Chapter 32
Cillian
Brennan comes tearing down the wing with the puck and I meet him at the boards with every ounce of strength I have left, the glass rattling with the force of the hit as we both slam into the partition.
He tries to pin me with his weight, but I shove off his chest and the puck pops loose into the neutral zone.
Jonesy chips it out toward safety, and the shift finally ends.
The arena is a wall of sound, a full house tonight vibrating with a mix of cheers and boos.
Somewhere in the din, Whelan is shouting instructions, but I barely hear him.
Brennan slides away with a smug grin I can see even through his cage, his entire posture practically radiating a challenge that reminds me of everything I stand to lose tonight.
"O'Rourke, you're finished," he barks as he passes our bench, his voice jagged with a confidence that grates on my last nerve.
Game seven of the Stanley Cup Final. Tied series, three wins each, and whoever takes tonight takes everything.
We're down a goal, because midway through the first Brennan threaded a shot through traffic that Sam never had a prayer on.
He celebrated to the crowd, basking in the glory while I felt the pressure mounting.
Being down early is only making the climb feel harder, the weight of the moment beginning to settle in my gut.
I scan the stands for my family, all four sisters and Mam and Dad cheering from their seats, but my gaze keeps catching on that one empty chair where Margot should be.
I try not to let the disappointment get to me again and instead focus on the ice, but the frustration is starting to bleed into my game.
The pace is getting faster as we circle round, a quick pass to Jonesy nearly going astray as the play moves into their zone.
I'm trying to find that old icy calm that used to come to me so easily, but the more I search for it, the more the agitation takes hold, the stakes of the night feeling heavier with every passing second.
The game is moving at a frantic clip, and Brennan is racing for a loose puck when he gives me a sharp, mocking look. Then, at the last possible second, he turns his frame and drives directly into my knee. The fucking old injury.
A bolt of white-hot pain shoots through the joint and I go down, watching as that bastard skates off unbothered. A round of boos and whistles echoes from the crowd as I get back to my feet, but the officials weren't looking Brennan's way and they let the play continue. Fuck's sake.
Jonesy is already shouting at the nearest linesman. "That was a fucking dirty move!"
"Aye, it was, but they're not going to call it," I growl out through gritted teeth, trying to shake the ache out of my leg.
"Fuck. He's getting sloppy and he doesn't want you to find your rhythm," Jonesy says, his jaw set. "The guy fights so fucking dirty; it's the only reason he's gotten this far."
I watch him skate toward their bench, my blood officially at a boil. Fuck this.
The game intensifies, a relentless exchange of hits and chances as the clock bleeds out. Then, late in the third, Betts hammers one home off a goalmouth scramble and the building comes apart. Just like that, we're level.
Jonesy finds a lane, Sam robbing a goal at the other end with a glove save that defies physics. Tom clears the zone, and we're all leaving everything on this ice. New York is throwing the kitchen sink at us, Brennan leading the charge, and the crowd is a living, breathing wall of noise.
I'm panting, lungs burning. It's a war of attrition, clawing for every inch of ice while my knee pulses with a rhythmic ache, but none of that matters now. There's only the fucking Cup, the weight of the glory we've been chasing, the winning moment you dream of in the garage back home.
"O'Rourke!" Coach bellows from the bench, "Lock in."
I nod, skating back toward the face-off circle, and the building hums with anticipation.
The roar swells like a cathedral hymn, the vibrations moving straight through my skates and into my bones.
The frustration of the hit fades into a cold, hard focus as I lock eyes with Brennan.
I steal one quick glance up at my family, my heart hammering.
She's here.
Margot is on her feet, wearing my jersey, hair falling loose as she jumps in row three. She sees me looking and she isn't just cheering; she's jumping up and down with Fee, matching grins on their faces. She fucking came.
The sight of her hits me harder than any hit on the ice, a surge of adrenaline that makes the pain in my knee vanish. I take a deep breath, in for four, hold for four, out for four, looking at her face and letting it anchor me, then I turn back to the game.
Brennan lines up across from me, but Jonesy and I have the read on him now. We're a unit. He tries to slam me again, but this time I'm ready, and I don't budge.
Overtime is chaos, the pace frantic as we trade chances, sudden death in the truest sense of the words. We scramble in their zone, the puck sliding loose, and the crowd booms as the building begins to shake.
Jonesy is a blur on my wing, Betts is hammering at the point, and the air is thick with the sound of sticks on ice and desperate shouting. I look up and Margot is there, screaming with her whole heart, her face lit with a fire that matches the roar of the arena.
Then, deep into overtime, it opens.
Jonesy nods, touching it back to me, and I see the lane, their defense scrambling to close the gap.
Brennan lunges for me, desperate and late, and I spin past him.
The roar of the home crowd and the jeers from the pocket of traveling New York fans are all falling away into static.
I hear Coach yelling something from the bench, but it's just background noise now.
The whole Final hanging in the balance, narrowing down to this one stretch of ice.
This is what it all comes down to—every early morning, every hit I've taken since those first games visiting my cousins in Canada, the woman I love watching from the glass, my family, my squad, and every bit of stubbornness I possess.
Twenty thousand people are packed into the building but I can't even hear them.
The icy calm floods through me, the noise turning to a distant hum.
I only feel the bite of my skates and the puck flying off my blade.
I cut inside past the last man and shoot for the exact corner I've been aiming for since I was eight years old.
It fucking goes in.
The crowd explodes into a roar that hits me in the chest as my teammates pour over the boards, gloves and sticks raining across the ice.
Jonesy hits me like a freight train, howling, and the rest of them pile on in a chaotic wreck of black and gold.
Somewhere at the bottom of it I'm screaming too, the shock breaking open into pure, unadulterated joy.
"We just won the fucking Cup!" Jonesy is roaring into my ear. Betts is right there too, openly weeping, the tough-guy act gone to ash as he sobs into my shoulder.
"We did it! We actually fucking did it!"
I pull myself out of the pile and look up toward row three. Margot is there at the glass, her eyes shining and glassy with tears, clapping for me and screaming so hard her face is flushed. I've never felt more alive.
Margot
I can't stop crying, the tears coming so fast I can't even wipe them away, and I'm alternating between hugging Fiadh and squeezing the life out of Saoirse, Ellie, and Lily.
Cillian's mom is trying to record everything while weeping herself, his dad is practically glowing with pride, and we are all just a beautiful, emotional wreck.
He did it.
I've never been so proud in my life, knowing how hard he works, how much he trains, and how he carries the weight of it all but somehow still stays so easygoing once he steps away from the rink.
I'm screaming and whooping, and when he spots me I can't stop smiling, my cheeks actually hurting from the effort.
Fiadh pulls me into another hug. "Thank you for coming, Margot. Seriously."
"I couldn't miss it!" I yell back, and that's when the broadcast camera finds us, the red light swinging our way, and there I am, forty feet tall on the jumbotron.
I just keep jumping up and down, pointing at the Renegades jersey I'm finally wearing with zero shame.
Let them fucking talk. Who gives a shit.
Down below, the handshake line is forming, and then the Cup comes out gleaming. They call his name and he takes the Cup and hoists it over his head, screaming at the rafters, and I scream right back. And when they start letting families onto the ice, Fiadh grabs my hand and pulls.
"Come on, they're letting us down!"
We all surge forward in a chaotic, joyful rush onto the frozen stage, my sneakers finding little traction as we navigate the slick surface. The excitement is a physical thing, thousands of people in a blur of black and gold as the players' families begin to pour out from every gate.
I practically collide with Jonesy in the middle of the melee and pull him into a fierce hug, his exuberant shouting ringing directly in my ear. Then I spot Brittany, who's here for Betts, jumping frantically up and down; she grabs my shoulders and we share a breathless, exhilarated scream.
I pick my way toward Cillian, watching him as he's engulfed by his family in a beautiful wreck of limbs. His helmet is off now, dark hair damp and messy, and I hang back for just a heartbeat, letting them have their moment.
He turns to me then, and steps forward, and I know there's a camera somewhere, an audience of twenty thousand, the whole watching world, but it all seems to melt away into static; there is only him and the frantic, heavy beat of my heart against my ribs.
"I'm so proud of you, Cillian," I manage, tears falling and my voice thick with everything I'm feeling. "That was just... you were incredible."
He smiles at me, his own eyes bright and wet. "Ace, you've no idea how happy I am that you're here."
My heart feels like it might actually burst as I take a shaky step toward him. I almost lose my footing on a patch of ice, but he reaches out and catches me, his hold steady and sure.
"You alright there?" His Irish accent rolls through every word.
In an instant, I'm thrown back to the stone terrace and that first night at the launch party, back when he caught me on the cobblestones and I was convinced I hated him.
I suddenly feel as though time has folded in on itself, every step since that night leading exactly here, and I could almost laugh at how much has changed between that catch and this one. At how right it all feels.
I've never put much stock in fate, or meant-to-be's, or any of it, but standing here on this ice, I think that in every lifetime, I'd find my way to him. Looking up into those deep blue eyes now, I'm so fully and madly in love, and it feels like every single thing has finally come full circle.
He smiles down at me, his gaze heavy and warm. "Ace?"
I look around at the chaos of the arena, the cheering crowds and the flashing cameras, but none of it registers. There is only him, his eyes locked on mine with a certainty that makes my heart ache.
"Listen," I say, needing to get the words out. "I need to apologize for everything."
"You don't need to say a word," he murmurs, brushing my cheek.
"I do," I insist, feeling flustered and a touch frantic.
"It wasn't fair of me to shut you out just because I let a panic attack turn into a total meltdown.
I know it's not how a relationship works, and I love you so much, and the last two weeks were just... ugh. I mean, now probably isn't the time for a full debrief, since the whole world is watching, and you just won the Cup, I mean I don’t even know why I’m trying to say all this now when?—"
He pulls me in close, smiling down at me with a tenderness that makes my knees weak, and I finally stop my babbling to just look up at him.
"Margot," he says, his voice low and certain. "I am completely and madly in love with you. The rest, we'll figure out together. All of it."
"I love you too," I whisper, laughing through the tears. "Madly. Completely."
I smile up at him, my soul finally finding its center, and then he leans down and kisses me.
It's warm and hungry and deep, a private world in the middle of the screaming crowd and the families bumping into us.
His arm pulls me in tight, and I kiss him back with everything I have.
It feels like home, like all is right in the world at last.