Chapter 9
Ax
The game against Florida was tight the first two periods, and we are tied going into the third. Florida has ten more shots on goal than us, but thankfully Wolf has been an animal in the net, as his name implies. He’s done one hell of a job stopping those fuckers from scoring.
I leave the ice after a shift and watch tonight’s first line skate hard to make some plays and hold off the attacks of our worthy opponents. Right now, it’s Costa, Canners, Lundy, Brewsky, and Thorny, our playmaker, out there, and they just got the rebound from a deflected shot.
Thorny grabs the puck and they fly down the ice toward the zone, Costa out in front where he receives a quick dish from Thorny.
Canners swings around to the outside of the net as the puck gets passed between Lundy and Brewer.
Then Costa pushes past his defender, grabs the puck and shoots, but it’s deflected off Florida’s goalie.
Fuck. It’s so hard to watch from the bench, wishing I could be in there to help my teammates.
But with his catlike reflexes, Canners reaches out with his stick and catches the rebound, swinging around in front of the net, jamming his stick under the puck, and flipping the biscuit right over the goalie’s shoulder to score.
“Fuck yeah!” I shout along with thousands of others in the arena. Canners bends a knee and raises his stick in the air in a celly. He skates along the boards in his victory dance as the lines quickly swap, and I’m jumping back out on the ice.
“Nice work, Canners,” I congratulate him, giving him a fist bump on his way to the bench. A wide grin expands across his normally serious face. Brett has always been a closed-off kind of guy and rarely shows any emotion outside of frustration when he feels he doesn’t contribute to the team.
Me? I’m the chatterbox of the team. Well, me and Rossy.
Some guys leave it to the ice where they chirp nonstop, but Rossy and I bring it out all the time.
The guys call it getting Axed, and bets have been placed on how long it might take for me to get to the end when I’m telling them a story or a joke.
Except I haven’t shared with anyone that our new team analyst is my ex.
My thoughts go back to when I was leaving Ballas’s office earlier today. He’d called me down to talk about their decision to bring up a new kid from our AHL team and ask me to act as a mentor for him.
I admit, it felt pretty good to be tapped on the shoulder for something as important as that. I’ve always been a little bit on the cocky side. I mean, I was the highest scoring player my rookie season in the league. That means something.
But it’s low-key cool to know Ballas sees me as an unofficial leader on the team, too. He has helped build my skills in that area and for that I’m grateful. He’s taken me under his wing, given me some added responsibility, and guided me into becoming a mature player.
But that doesn’t come close to the level of maturity that Halle must have had to become a mother at such a young age. It still blows my mind.
A mother.
For fuck’s sake, that’s taking responsibility to a whole other dimension. Halle is going on twenty-five, the same age as me, but she’s a freaking mom. Holy shit. That really caught me off guard, just like that puck off the stick I took last season.
Something that feels like a scalding iron to my heart threatens to drop me to my knees when I consider that Halle could still be with Lenni’s father.
The potential thought-spiral is interrupted when I hear my name being called. My head snaps in the direction of Wyatt, my line’s left winger, who pushes the puck toward the zone and is looking for me to get positioned for a hand-off.
I deke the Florida defensive player, stealing past him to arc around the boards behind the net.
Wyatt then dekes his opponent and slaps the puck toward me as I round the left of the goalie.
Schmittie, a D-man, blocks the Florida guy, and with a flick of my wrist, I backhand the puck, sending it sailing past the goalie’s outstretched leg and into the net.
Fuck yeah.
The buzzer horn blows to indicate the goal: my first goal of the game to go with my two assists from earlier.
It brings us ahead by one, with under a minute of play remaining in regulation.
I pump my fist in the air as my line surrounds me in a circle of celebration.
Thumps of appreciation from the boys bump the top of my helmet.
The crowd is on their feet and going wild, the cheers and excitement filling the arena with a deafening noise. I shove my stick in the air over my head and take a celebratory lap, reveling in the smiles of the fans who beat on the glass as I pass them.
Just as I near the bench, I notice two blond pigtails with blue and orange ribbons—our team colors—swinging back and forth and bobbing up and down. I look more closely and see they belong to Lenni, who is being hoisted in the air by her grandfather.
In a spur-of-the-moment decision, I whip off one of my gloves and glide to a stop in front of the glass.
I tap on it and point and wave at her. Lenni smiles shyly and waves, dropping her eyes to Clint for assurance.
He smiles and nods at me, then my gaze travels to Halle, who stands next to him and is wearing a Vikings jersey and clapping along in celebration.
Our eyes meet for less than two seconds.
But in those two seconds of time, my breath is stolen from my lungs, and my heart skips a beat.
It doesn’t matter that the entire arena screams Ax! Ax! Ax!
Or that my teammates are racing to join in my celebration.
All that matters in this moment is that I’m going to make a second chance to be with Halle happen. No matter what it takes.
There is a reason Halle is back in my life, and I will not waste one second of this opportunity.
Logically, I know I have to find out about her relationship status.
And even if she’s single, it’s impossible for us to go back to the beginning.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t find a way to forge something new between us.
Before I skate back to my spot on the bench, I catch Halle’s eye and motion with my glove, pointing first to my eyes and then to her.
And then I wink.