Chapter 19 #2
Somewhere behind me, Finn exhales, "Cracking stuff, Coach."
I swipe at my lip as Beck bends down and picks up his gloves. He doesn't look at me. He looks through me, and somehow, that's worse.
He still doesn't get it.
He doesn't get that I've been protecting him from exactly this.
From the hurt, the fighting, the slow unravelling of an entire family all because of one pathetic man's actions.
In a huff, I finish getting dressed and we file into the tunnel. Music is blaring from the arena, and the pulsing blue LEDs and gold letters on the wall glow before my eyes: THEY CAME FOR THE BEACH. WE STAYED FOR THE FIGHT.
Yep. We stayed for the fight alright.
For the first time since I got here, my brothers aren't beside me as I walk the tunnel toward the rink. Beck's ten feet ahead. Mason's ten feet back.
And the one person I actually want to be here, might just have gone into hiding herself.
The tunnel ends, and the world explodes as I burst onto the ice.
The Bear Cave is full.
Every seat, every row, all the way up into the rafters, a heaving wall of blue and gold meets my eyes. I see kids on their parents shoulders, bouncing to the beat of the music and screaming along to the recorded bear roar shaking the glass as I skate close to the boards, taking it all in.
There's a grandmother in the second row holding a sign that says BEACH BUMS NO MORE. Rico's up in section 112 waving what appears to be a foam taco.
It's incredible.
Two months ago we played to four hundred people and a pathetic echo every time we made a pass.
Now Josie has done… this.
She willed this into existence, and my body physically aches with how proud I am of her, and I can't even look at her without the whole building watching me do it.
I look up anyway.
All the way into the VIP box.
And thank fucking Christ.
Josie made it. She's here.
She's wearing a navy dress, her hair down, but her phone is clutched in both hands like a grenade with the pin already pulled. She's not watching warm-ups. She's watching her screen, probably reading the media ambush that's coming right for her.
I want to skate straight up those stairs, drag her out of that box by the hand, and kiss her senseless in front of every camera in this building.
Screw the secret. Screw the timing.
Josie was right all along. We should have come clean, because look where waiting got us.
But then, as I make another loop around the ice, I see the woman beside her.
Josie's mother is what Josie would look like if you drained all the warmth out and replaced it with a country club membership.
She's wearing a pale blazer and a necklace I can see from here. Her posture is like she's being graded on it, arms crossed stiffly so she can't move an inch out of place.
She's not watching the ice either.
She's examining her nails, radiating the boredom of a woman who has already decided that nothing here will impress her tonight.
Fans are losing their minds all around her, screaming and yelling for this team, but Josie's mom looks like she's been waiting for a table at her favorite restaurant for too long.
At least she has no idea what's going on.
That's the thing that turns my stomach.
The scandal's been everywhere for eighteen hours now. Every sports feed, every gossip account on social media. But looking at her now, I'm fairly fucking sure that woman doesn't know what happened last night. Not a damn clue.
And worse, she probably doesn't care that her daughters world is blowing up right in front of her eyes.
The puck drops.
I win the faceoff, and cycle the puck to Finn.
He hits Beck's stick, but straight away, Beck forces a play that isn't there.
He tries to split two Portland defensemen alone at our blue line, but it's angry and reckless.
He's already playing like every shift is a fight with me, and soon, the puck squirts loose, and Sawyer never has a chance.
The red goal light ignites, and within forty seconds, we're losing.
One-nothing Thunder.
The buzz around the arena dies instantly.
"Fuck," I breathe, moving back to center ice.
The loudest building in hockey has gone quiet.
"Beck!" I catch him at the bench. "Simple plays, man. Breathe through it."
"Fuck off. Don't coach me."
"I'm your captain—"
"Yeah," he says, snapping his mouth guard back in. "You're a lot of things."
He shoves past me and falls back into line. I shake my head and try to focus, but the whole first period is a car crash in slow motion.
We're six strangers in matching jerseys. Mason's a half-second late on everything because he's watching Beck instead of the puck. I miss a pass Corbin puts right on my tape.
The whole time, Coach is pacing the bench like a man rehearsing a eulogy.
We're down two-nothing by the first intermission. Then still two-nothing deep into the second.
And then, at the second intermission, with the team huddled at the bench and Coach barking about zone entries, the jumbotron changes and my eyes catch on the giant screen in the center of the rink.
It's supposed to be the fan cam, but the ESPN logo spins in the center of the screen instead.
Oh, shit.
brEAKING: BEARS EXEC'S SECRET AFFAIR WITH CAPTAIN — "SHE SLEPT HER WAY TO THE SELLOUT"
The graphic slams across all four screens.
My face, Josie's face, the boardwalk audio captioned in yellow, and a sneering voiceover: "Sources say Whitfield's meteoric rise had less to do with marketing…
and more to do with the captain's bedroom.
Word out of the NHL's newest franchise is that the female climbing the roster one Morrison at a time—"
The crowd's murmur begins to swirl.
"EYES HERE," Coach Pearson is shouting, physically stepping in front of me, blocking my sightline with his own body. "Morrison, eyes on me. Forget the screen, dammit!"
But I can't help it.
A hundred feet away, in the glass VIP box, I watch Josie's mother read the screen. Her expression changes before my eyes, and I can only sit and watch her turn toward her daughter.
Oh no.
Her mouth starts moving, fast and sharp, and Josie stands up so quickly her chair tips. I can't look away, sitting here helplessly as her mother snatches her purse and storms for the door with Josie chasing after her.
The screens finally cut to a car dealership ad.
But the damage is done.
"Declan." Coach grabs my facemask, forces my eyes down to his. "I need you to focus, son. I know what's going on. I know, son. Give me twenty minutes of hockey, and then you go be whatever you need to be. But right now your team is drowning, and they need their goddamn captain. You hear me?"
I look him in the eye, the building shaking around me. My world shattering around me.
Two months ago I came to this town to feel nothing. Now I'm standing on a bench feeling everything at once.
Beck's hatred, Josie's humiliation, my father's poison spreading through every single person I love. It's agony, it's absolute agony, but underneath the agony something cold clicks into place.
You either got it or you don't, Coach told me once. You read the play three seconds early. That's what makes you special.
And you know what?
He's fucking right. I can read the play.
And I see it now.
Tonight is the moment it all finally clicks into place: she's it. She's the one.
Not a fling, not a complication, not a reckless one night stand. And I know, deep in my bones, that whatever the world throws at us, we survive it. My father's poison, Beck's silence, every disaster stacking up tonight… none of it changes the truth.
And the truth is that even though the world has already swung its hardest punch… I'm still standing. Still breathing. Still here.
I'm not going down without a fight.
Because for me, she's worth it. She's worth every goddamn fight.
Coach is still glaring at me, waiting to see the fire in my eyes.
"Alright, Coach. I got this."
He slams me on the helmet, and the second we take the ice, third period belongs to me.
I win the opening face-off clean and I don't stop. I'm everywhere, killing plays before Portland finishes thinking them, breaking up a two-on-one because I knew the pass was coming, feeding Finn back-door for a goal that brings the building screaming back to life.
We make it two-one. When I skate back after celebrating, the VIP box is still empty.
Josie…
Four minutes later I strip their defenseman at the blue line and find Mason pinching down from the point. Mason shoots and buries it top shelf, then looks at me with a truce in his eyes. Two-two.
The Bear Cave is wild.
Ninety seconds left. Tie game.
We line up for a face-off in their zone, and I look at Beck across the circle. Somehow, he looks back. Whatever's broken between us is still broken… but he taps his stick on the ice with the old signal we came up with in our own backyard as kids.
I'm here.
The puck drops, and I win it back to Beck, Beck walks the wall, and I read the players movements splitting around me. I move quickly, and I'm already there when Beck's pass arrives.
The net opens up in front of me like a door, and… I bury it.
Three-two.
The Bear Cave detonates, ten thousand people becoming one animal. My teammates crash into me, the goal horn shaking the rafters, and the clock runs out.
We've won, we've won, the franchise is breathing again. Our season is still alive…
And I don't care.
I peel out of the pile and from the edge of the boards, Coach is staring at me. I point at the empty VIP box, and Coach, God bless that man, just nods and steps aside.