The Longest Shot (Pine Barren University #5)

Chapter 1

one

ROOK

The arena's overhead lights hit my retinas with the force of a slap, and for a second all I can see is white-hot nothing. Then the world rushes back, and I can see thousands of bodies packed into every available inch of the Devil’s Cauldron, their collective roar slamming into my chest.

I pause at the edge of the tunnel, grinning as the vibration travels through the ice, into my skates, and into my body, powering me up like a battery. They’re chanting my name, but they don't know that this is my drug. My fix. The beautiful, blessed chaos and noise that keeps the silence at bay.

I soak it up. Red and black jerseys create a pulsing sea in the stands. Someone’s holding up a sign that says “ROOK FOR PRESIDENT” with my face badly photoshopped onto Mount Rushmore, while another reads “MARRY ME #31” in glitter.

Jesus Christ, I’m not Taylor Swift. I stop pucks. Sometimes.

The energy crashes over me, each wave helping to loosen the knot that’s been living between my shoulder blades since Maine and Mike graduated and got drafted. Because now, I'm the leader in the room of hockey bros, the guy Coach needs to keep the circus animals in line.

I lead the guys out onto the ice, my moment of indulgence replicated by more than a few of the others on the way out.

Because this is home for many of us, including for me—the one that doesn’t involve my mother’s passive-aggressive casseroles and my father’s third-beer working-man philosophy lectures.

Coach Pearson already stands by the bench, arms crossed but with a smile on his face.

He gives me a subtle nod, the kind that means well done and don’t fuck this up at the same time, but it's no surprise that he's avoiding the limelight.

Win or lose, good or bad, he gives the credit to his players and takes all the flak.

Unlike some others…

As we line up on center ice, a guy who loves the limelight, our athletic director—Art Galloway—strides to center ice with the confidence of a man who’s never encountered a mirror he didn’t like.

His chest is puffed out, his five-thousand-dollar suit benefiting from what I’m pretty sure is a Spanx situation.

“Devils fans!” His voice booms through the arena. “Tonight, we celebrate the beginning of a dynasty!”

The crowd detonates, and someone sets off an air horn that’s definitely banned by arena policy, but security’s not touching anyone tonight. Because this is our house and our night—the banner-raising ceremony for the championship we'd fought and bled for last year.

Galloway’s gesturing now, one meaty hand sweeping toward our bench, then up to the rafters where the championship banner waits. His NCAA football championship ring—which he wears to every game even though he hasn’t played a down of football since the Reagan administration—catches the light.

"We'll hear from our new captain in a minute," Galloway booms, gesturing toward the tunnel, "but first, please welcome back to the Pine Barren ice two of the key architects of our championship season—Maine Hamilton and Mike Altman!"

The roar that follows threatens to blow the roof off the Cauldron. Maine and Mike stride onto the ice in their new NHL jerseys, looking a little bashful as they wave to the crowd and take up position at the end of the line of players, both giving me a small thumbs-up.

Fuck. They look like actual professionals now.

Maine's grin is the same, though, that cocky flash of teeth that used to make sorority girls weak in the knees. Mike looks like he always did—calm, collected, like he's already three moves ahead in whatever game we're playing. Somewhere in the stands, Sophie and Maya are screaming their names.

"Now," Galloway says, wresting back the crowd's attention. "Let me present the best goalie—no, the best captain in college hockey—James Fitzgerald!”

The noise somehow gets louder, which shouldn’t be physically possible. My teammates bang their sticks in a rhythm that matches my heartbeat. Even Schmidt’s doing it, although he looks personally offended by his participation in anything this enthusiastic.

Probably calculating the exact force required for the minimum socially acceptable level of stick-banging.

Galloway walks over—and holy shit, the man moves on the ice with all the grace of a tranquilized hippo—and clamps his hand on my shoulder.

It’s not friendly. His fingers dig into the muscle, and it feels possessive, like he wants to own me as much as he seems to want to own the attention of this moment.

“This is your year, son,” he says, his breath hot against my ear, voice low enough that only I can hear. “Don’t disappoint me.”

The words land in my stomach and immediately start rotting.

But there's no time to respond, because the crowd wants a show.

I push off toward center ice, and the spotlight tracks my movement with predatory precision, the heat from it making sweat prickle along my spine.

The crowd’s energy hits differently when you’re alone in the middle of it—not just noise but weight, thousands of people believing you’re something special.

Something more than the kid who learned to be loud because silence meant danger, my mind reminds me, helpfully.

I grab the microphone from the stand, and it feels good in my hand because this is the easy part. The part where I don’t have to think, just perform. I give the crowd a wide grin and hold a fist in the air, setting off the cheers and applause one more time.

“Holy shit, you guys are loud!” I shout, and the laughter rolls through the arena.

“I mean—” I make an exaggerated glance toward where the university administration sits, all prudish faces and disapproving frowns.

“Holy heck. Family-friendly, that’s me. I've never sworn in my life, just ask my mom.”

More laughter.

God, I could mainline this sound directly into my veins.

“So about this championship,” I continue, skating in a slow circle so I can address the whole arena. “It was a team effort, obviously, which means thanking Leo Cooper for scoring the game-winner. It's honestly the most interesting thing about him, ladies, so form an orderly queue.”

More laughter and an eye roll from Cooper.

“Ben Kellerman, our secret weapon on defense, who last week actually blocked a shot without apologizing to the puck afterward! Progress! By playoffs, he might even hit someone without apologizing! Or at least think about it very aggressively!” I grin at Kellerman.

"Seriously, though, Ben was key to the win…”

The jumbotron finds Kellerman, and his face is so red with heat that it could power the campus for a few hours.

He’s going to replay this moment in his head for weeks, probably while lying in bed at 3:00 a.m., wondering if everyone thinks he’s as much of a disaster as I’m making him sound. He is, but in an endearing way.

“And Erik—” I pause dramatically, pointing my stick toward Schmidt. The jumbotron finds him, and his expression has already settled into weary resignation. “—who celebrated our championship by making a spreadsheet to track our summer workouts! With buffer time for traffic!”

Schmidt just shakes his head, but there’s the tiniest upturn at the corner of his mouth. The crowd eats it up, their laughter mixing with applause.

“But seriously,” I say, and I let my voice drop just enough to signal the shift. The laughter fades to an expectant hush. “This banner belongs to every fan who lost their voice screaming for us. Everyone who believed in Pine Barren hockey when they said we couldn’t compete with the big schools.”

The arena goes quiet—not silent, but that breathless kind of quiet where thousands of people lean forward at the same time—and they're waiting for me.

“And I promise you—” I raise my stick high above my head, “—this won’t be the last one!”

The place goes nuclear. The building shakes. And I gesture for my teammates—both current and Mike and Maine—to join me for the victory lap. Like we did in that fateful game a few months back, we move as one unit, raising our sticks to salute different sections of the crowd.

That’s when I spot Kellerman.

The kid has completely stopped skating. He’s just standing there at the blue line, head tilted back, staring up at the banner with his mouth hanging open. Pure, unfiltered awe. His eyes are actually glassy, the kid totally overwhelmed by emotion even though he was part of the victory.

That was you three years ago, watching Maine and Declan, Mike and Linc, thinking they were gods among mortals.

Now Kellerman looks at me with that same expression. To him, I’m not the disaster who once set his equipment bag on fire trying to dry his gloves with a lighter, or the guy who accidentally locked himself in the bus bathroom on the way to Syracuse.

I’m his captain. His hero.

Christ, the kid has no idea I’m just a really good con artist with quick reflexes.

I cruise over, snapping him out of his trance. “Get used to it, Kellerman! This is just the beginning!”

His face transforms, splitting into a grin so wide it looks painful. “Hope you're right, Rook. I'd love another."

The earnestness in his voice makes something twist in my gut and the weight of his trust sits heavy. He's a loyal kid who'd probably jump off the arena roof if I told him it would help the team, and the responsibility of that is terrifying to me given I'd always had others to look up to and follow.

The ceremony comes to an end, and back in the locker room, it's controlled chaos. Guys are half-dressed, shouting over each other, music blaring. The whole mess is beautiful, the kind of mayhem that fills every corner of your brain so completely that you can’t think about anything else.

That’s when they corner me.

“There’s our boy!” Maine's voice cuts through everything else, and suddenly I’m being pulled into an embrace that smells expensive.

"Hey, Big Time," I grin. "You've upgraded your threads since you got that NHL money…”

Mike’s right behind him. "Dude, you think we pay for any of this shit? If you need a suit or some trainers, please let me know…”

We break into the same easy conversation we've shared for years, even though they're both different. It’s only been three months since graduation, but they already carry themselves differently.

Their shoulders are broader, or maybe they just hold them differently now. They take up more space, claiming it.

“Championship banner looks good out there,” Mike says, but there’s weight in his tone, something that transforms it from observation to expectation.

“Your team now, Rook.” Maine’s hand clamps down on my shoulder. “Your show to run.”

“No pressure though,” Mike adds with a grin that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Just the entire legacy of PBU hockey, a program we built from nothing.”

“Don’t be the guy who fumbles it," Maine says, and even though he’s smiling, we all know he’s not joking.

They leave together, and I watch them go—the giants who used to carry the team, who always knew exactly what to do, or at least that's what it felt like to me. The locker room door swings shut behind them with a definitive thud that echoes off the concrete walls.

The silence that follows is deafening.

One by one, the room empties. First the freshmen, practically sprinting to get to parties.

Then the sophomores and juniors, leaving in groups, their voices fading down the hallway.

Schmidt passes me on his way out, on his phone with his girlfriend, while Cooper just nods, which is his version of an emotional goodbye.

Soon it’s just me and the sound of water dripping from a showerhead.

Plink. Plink. Plink.

The silence starts creeping in at the edges.

My skin feels too tight, and there’s a buzzing in my ears that has nothing to do with the crowd noise from earlier.

I can't stand it, so I need to get out of here.

Maybe find a party, with some noise and enough beer to make everything fuzzy around the edges.

But first—God, this is pathetic—I need to see it again.

When I reach the arena, it's a morgue. The lights have been dimmed to their emergency minimum, casting everything in a sick yellow. Thousands of empty seats stare back at me, accusatory in their vacancy. The ice stretches out in front of me, scarred from our skates.

The silence presses against my eardrums until they ache. This is the silence I’ve been running from since I was seven years old, since I learned that quiet meant the storm was building and someone was about to explode, and that I’d failed in my job as the family’s emotional janitor.

The banner hangs there in the gloom, massive and motionless. Without the crowd’s energy, without the lights and celebration, it looks wrong. Less like a symbol of victory and more like an indictment, because it's everything I’m supposed to be and everything I know I’m not.

One banner is nice. But Maine and Mike got that. Are you planning to do better than them, or are you just keeping the seat warm?

The voice in my head sounds exactly like my father after three beers, not drunk enough to slur, just drunk enough to be a prick. My chest tightens, and suddenly I’m seven again, standing between my parents in the kitchen, trying to make enough noise and chaos to stop the fight before it starts.

With my hands shaking and my heart skipping beats, I turn my back on the banner and practically run for the door. My hand slips on the handle twice—palm slick with sweat—before I manage to wrench it open, and then the door slams behind me with a sound that chases me down the tunnel.

I need noise. I need bodies pressed close. I need music so loud it makes my teeth hurt and beer that tastes terrible but makes everything soft and manageable. My phone’s already in my hand, thumb flying across the screen in a message to the group chat:

Where’s the party? Your captain needs to celebrate!

Three dots appear immediately. Then five. Then ten. Everyone’s responding at once, and the constant buzz of notifications against my palm is the most beautiful feeling in the world. Each vibration is a tiny promise that I won’t be alone, won't be quiet, and won’t have to sit with this feeling.

I practically sprint toward the exit, toward the noise, toward the blessed chaos that keeps the monsters at bay.