’ll grin harder.
I’m going to do something about him one day.
I don’t know what.
But it’ll be something.
The announcer’s voice booms through the arena. The lights feel too bright. The air feels thin in that specific way it always does right before the puck drops—like your body is bracing for impact and pretending it’s normal.
First period hits like a rush of noise and speed. Boston’s top line comes hard, like they’re trying to prove something early.
Dump in. Chase. Hit. Cycle.
They want to see me suffer.
They want to see Alberto ‘Monty’ Wade fold.
Our defense answers. Sticks in lanes. Bodies in the way. A shot comes from the point through traffic, low and ugly, meant for a tip.
I track it late.
I drop, seal the ice, feel it thud off my pad and kick out.
Rebound.
Their winger crashes my crease and jabs at it like he’s trying to punish me personally.
I punch the puck away with my stick and drive my leg into the gap, taking away space, taking away options.
Whistle.
The ref skates in, hand up. “Goalie interference.”
The crowd explodes. Boston’s bench barks. Someone in the stands screams something about my mother.
I don’t react.
Callaway coasts by my crease on his way to the faceoff dot and mutters, just for me, “They’re mad you didn’t roll over.”
I glance at him through the cage. “Focus.”
He grins like focus is optional. Then he squares up anyway, jaw setting, shoulders settling, because when the puck drops Callaway turns into something precise.
The puck hits the ice. He wins it clean back. Our D rims it around and we’re out before Boston can even breathe into their setup.
They come right back.
Relentless minutes follow—Boston pressing, chasing, leaning into every stride like they can force my body to remember who I used to be for them. They want me rattled. They want me reaching. They want me chasing the game instead of owning it.
A mistake opens a seam—one of our wingers gets caught deep, our coverage stretches, and their center slips behind our defense with a step that’s too clean.
Breakaway.
He’s fast.
I know him.
He used to skate on my power play. He used to stand at the half-wall and smile like the game was easy. He used to try glove side just to see if he could make me flinch.
He comes in with his head up, reading me like he thinks I’m still familiar territory.
I don’t give him anything.
I hold my depth. Hold my angle. I make time feel smaller than it is. I let him think he’s dictating the moment while I’m already counting the options in his hands.
Forehand. Backhand. He tries to pull me laterally, trying to get me chase.
I slide with him, chest square, blade flat, refusing to open the door he wants.
He tries to lift it.
My glove snaps shut.
The arena groans like one giant wounded animal.
Someone yells my name with a full-bodied “fuck you” attached to it.
I shrug while keeping the puck in my glove until the whistle because I’m not giving them anything. Not a rebound. Not a second chance. Not an inch.
When I look up, Callaway is at the top of the circles, watching me.
His mouth quirks like he’s impressed, then he winks.
That wink.
The one he gives Vesper when she’s annoyed and he thinks she’s adorable anyway.
My stomach does something stupid. A twist. A flip.
I hate that it happens.
I hate more that it makes me think of her—of the way she jokes when she’s scared, the way she covers fear in sarcasm like it’s armor, the way her eyes go too bright when she’s trying not to cry.
Not now.
I can’t afford that now.
Faceoff in our end. We clear. Line change.
Then Callaway’s line hops the boards with purpose and I feel the game shift the way you feel weather change before rain—something building, inevitable.
He takes the puck in the neutral zone, cuts across the red line, and doesn’t dump it.
He carries it.
A defenseman steps up at the blue line. Callaway delays for a fraction and slips the puck through the guy’s skates like he’s humiliating him on purpose.
He enters the zone with speed, head swiveling.
Our winger drives the net. Their defender follows.
Callaway has a lane for half a second, and instead of shooting—because he could, because he loves a highlight—he dishes it to the trailing defenseman at the point.
One-timer.
The shot hits a stick, changes direction, drops into the crease.
Rebound.
Our winger jams.
Goal horn.
Our bench erupts. Boston boos.
Callaway doesn’t celebrate like a normal person. He points at our winger, then our defenseman, handing out credit as if he’s building trust and becoming part of this team, instead of just scoring.
Then his eyes slide to me at the other end of the ice.
Just a glance that says, We can do this.
I don’t nod, but something in my body loosens, some tight coil in my ribs easing, like my system recognizes that we’re not alone out here.
The next shift, Boston comes harder, trying to respond fast. They run a set play off an offensive-zone draw—quick win back, shot from the hashmarks, net-front screen.
The screen is thick. Two bodies jam my sightline.
I drop into my stance and rely on sound and timing, tracking the puck through sticks, reading the moment.
The shot comes.
Late.
My blocker catches it and kicks it wide.
Rebound pops into the slot.
Their winger is there.
He shoots.
My pad seals and stops it clean.
It ricochets to the corner.
Our defense clears it.
My heartbeat stays level because it has to.
I can do this all night.
Between whistles, Callaway skates by again, close enough that his shoulder nearly brushes my glove.
“I owe you dinner for that save,” he murmurs. “You should cash in this weekend, babe.”
I keep my eyes forward. “You owe me silence.”
He laughs quietly, the sound too intimate in the small bubble of my crease, and I hate that it makes my pulse jump.
Because I don’t do intimacy.
Not here.
Not with him—or anyone for that matter.
I clamp down on the thought.
I breathe.
And I stare out at the far end of the ice, at the scoreboard, at the game I can control.
Because out here, I can be perfect.
Out here, nothing can touch me.
If I keep my mask on.
The period grinds on. Boston tries to wear us down with pressure and hits, trying to make our new roster crack.
It doesn’t.
Our defense communicates. Our forwards track back. Callaway actually backchecks, which I’m going to remind him of later just to watch him pretend he didn’t do it for me.
We get a power play late in the second after Boston takes a lazy hook on one of our rookies.
Callaway lines up on the right half-wall, stick tapping the ice as the puck drops.
Boston’s penalty kill is aggressive. They pressure hard, trying to force mistakes.
Callaway receives the puck, fakes a pass, draws the high forward toward him, then threads a seam pass through the box to the far circle.
One-timer.
Post.
The sound rings through the arena like a bell.
Callaway throws his head back, angry, then resets instantly. He wants the next one.
The puck stays in. We keep pressure. The clock runs.
A shot finally sneaks through and the goalie covers.
The horn sounds.
End of the second.
In the locker room, the air is damp and loud with breathing. Coaches talk. Guys drink water. Tape gets ripped. Gear gets adjusted.
I sit at my stall and stare at my pads, letting my mind stay where it belongs.
Angles.
Rebounds.
Traffic.
A shadow—no, a shape—moves into my peripheral.
Callaway drops onto the bench beside my stall. He’s sweaty, hair damp at his temples, cheeks flushed from the cold.
He looks alive in a way that makes me want to do something reckless.
“Nice job out there,” he says.
I keep my tone flat. “Do your job.”
He laughs under his breath. “I did.”
My eyes lift.
He’s watching me like the locker room isn’t full of people. Like the only thing that matters is the line between my mouth and his.
I hate him for it.
I hate myself for feeling it.
For wanting it.
“You’re tense,” he says, voice softening.
My jaw tightens. “I’m a goalie. That’s the job.”
“That’s not what I mean,” he replies, and the way he says it tells me he remembers everything.
The nights the three of us felt like a secret that could still be safe if we held it carefully.
My glove hand flexes once in my lap.
I keep my voice low. “Not here.”
His grin goes slow and dangerous. “So it’s not ‘no.’ It’s ‘not here.’”
I stare at him until he stops smiling.
Callaway’s expression shifts, a flicker—no, a brief crack—of something human.
He leans closer anyway, just a fraction.
“Boston’s going to target you,” he says, finally talking hockey. “They’re trying to run you. They’re trying to screen you. They want you mad.”
“They can try,” I answer.
“I’m going to make them pay for it,” he says, and there’s no joke in it.
My throat tightens with something that isn’t fear.
“Don’t take stupid penalties,” I warn.
He smirks. “You worried about me, Monty?”
I don’t answer.
The coach calls for attention. The room shifts back into game mode.