32. Jax
Chapter thirty-two
Jax
Ghost quiet.
Same as it’s been since she named it.
Morning skate is light — systems work, no contact, keep the legs moving.
I run my crease rotations until they’re automatic.
Read the shooter. Track the puck. Reset.
The same thing I’ve done ten thousand times in this building.
What’s different is the quiet in my right hand.
No hesitation. No half-inch. Just the read and the move and the crease exactly where it’s supposed to be.
I know what I’m doing tonight. I’ve known for two weeks.
Nova’s at the counter when I get back from the morning skate.
My shirt. Her coffee. Brick doing the weaving thing between her feet with complete commitment to the bit.
She looks up. “You look ready.”
“Yeah.”
“The folder’s been quiet this morning.”
“Folder’s coming down today.”
She looks at me. “Coming down.”
“Don’t need it anymore.”
Something moves across her face — not the press conference look, the real one, the one that takes a second to arrive. “You’ve been building to that folder since Game 1.”
“Yeah.”
“And now you’re just — taking it down.”
“Served its purpose.”
She looks at her coffee. “That’s honestly the most Jax thing you’ve ever said.”
“Keep it.”
She almost smiles. Goes back to her coffee.
I look at her. My shirt. Her coffee. Her camera bag by the door where it always lands. The plant on the windowsill she bought three weeks ago that I keep accidentally overwatering — still alive, somehow.
She belongs here.
I almost tell her.
Don’t.
She’d hear too much in it, and I’m not sure I’m ready for how much there is.
I go get my gear. Brick follows me halfway down the hall then changes his mind and goes back to her.
Smart cat.
Pregame.
Twelve steps from the locker room door. Left at the equipment room. The smell of ice at the second turn — that specific cold that means something is about to happen.
I get to my stall.
The folder is taped inside my locker door. Seven to one against us. Expert panels unanimous. Hendricks and Cole. Every analyst who wrote us off before Game 1.
I take it down. Fold it once. Put it in my bag.
The door is empty now. Four seasons of keeping track of every person who didn’t believe in this — and now the door is just a door. That’s what it looks like when something has done its job. Not dramatic. Just done.
It served its purpose. I know what it says. I’ve always known what it says.
I just needed to look at it until it stopped meaning anything.
And it stopped meaning anything somewhere between the Conference Final, a tunnel, and a woman who sat down next to me without a recorder and told me the truth.
Thirteen wraps. Left to right. Blocker last.
Ghost quiet.
I go to my crease.
We lose 3-2.
Thirty-one saves. Ghost stayed quiet the whole game — I read every shot, held the wall, made the calls. That’s the part that sits with me after. Not the loss. The fact that I did everything right and it still wasn’t enough.
Their captain deflects one off Aiden’s skate with forty seconds left. Wrong angle, wrong bounce, nobody to blame, nowhere to put it. It crosses the line before anyone can do anything about it.
That’s hockey. I know that’s hockey. I’ve known that for twelve years.
Still have to sit with it.
Final buzzer.
Series tied. 2-2. Two more.
I don’t have to look for her. I just know where she is the way I know where the crease is — not something I check, just something that’s true.
Press area. Left side. Camera at eye level. She’s already looking at me when I get there.
I walk through the room.
She lowers the camera.
“Two more,” I say.
Something in her face. Not pity. Not worry. Just — her. The woman who sat in a tunnel without a recorder and named the thing I’d been carrying for two seasons. Looking at me like she already knows I’m going to be fine.
“Two more,” she says.
Neither of us says the rest of it.
The group chat goes off on the way home.
Brody sends a photo of himself and Sebastian doing something inadvisable with the post-game champagne.
Caption:
professional athletes. Not convincing.
Caleb:
I want it on record that I was not involved
Sebastian:
you were absolutely involved.
Caleb:
I was an innocent bystander.
Sebastian:
you suggested the thing with the—
Caleb:
I was an INNOCENT BYSTANDER
Aiden sends a photo of Aurora laughing so hard she’s crying. Thumbs up. Liam sends a single thumbs up. I screenshot it.
My phone buzzes separately.
Nova:
two more
Me:
Yeah.
Nova:
how are you doing
Me:
Fine.
Nova:
jax
Me:
I’m fine. Ghost was quiet.
Nova:
I know. I saw.
Nova:
get some sleep.
Me:
Yeah.
Nova:
you’re going to win this thing.
Me:
Yeah.
Nova:
goodnight jax
Me:
Night.
I put the phone down. The drive home is quiet, and the house is quieter. Brick’s on the counter.
He watches me from across the room with a look he reserves for people who’ve been away longer than he considers acceptable.
I sit on the couch. He finds me.
“Thirty-one saves,” I tell him. “Ghost stayed quiet.” Brick blinks like that’s not the part he cares about. “And she’s still here.”
That’s the part I mean.
He’s not wondering. He acts like he already knew.
I scratch behind his ear and sit there in the quiet of the house and let the game go. That’s the job — run it until you understand it, then put it down. The deflection off Aiden’s skate wasn’t on me. I know that. The ghost stayed quiet. I know that too.
What I know about Game 5: I’m going to make thirty saves and the wall is going to hold and we’re going to get to Game 6 with everything on the line.
That’s not hope. That’s a read.
The Reapers are good. Fast, heavy, two Cup rings on their top line and four seasons of knowing exactly how much they can get away with before the refs catch up.
Novak is on the third line. Different packaging. Same rot.
I don’t think about him, I think about the crease.
What comes after — the Cup, her, the life waiting on the other side of the final buzzer — that’s the part I can’t run on tape. There’s no footage for it. No shooter tendency, no release point, no angle to study.
Never won a Cup before.
Never had someone I didn’t want to lose before either.
Both of those things are true tonight and I’m going to sit here with Brick and let them be true.
Game 5 tomorrow.
Two more.