Epilogue
CHIP
The arena was loud before I even got on the ice.
The Copperheads had never been here before.
Two percent. That was the margin we were working inside.
“Today’s a big day,” I said to Sable, who licked my hand.
Yep. Big.
The first period was a chess match with both teams playing for possession, neither willing to give up the neutral zone without a fight, and we went to the dressing room scoreless after one. Coach didn’t raise his voice; he simply pointed at the board and ran through what he’d noticed.
I put my headphones on for the rest of the break and sat with my knees apart, my eyes fixed on the middle distance, which was what I did between periods when my nervous system needed to find its baseline again.
Dane was watching in the same section as usual since this was a home game. He’d texted me that morning.
Dane: I’ll be the one in the red jersey with CORNISH on the back. Look for me. I’ll be loud.
Chip: I’m aware of what a Copperheads jersey looks like.
He had sent back three laughing emojis.
He was there with Morgan, Courtney, and Sully.
Devon had come. Eli had tickets for the row behind them.
I knew all of this because Dane had sent a photo from their seats approximately forty minutes before warm-up, all of them grinning at the camera, Courtney holding a foam finger, and Morgan already eating a pretzel the size of his forearm.
I’d looked at the photo four times.
I hadn’t looked at it a fifth time because I was trying to practice not spiraling into the DR folder when I needed the ice part of my brain switched on.
The DR folder was very full.
Seattle scored forty seconds into the second.
A bad turnover at our own blue line, their center punishing us for it, quick release, top shelf.
The barn went quiet for approximately two seconds, which was the time it took the Copperheads crowd to decide they were furious rather than dejected.
Then they were loud again, angrier than before, and the noise pushed against my helmet like something physical.
I was on the bench. I pressed my stick against my thigh and counted the boards along the far side of the ice.
Cap tapped my shin with his blade. “We’ve got time.”
We have time.
A play developed off a board battle in the corner, when Taft won it and kicked it back to the point; Orly dragged one defender wide with his positioning, and the lane I’d been waiting for opened.
The pass from the point hit my tape clean.
I didn’t look at the net. I’d already calculated the angle, the goalie’s positioning, his tendency to cheat toward his blocker side on back-door plays—73 percent of the time in this postseason—and I redirected the puck along the ice toward the far post.
It went in.
The barn exploded.
I didn’t jump. I didn’t yell. I raised my stick once, short and clean, and my linemates were there—Taft slamming his gloves into my chest, Orly grabbing my helmet.
The boards vibrated faintly under my skates, and somewhere up there, my man in a red jersey was losing his mind.
I didn’t need to see it to know it was true.
We went to the third period tied one-one.
I sat in my stall with my headphones on, eyes closed and ran the numbers.
Their power play tendencies. Their breakout reads.
Fenwick’s glove side on high shots, which was better than his save percentage suggested.
The way their second D pairing was slower on zone exits compared to game one of the series.
Coach was talking. I took the headphones off.
“—everything we have. One period. Leave it here.” He looked around the room. His eyes found mine for a moment. He nodded once, which meant what it always meant: he knew I was processing, and he was letting me.
I put my gloves back on.
Our next goal came at 11:44 of the third on a power play. Two-one.
Cap had the puck behind the net. I was in the high slot.
Their coverage had been collapsing on Cap’s side all period—I’d logged it on seven consecutive sequences—which meant that when Cap held it one beat longer than they expected, their left defenseman pinched, and the right side of the ice opened.
I saw it and threaded it through traffic, clean to Cap’s tape.
He was positioned for a shot, weight back on his heels.
He went to his backhand and put it there, low, hard, under the blocker, and it hit the back of the net.
The barn became something I don’t have adequate sensory language for.
Taft hit Cap first, then Orly, then the bench was emptying.
They were careful with me—no dog pile, space given, helmets and gloves instead of arms around shoulders—but Cap got through all of them and put both hands on my face, which he had never done before, and looked at me.
“That was one hell of an assist, Chip,” he said.
We held them off for the rest of the period. The buzzer sounded—we won. The barn noise rolled over me—I let all of it in.
Within one minute, the ice was chaos. Officials corralling players, the Cup already in motion somewhere toward center, teammates colliding. Cap got the Cup first from the commissioner and lifted it. The sound increased again past the point where I could accurately track it.
I kept my earbuds in my glove. I didn’t put them on.
Cap passed the Cup to Bob, who passed it to Owens, who passed it to Taft, and I skated into the line. When Taft held it out to me, I took it, held it up toward Dane, then I passed it on.
The locker room was champagne, volume, and bodies in various stages of undress. I sat in my stall and peeled off my gear methodically, left side before right, shin guards before skates, and I let the noise run around me.
Taft appeared at my stall a few minutes later with a towel around his shoulders and champagne he hadn’t opened yet.
He had his moments of quiet, and this seemed to be one of them, as he hid himself behind me.
When he was like this, we often ended up talking together about something completely different from whatever overwhelming thing we had going on.
For me, it was the chaos; for him, I don’t know, but he carried depression with him like a black cloak, and sometimes it was too much.
“So, summer break then,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Are you doing anything this summer?” he asked.
“I haven’t decided,” I said and paused. “I mean, we haven’t decided between vacation or us moving in together. Dane agrees that either is good, although we’d like to live together soon.”
“That’s so cool, Chip.”
I nodded. It felt good to have plans being made with the man I loved.
We’d talked about finding a new place to share instead of moving into one of our existing homes, but I’d told him I loved his house, so that was that.
It was either vacation, then moving, or moving, then vacation, but either way, we’d be living next door to Rabbi Greenburg before the new season began.
“Also, some training.” Then I remembered the question I should ask. “You?”
He stared down at the bottle in his hand for a second, turning it slowly. “I feel like I should go home to Hamlin, to see my brother. Haven’t been back to the lake in two years.”
“Family is good,” I said.
Taft looked at me for a moment, then knocked his knuckles once against my shoulder pad still sitting on the bench beside me. “Sometimes,” he said.
Then he was gone, absorbed back into the noise and the spray, recharged enough to get back into things.
I showered. I changed. I sat back down in my stall with my bag between my feet and my hands loose in my lap. I took a slow breath that went all the way to the bottom of my lungs, and I let the noise of the room be the noise of the room without trying to map or reduce or escape it.
Sable was in the family area with Devon, who had her. She’d be fine.
Dane: I’m right outside the locker room. Take all the time you need. No rush.
Dane: Also, I’m crying. Just so you know.
I picked up my bag and headed for the door.
The corridor outside the locker room was the usual post-game tangle.
Dane was standing against the wall at the far end of the family area with Morgan, Sully, Courtney, and Devon, all of them still in their Copperheads jerseys.
Courtney’s foam finger was slightly bent from what I suspected had been enthusiastic use.
Sable was sitting at Dane’s feet, pressed against his shin, her tail moving steadily because she had located one of her people and was content.
She was supposed to be with Devon, but Dane could never resist looking after her when he could.
He saw me before I was halfway across the room and pushed off the wall.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
“You scored a goal and got an assist in a Game Seven.”
“I did.”
“Of the Cup Final.”
“Also correct.”
He exhaled, a long, slow breath that I recognized as the one he used when he was trying to hold himself together. “Chip.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m so—” He stopped. Started again. “I’m so proud of you. Tonight I was watching you out there, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the gym. About forty-two steps. About you telling me forty-two steps in the middle of all that smoke, and I thought—” He stopped again.
“It was forty-three,” I said.
He blinked. “What?”
“The steps. It was forty-three. Cornish Iron is three feet wider in the cardio aisle than a standard commercial gym layout. I knew that. I knew it while I was saying forty-two.” I looked at him.
“I gave you the number I had memorized from a template because it was the only one I could access in that moment. I was running on backup.” I paused.
“I have thought about that a lot. That you carried me out on a number I knew was wrong and I couldn’t fix it in time. ”
He was very still.
“Chip.”
“I know. I know it didn’t matter.”
“It got us out.”
“It got us out,” I agreed. “But I wanted you to know the real one. Forty-three.”
He looked at me for a long moment, and his eyes were doing the thing they did when he was feeling something he hadn’t found words for yet.
“Forty-three,” he said.
“Yes.”
He kissed me.
It was a long one, soft at the start, then not soft, then soft again at the end, and I put one hand on his chest and felt his heartbeat through the jersey fabric, fast and strong.
He pulled back half an inch. His thumb moved once across my cheekbone.
“The guys are going to give us an enormous amount of grief,” he murmured.
I glanced past him to where Morgan was grinning, where Sully had his arms folded and was staring at the ceiling with an expression of deeply theatrical patience, where Courtney was filming us on her phone, and where Devon was throwing us a thumbs up.
“Probably,” I agreed.
“Worth it.”
“Yes,” I said. “Obviously yes.” He smiled as Sable pushed between us, pressing her head against my knee, checking in. I reached down, touched her ear, then straightened.
“Ready to go celebrate?” he asked.
I considered the question. The Cup was in the locker room behind me. My team was in there. Matt had texted twenty-two minutes ago—watching with Lena and Iris, you are an amazing, brilliant skater—and that was on the list now too, number thirty-eight.
There was so much to celebrate.
“In a minute,” I said. “I want us to stay here a minute.”
He settled back against the wall and opened his arm. I stepped into his side, then he put his arm around me, and Sable leaned into my leg. The corridor hummed around us—voices, laughter, someone down the hall already starting a song. I stood in it and let it be exactly what it was.
Which was everything.
THE END