Penalty Kiss (Cedar Falls Romance #4)

Chapter 1

The Collision

Cam

Five seconds is an eternity when you’re the last wall before your goalie.

Strong side left. I’m low in my stance, knees burning, stick blade eating the passing lane. They’ve yanked their netminder, six attackers flooding our zone like a tide. White jerseys everywhere. The glass trembles with twenty thousand voices. My lungs taste like metal. My legs feel like lit wire.

“Middle!” my D partner barks.

I ride the top of the crease arc, shoulder-check weak side, then square up on the half-wall carrier selling a fake like he’s on commission. I don’t bite. I stay in his pocket, take away the seam, blade quiet, threat loud.

Three… two…

He bumps low. The net-front pest swims across Levi’s sightline and I box him out with a forearm under the ribs, hear him cuss, hear our bench screaming to eat it.

The puck skitters, my inside edge bites, I pin it with a hip and take a cross-check that rings my vertebrae like bells.

I grind back. Make it ugly. Make him hate me.

Whistle? Not coming. No savior. We finish it ourselves.

The puck squirts to my toe. Instinct fires. I twist, chip—glass and out—over a desperate glove. The rink detonates. They corral it at center and sling it back blind. I’m already pivoting, chest over knees, chasing the angle.

The slapshot leaves a trail I can almost smell—hot rubber, angry air.

I angle my blade to eat the line.

A shin pad deflects.

The height shifts a heartbeat before impact.

The puck rides up and kisses the shell of my helmet with the tenderness of a hammer.

Flash. A pop of white behind my eyes. Heat spills under my left brow, a thin track warming its way toward my cheek.

Stay on your feet.

I plant, finish the shift because shutouts aren’t wishes—they’re blood and edges and the promise you make the men beside you: not on my watch.

The horn rips free of the rafters. SHUTOUT VICTORY!

Bedlam.

Arms crush me—wingers, centers, my D partner yanking on my sweater. Helmets slam. Gloves pound. I grin back, feral, feeling the hoarse sound rip out of me. Game 6. We kept them at zero and gave ourselves a heartbeat for Game 7.

Copper floods my tongue.

Levi finds me last, eyes bright, mask tossed back, and he hauls me into the kind of hug that says he knew I’d be there, that I’d always be there. I hear his laugh. I see the cameras spit light. I taste the copper again.

I blink hard. The ice tilts three degrees.

I hand a stick to a kid at the glass because muscle memory doesn’t ask permission, and push toward the tunnel. My edges don’t catch right. Lights smear. Someone slaps my helmet and my skull rings a clear note, pure and mean.

The hallway is two sizes too narrow. The lights are aggressive. My knee doesn’t answer the message I send. A trainer says something I can’t parse.

I make it three steps into the tunnel.

The floor slides sideways.

Everything flips to dark.

Someone says, “Cam—” but it’s underwater, distant, a radio between stations. My knee doesn’t get where I send it. The ceiling jumps down to meet my face. There’s a cool kiss of concrete, and a smear of red that means my face has chosen gravity over dignity.

Lights out.

Sound arrives before light. Hums. Beeps. A lullaby for the concussed.

I surface to fragments: blue gloves fanning my face; alcohol sting; a voice I know doing the concussion script with a steadiness that should be comforting and only makes the shame creep hot down my spine.

“Where are you?”

“Tunnel.” My tongue misfires. “I… think.”

“What period is it?”

“Done.” I try to grin; it feels like someone else’s mouth. “We win. Shutout.”

“What’s your name?”

“You know my name,” I mutter.

“Say it.”

“Cameron.” The way my dad says it when he’s not taking questions. “Wilder.”

“How many fingers?”

“This again?” I squint. The world ghost-tracks. “Two. Maybe three.”

They load me, talk around me, lower voices like my pride is ICU fragile. Hands on my shoulder. A towel pressed to my eyebrow. Ice in a plastic bag that crackles like thunder.

“Hospital,” the team doc says and my chest barks out a laugh that sparks like battery acid.

“It’s protocol, Cam,” he defends.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not.”

The room tilts again. The lights are knives. I shut my eyes and fall.

I open my eyes to a ceiling that’s too white.

My vision swims, then steadies. There's a hairline crack on the ceiling now that runs diagonally like a lazy river. I catalog because it’s easier than trusting memory: the sting of antiseptic in the air, the rasp of cheap sheet against my shins, the ache stitched into my skull.

Where—?

Panic hits like a sharp slap. My chest locks up and my fingers twitch for something to hold. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know—

“Hey there,” a woman says, close. “Easy.”

I turn too fast and the room skews again. A nurse stands at my bedside. Glossy mouth. A badge I should be able to read except the letters slide. She smiles like we’ve met. Maybe we have. I search her face and my mind gives me nothing. A blank where a file should be.

“Don’t force it,” she says softly, hand at my wrist, counting. “You’re safe.”

“Where is safe?” It comes out rough. “Where am I?”

“Presbyterian,” she answers. “Neurology floor.” Then, she adds, “You’re here for observation after a head injury.”

I work a swallow down. “Game… Six.”

“Mm-hmm.” A small smile. “Then a lot of sleep.” She lifts her other hand. “Also, a lot of charming the night shift in your sleep.”

I aim for a grin and land somewhere near. “Tell me it was tasteful.”

“It was adorable.” She squeezes my wrist once, not flirty, more human. “You’re okay.”

I look at her badge again. The letters behave now. MAYA. The relief is so sharp it’s embarrassing.

A name loads. Place loads. Then, panic steps back.

“What did… I miss?”

She breathes in like she’s choosing how much empathy to deploy. “You were admitted for observation after a head injury sustained at the end of Game Six. You slept a lot. You woke up a little. You got sick once. You asked me three times if you were winning Game Seven.”

A small smile. “You didn’t. I’m sorry.”

My heart falls, and guilt sets in. I wasn’t there for my team. I don’t deserve a second Stanley Cup ring.

The cut under my eyebrow twinges. I yank the IV stand next to my bed close to me and squint at the sliver of reflection from the pole. I reach up. Butterfly closures. Tape. Someone’s neat work. There’s a bruise blooming along my temple that’ll photograph beautifully for all the wrong reasons.

“How long was I out?” I ask.

“Off and on since the night of Game Six.” She tilts her head. “Today is… four days later.”

I force a breath down past the catch in my chest. “Team doc say anything?”

As if summoned, the door opens. Three men shuffle in. A doctor I’ve never met, my team doc and my GM. Nurse Maya eases away but stays within earshot, the way nurses do when they care more about people than charts.

My team doc is mid-fifties, calm, a guy who’s seen every sports injury with a poker face and still keeps photos of his kids on his phone to remind himself people aren’t just ligaments. He’s been doing this longer than I’ve been lacing skates. Calm eyes. No drama. He runs me through the script.

Where are we? Who am I? What month? I speed through the answers while the room keeps trying to take a half step to the right.

He lights a penlight and my skull complains like an old hinge.

“Welcome back, Mr. Wilder,” his voice is warm. “How’s the pain?”

“Like I got run over by a Zamboni and then the Zamboni apologized but did it again.” My tongue feels thick; I push through.

“Okay,” he says finally, pen poised. “Let’s talk like adults, Cam.”

“Adults who want me back on the ice tomorrow,” I say.

“Adults who want you to be able to recognize your kids’ faces in thirty years,” he counters, deadpan.

I stare at the crack in the ceiling. “How bad?”

“You took a high-velocity impact to your helmet, had immediate symptoms, then a loss of consciousness in the tunnel.” The doc ticks off on his fingers.

“Since admission: headaches, light sensitivity, nausea, cognitive fog, difficulty with short-term recall, a moment of misrecognizing faces, and… a few episodes of waking disorientation.”

Misrecognizing faces. The word lands like a puck to breastbone.

“So I’m benched.” I keep my tone flat.

“You’re shut down,” the GM says, arms crossed. “We’ll manage messaging. Stay off socials. We’ll protect your privacy and the brand.”

Control the narrative. I want to laugh and also break something.

“How long?” I ask, hating the edge in my voice.

“Could be weeks,” Doc says. “Could be months. It’s not linear. You push, it punishes. You pace, you heal.”

I stare at the ceiling crack until it blurs. “We lost,” I say, even though the nurse already told me.

The GM’s jaw flexes. “Yes.”

Silence does the talking.

My chest tightens. “Levi?”

“Fine,” the doc says. “Exhausted. He sat with you until an hour ago.”

I nod and my head threatens mutiny. “So what does this look like?” I ask the doc. “Day to day.”

“Cognitive rest,” he says. “No bikes to failure, no screaming at your screens, and no pretending your brain isn’t a brain.”

“You’ll likely have—” he glances at the chart, back at me “—headaches, light and noise sensitivity, dizziness, slower processing, and memory lapses. Names. Faces. What you walked into a room for. Under stress, maybe brief blanks—moments that drop out. It’s post-concussion syndrome, better known as PCS. You need to pace it, or it punishes.”

“Best case?” I ask.

“You listen. You recover,” he says simply. “You push, we’re having different conversations in two years.”

The GM clears his throat. “We’ll set you up somewhere quiet. No media. You get better. We evaluate. There’s no timeline… and that’s the point.”

I think of the boys, of sticks thumping the floor, of Coach’s tie undone and that rare smile he only shows when nobody’s watching. I think about Game Seven without me. The one we lost. I think about how empty my stall must have looked.