Chapter 2
Chapter two
Sean
The lights in the press room were merciless.
Bright enough to bleach out the truth if you weren’t careful or expose every single one of my stress-induced gray hairs.
They caught every tired blink, every clenched jaw, and highlighted desperation in high-def, especially the kind you didn’t say out loud.
“We’ll regroup,” I said into the mic, my voice steady despite the miniature aggressive Zamboni driving circles in my chest. “We’ve got one game left. One shot. And we’re going to give it everything we’ve got.”
And maybe I’ll finally sleep.
A row of reporters leaned forward with politely sharpened questions. Most of them weren’t out for blood, but that didn’t make answering easier.
“Coach Murphy,” a guy from The Chronicle started, “tonight was rough. Can you talk about what went wrong?”
Everything, I wanted to say. Every single damn thing, from the pregame meal to the fact that half of my team seemed to have left their brains in the locker room. But I didn’t, because that’s how you get fired.
“Execution,” I answered, going for the word that sounded academically correct. “We hit the third period tied, then lost our legs. That’s all it takes at this level, a mental error.”
And possibly a full moon, or a bad batch of energy drinks.
Another voice: “With one game left before playoffs, a must win, how do you keep the guys focused and not panicked?”
“We keep the vision narrow and simple. Focus is on the next shift, next play; there’s no time to spiral,” I said, though I was spiraling hard, and in my niece’s tutu, no less.
Two more questions, one about goalie rotation, then power play usage, before the PR coordinator stepped in.
“That’s all for tonight. Thanks, all,” she said with calm authority capable of shutting down a riot.
I stepped away from the mic, pulse steady but heavy. Everything tightened in these final weeks: lines changed, blocked shots. You were either hammering in nails or clawing your way out. One game left. Win, and we punch our ticket to the playoffs. Lose, and it was over.
“Sean?”
I turned. Dane, my assistant, hovered near the tunnel. He looked like he’d been run over by the same Zamboni that hit me.
“You’re good?” he asked.
“Could be better. We can’t repeat the mistakes we made tonight. Next one has to be clean.”
“I know. The team’s ready. We need to keep our heads straight,” he said.
“Let’s get some sleep. See you at the team meeting.”
I headed to the lot and sank behind the wheel, staring across the pavement at Golden State Arena. Its silhouette glowed against the night. Glass panels caught the reflection of team colors, fractures and luminous like a cathedral-stained-glass.
It should’ve felt homey, but tonight, it weighed on me.
This was the stretch I loved and hated. The final push, the rush of a playoff race buzzing through my veins in a triple-espresso energy, equally matched only by the threat of it slipping away.
That arena had seen the best and worst of me.
It was a place that could fuel your confidence or rip it out from under you.
Where fan chants echoed could be both applause or judgment, the same stretch of ice that held both victory laps and heartbreak.
I’d watched more boys become men there than I could count, including myself.
And lately, it was also where a memory had taken up space in my head, wedged somewhere between line changes and playoff strategies.
A public skate night five weeks back, a twisted ankle, glassy eyes lit from below.
She’d been completely unaware that she’d managed to throw a professional hockey coach off his stride.
I didn’t mean to remember her. But sometimes, the smallest collisions leave the sharpest, unforgettable impact. After almost three years without a woman in my life—not really living, hockey day in, day out, that woman had been a jolt I hadn’t seen coming.
The streets in Wilhaggin were empty when I turned onto mine. Long driveways and landscaped pride, glowing under porch lights lined the street on each side. Everything was manicured, but nothing felt fake.
I didn’t give a damn about manicured hedges anyway.
Guess that’s what happens when forty-one starts breathing down your neck.
Priorities shift, things get blurry, and suddenly sensible shoes and early-bird specials sound like the highlight of your week.
When I was house hunting last year, fresh from a divorce that ended in more silence than shouting, my agent told me Wilhaggin was about to spike. “Sleeper pocket,” he’d called it.
The divorce didn’t only make me want a different place than the two-story I’d shared with my ex; it rewired what I trusted.
When I toured this place, I liked its clean bones and single story. The retired couple who owned it were eager to cash out and chase sunsets in Arizona. Now here I was. A man living where life dropped him, letting the neighborhood grow around him like ivy.
I parked in front of the house. White trim, black roof, and an L-shaped layout greeted me. The porch light clicked on automatically, lighting up a bright pink tricycle tipped halfway across the walkway.
Cassy had promised to clean up before bed. Figures.
The house was mine alone for a while—my routines, my space, a single man’s sanctuary. Then, two months ago, my sister showed up with bags and a five-year-old. Said she and Jeff were “taking some space. Temporary separation, just until things calmed down.”
My gut clenched as I stepped over the trike and climbed the porch. This couldn’t be a family trend. I couldn’t watch another relationship unravel from this side of the glass, especially not with a kid in the middle.
Inside, the stillness hit. Familiar but not comforting after tonight’s loss. I eased the keys into the bowl, jacket on the hook, and walked to the kitchen. I opened the fridge, then closed it. Not hungry.
“Rough night?”
I turned. Abby stood at the kitchen doorway, hair in a loose braid, sweatshirt too big—probably Jeff’s—making her look perpetually tired.
“Didn’t mean to wake you,” I said.
“You didn’t. I was up.” She walked into the kitchen, leaned on the counter. “I watched the third; it looked brutal.”
I sighed, dragging my hand through my hair. “It was.”
She gave me the same patient look she’d been giving me since I was fifteen and she was five, as if somehow she knew more than I did.
“You’ll get the next one,” she said.
“I better.”
She nodded. “You always do.”
It wasn’t much, but it settled something in my chest. My sister was my support and had been for years.
“You heard from Jeff lately?” I asked, trying to sound less a concerned older brother and more a casual observer.
She hesitated. “Yeah, we talked this morning. He’s out of town.”
I nodded, letting it lie. She wasn’t offering more, and I wouldn’t dig further. When she was ready, she’d open up. The silence that followed wasn’t the easy kind; it crackled with awkwardness until she left for her room.
I dropped into the leather chair in my office and opened my laptop. The footage from tonight’s loss was already queued up, labeled by period and line. I skipped straight to the third period and started the breakdown.
One hand scrubbed the timeline forward, dragging through every missed opportunity. The other stayed curled around a glass of water I hadn’t touched. The first few shifts told me everything I already knew. Sloppy transitions, dead legs, and a defensive pinch we had no business making.
I paused, rewound, and watched again.
“Come on, Porter,” I muttered as if he could hear me through the screen. “You’ve got eyes. Use them.”
I took notes for what tomorrow’s skate needed to clean up. Players moved across the screen, fluidly, leaving sharp-edged shapes on the ice I knew better than the lines on my palm.
Then my focus faltered. That same ice, where a flicker of memory lingered. That woman hadn’t flinched when I checked her ankle. She had held my gaze, steadily, as if telling me she knew how to rescue herself.
Mel. That’s what the guy had called her, and it was enough to make me back off. Maybe he was her boyfriend, maybe not. Either way, I wasn’t about to find out—not with one game standing between us and the playoffs and not with someone who could already be in a relationship.
I shook off the thought and hit pause.
Either I got my guys ready to fight for their season, or we watched the playoffs from our couches with my sister and her pink-tricycle-wielding daughter.
My phone lit up on the desk.
Ben: Watched the press. Solid answers. The boys will show up. You usually bring them back. (Also, how do you manage to look perpetually as if you wrestled with a bear and won? Share your secret?)
I stared at the message a beat longer, a wry smirk tugging at my lips even as the ache of defeat settled heavy in my bones. Wrestled a bear and won? More like got taken down by my own expectations and was currently having a stress-induced eye twitch.
Ben played with me in college and pro. Now he focused on junior talent development, running drills at a high school outside Dallas. We checked in often, especially when the losses weighed heavy.
I set the phone down without replying. Better mood and better reply tomorrow.
The next morning, the plan was simple: review the films and do drills to practice. The real work.
“Let’s walk it again,” I called, standing at the corner of the ice, my stick tapping toward the neutral zone. “Colton, you’re with Asher; Porter and Sergei, hold the line in tight gaps.”
The drill began. Blades carved into the ice, lines shifted, Colton saw the break early, good. Brent baited the defenseman, then launched. The guys spotted it this time; the pass landed a clean stride.
Exactly the read we needed.
We ran it again and again. Each time sharper, tighter, like steel against whetstone, grinding into playoff-ready.
By the end, I could see it in their eyes—no one wanted to be the one who broke the line.
Even Logan, usually first to chirp Asher about his hair, stood silent.
He knew what was at stake for Saturday night.
After practice, I hit the showers with my mind clear for the first time since the loss last night. The tension had been living between my shoulder blades, threading into my jaw, too thick to shake. But today, the boys were dialed in, and that was everything.
That night, I slept hard. A deep sleep that only came after your team answered the call, showed up, and you knew they would again.
The following night, I stood at the rink side with the press after the win. Déjà vu from two nights earlier, except this time I didn’t make it to the conference room before I was intercepted. The lights blared on me, but I didn’t mind.
“We knew we had to show up tonight,” I said into the mic, adrenaline burning under my skin. “Every guy on the rink dug deep. That’s all you can ask for.”
The crowd hadn’t cleared; the arena still pulsed with the aftershock of a playoff-clinching win. Fans were chanting, waving, banging on the glass behind the bench as if we’d hoisted the Cup.
A reporter leaned in with a grin. “Coach Murphy, people are calling this the comeback game of the season. What was the message before puck drop?”
“Simple. Earn it,” I replied.
Sometimes, simplicity is another word for I’m exhausted and have nothing clever left to give.
Before the next question, a shout rang out from the tunnel. I turned just in time to be ambushed. The team charged the ice, skates clattering, gloves slapping helmets. Asher, Colton, and Logan lead the front.
“Coach!” someone called, and then they were on me.
Their arms around my thighs, gear slamming into my ribs as they lifted me in one wild, off-balance motion.
I laughed, deep, cracked open, helpless.
The kind of laugh that emptied your lungs and shed weeks of anxiety in a single glorious exhale, leaving you lighter.
The crowd exploded. Cameras scrambled.
The guys spun me in a circle at center ice, jerseys blurring, noise shaking the rafters. And in the middle of it, my chest felt full. Proud.
This wasn’t the end; it wasn’t even the main goal. But after standing at the edge of a cliff, elimination staring us down, then clawing our way through, the relief was immense.
The win bled into everything that night—text threads, replay clips, articles I didn’t have time to read. Felix Wilson, the team’s president, scheduled a meeting for the following week. No subject line: Monday 10:30 sharp.
That high stuck through Monday.
I jogged toward the stairs that morning, only to stop short at a sign taped to the wall: STAIRWELL CLOSED FOR MAINTENANCE.
Even the building was getting a playoff-level makeover. That stop sign didn’t change my mood because getting hoisted as a freaking trophy in front of half the league was good for morale. It didn’t matter that I’d never live it down; I’d take every damn second of it.
Backtracking to the first floor, I passed the elevators and made a left toward the restroom. Figured I’d stop there before heading up for the meeting.
As I reached for the door, it swung open fast and clipped my knuckles. The air rushed out of me in a surprised whoosh as a woman barreled out.
“Sorry—oh!” She looked up and froze.
So did I.
Our eyes locked. Recognition hit as hers widened, flickering with maybe panic. She looked like she’d stepped into the spotlight and wanted to vanish.
My chest did a strange, funny thing. My instincts knew her before my brain had even finished its coffee. It’s her. The woman from the ice. The one whose boyfriend, or husband, had called Mel.
“Excuse me,” she murmured, already sliding past me, stiffly and quickly. She didn’t look back as she moved fast down the hall. Yeah, she wanted to erase a scene she didn’t mean to walk into.
I blinked after her, then stepped into the restroom. Stalls were opened, all empty. Backing out, I glanced at the door.
No sign. Nothing, but a blank wood panel.
I let out a low laugh and shook my head. So much for a meet-cute. Instead, bruised knuckles and awkward exits, courtesy of the door.
When I walked away a few minutes later, her face lingered in an almost irritatingly vivid image.
That flicker of recognition, the split second of locked eyes.
I was supposed to be thinking about the next game’s strategy, but instead, I suddenly found myself paying way too much attention to every hallway I passed.
She was here. I had no idea why, but something told me if I turned the next corner, I might see her again.