26 - Kayla
Kayla
The walls of the bar seemed to pulse with the collective heartbeat of fifty die-hard Surge fans. The air was a thick soup of fryer grease, spilled light ale, and the nervous anticipation that only existed during a close-out game.
I moved behind the bar with a practiced rhythm, popping caps and sliding baskets of fries across the wood, but my internal compass was permanently pointed toward the TV mounted in the corner. And beneath it, perched on the very last stool like a disgruntled gargoyle, was Gabe.
He was officially grounded. No phone, no hanging out with the mistaken identity crew, and definitely no hockey for a week. But I couldn't leave him at the house, not when the Surge were sixty minutes away from the Stanley Cup Finals and not when my trust in him was still a broken thing.
"Wings are hot," I said, sliding a basket of Buffalo medium in front of him.
Gabe didn't even look up. His eyes were glued to the screen, a half-chewed pretzel forgotten in his hand. On the broadcast, Michael was battling in the corner, his jersey bunched at the shoulders as he tied up a Dallas winger twice his size.
"He’s playing too high on the cycle," Gabe muttered, his mouth full of bread. "He needs to drop to the hash marks if he wants the outlet pass."
"He seems to be doing okay," I countered, leaning my elbows on the bar for a rare second of stillness. "The Surge are up 2-1 in the second period, Gabe. I think he knows where the hash marks are."
Just then, Michael threw a hit that rattled the plexiglass on the screen. The bar erupted. A group of guys in the back booth started the Landry! Landry! chant, pounding their fists on the table until the coasters jumped.
Gabe didn't join in the chant, but I saw the small, involuntary smirk on his face. He leaned forward, tapping his fingers against the bar in a nervous cadence that mirrored Michael’s own pre-shift jitters.
I took a breath, wiping down a spot of condensation that didn't exist. My mental list of reasons to be with Michael Landry was currently about three pages long, but the top item—the only one that really mattered—was sitting right in front of me.
"So," I started, trying to sound like I was just making idle bartender talk. "Michael. He’s been around a lot lately. Helping you with your shot, driving you to the rink. What’s the verdict?"
Gabe finally looked at me, a chicken wing halfway to his mouth. "The verdict on what? His slap shot? It’s decent, but he relies too much on his core strength instead of his wrist snap. I told him he needs to follow through more."
I blinked. "I meant as a person, Gabe. Not a coach."
"He’s fine," Gabe shrugged, dipping a wing into a puddle of ranch. "He’s got a cool car. And he doesn't listen to crappy music."
"Is that it?" I pushed a little harder, my heart doing a nervous flutter. "You don't think he’s... I don't know, a good influence? Or someone you’d want to keep seeing around?"
On the TV, Michael intercepted a pass and cleared the zone, the Dallas crowd booing him with a fervor that felt like a compliment. Gabe watched him with an intensity that bordered on reverence, though he’d sooner die than admit it.
"He's okay," Gabe said, his voice flat.
He went back to his wings, completely oblivious to the fact that I was basically asking for his blessing to fall in love.
He wasn't sulking, he wasn't angry, and he wasn't fighting the fact that Michael had become a fixture in our lives. He was just... Gabe. Blissfully unaware that the man on the screen was the reason I’d spent the last three nights staring at my ceiling with a permanent smile on my face.
"So you wouldn't mind if he came over for dinner more often?" I tried one last time.
Gabe snorted, his eyes snapping back to the screen as the Surge went on the power play. "As long as he brings those steaks from the butcher shop and doesn't try to make us eat kale, I don't care, Mom. Shh—watch this. They’re setting up the umbrella. Michael’s going to the point."
I had the opening I wanted, but Gabe was a vault of adolescent indifference.
Couldn’t really blame him, either. The Surge were five minutes away from the end of the second period, and I was exactly where I needed to be: caught between the two most important men in my life, both of them fighting for a win.
The middle of the second period was usually a dead zone, but tonight the bar was a pressurized chamber.
The Stars were surging, keeping the puck in our end for two solid minutes of suffocating pressure.
Michael was out there, his jersey heavy with sweat, his stick active as he blocked a lane and took a stinging shot off the shin guard.
"He’s gonna be bruised tomorrow," I murmured, more to myself than to Gabe.
"He likes it," Gabe said, his eyes never leaving the screen. "He says if you don't leave the ice with a new dent, you weren't really there."
I took a breath, the smell of hops and victory-in-waiting emboldening me. "So, if I... if I started actually dating someone like him. Not just hanging out at the rink. What would you think?"
Gabe finally did it. He forgot the game.
He froze, a half-eaten wing suspended in mid-air, and slowly turned his head to look at me. The roar of the bar faded into a dull hum in my ears as his dark eyes—so like my own—searched my face.
"Are you and Michael an item?" he asked. The word item sounded ridiculous coming from a fifteen-year-old, but his voice was dead serious.
"No," I said, and technically, I wasn't lying. We hadn't labeled the steam-room-fueled fire that was currently burning between us.
"Do you want to be?"
The question hung in the air, heavier than the championship banners in the rafters.
I didn't answer. I couldn't. I just looked at him, my heart doing a slow, painful roll in my chest, waiting for the explosion.
I waited for him to mention the no kissing rule, or to remind me that he didn't need a stepdad, or to throw his basket of wings on the floor and storm out into the night.
Instead, Gabe just looked at me for a long beat, his expression unreadable. Then, he turned back to the TV.
"He’s better than the other guys you’ve dated," he muttered, picking up his wing again. "And he knows how to fix a power play. But you promised you won’t be dating again, so none of this matters."
I stood there, stunned into silence, as the bar suddenly erupted in a deafening, floor-shaking scream. On the screen, the Surge had just scored on a breakaway.
The rest of the game was a blur of adrenaline and spilled beer.
The third period felt like a lifetime, every tick of the clock a countdown to destiny.
When the final horn blared, the Leaky Faucet detonated.
Strangers were hugging, the Landry! chant was being led by a guy standing on a table, and the TV screen showed the Surge bench emptying onto the ice in a chaotic, beautiful pile of gloves and sticks.
It was official. The Surge were through to the Stanley Cup Finals.
I leaned against the back bar, trying to blink back tears of pure relief, when my phone began to vibrate in my back pocket. I pulled it out, my heart leaping when I saw the name on the caller ID: Michael.
I started to answer, but Gabe snatched the phone out of my hand before I could even say a word. His face was alight with an un-grounded excitement I hadn't seen in years.
"Landry!" Gabe shouted into the phone, his voice cracking with teenage fervor as he turned away from me to pace the length of the bar.
"That backhand pass in the third— Did you see the goalie's face?
You absolutely broke his ankles! And that hit on the Stars' captain?
Man, I thought the glass was gonna shatter!
Are you guys coming over tonight? You have to tell me what Coach said in the room—"
I stood there with my hands empty, watching my son talk to the man I was falling for as if they’d been teammates their entire lives.