Chapter 12
twelve
ROOK
The nosebleed seats certainly offer a different perspective.
Up here in the cheap seats, you can barely make out jersey numbers, let alone see the puck. The air tastes stale, and the plastic seats have developed that special shade of gray that comes from ten thousand different asses sitting on them over the years.
It's perfect, actually.
A shithole throne for a total fraud of a captain.
I slouch deeper into my seat, the cold plastic biting through my jeans. My knee won't stop bouncing, thanks to that restless energy just having nowhere to go. Two hours ago, I was down there with my team, pissing away our season opener like beer-league heroes.
Championship hangover, Coach Pearson had called it.
He hadn't yelled or screamed because we all know the problem.
We'd been soft, selfish, and undisciplined.
A team of heroes who turned into zeroes.
Pearson had given a long, calm dissection of the game, not sparing anyone or any moment. His voice never raised, and his eyes never stayed on one of us for too long, but I felt like every moment was aimed at me. Not directly—Pearson's too professional for that—but the subtext was clear.
This is on you, Captain, after an off-season of clowning and lax standards.
And the truth is, he's right. A thousand times at practice, I'd let Kellerman get away with some rookie mistake I should have been on his ass about.
I'd let Schmidt try to do everything himself.
I'd let the whole system collapse because I was too busy being everyone's buddy and the loudest guy in every room.
And I'd spent no time actually leading.
The locker room afterward had been a tomb. No music, no jokes, just tape being ripped off shin pads with barely controlled violence. The silence had pressed against me until I wanted to scream, but for once, I'd kept my mouth shut and escaped.
I'd wandered campus, avoiding the texts inviting me to post-game parties, and then the texts that were asking if I was OK.
As my already tired legs turned over, I'd been caught in a blur of self-recrimination.
Only after an hour did I decide I wanted to watch the women's game, so I'd put a hood over my head and entered.
Now I'm here, hiding in the dark like some hockey phantom of the opera, minus the mask and the talent. There's nobody around me, because the women's team doesn't sell out the arena like we do, so all the fans who are here are concentrated in the lower levels while I'm up here, alone in the quiet.
But the quiet doesn't help.
It never does.
It just makes room for yesterday's memory.
Morgan in that towel.
The image hits with physical force. The water droplets still clinging to her collarbone, that flash of pale thigh before she'd yanked the terry cloth higher, the way her wet hair had darkened to burnished copper against her neck. My body remembers too well, even through the self-loathing.
But it's not just the visual that guts me, but what came after. Galloway's thick hand landing on my shoulder, possessive and casual. His eyes consuming her like she was his personal centerfold. The way he'd said kiddo with that patronizing chuckle.
And me?
Well, as his gaze traveled up her legs, slow and deliberate, making sure she knew he was looking, I'd just stood there like a department store mannequin. You know, the kind with the vacant smile, and for the first time in my life, I'd been quiet.
The human foghorn, silenced.
Galloway thinks I walk on water, and I know that one word from me, in that room, filled with those guys, and he would've backed off. I had a whole lot of power in that room and Morgan had none, and I'd used it to do absolutely nothing.
The only other time I'd ever felt that frozen had been that last night with Morgan at the senior-year hockey camp. After two weeks of bliss—top-level hockey during the day, and fireworks with her at night—her gray eyes had locked onto me in the moonlight.
"So what happens when we leave here?" she'd asked, her voice soft.
My chest had seized up and my entire body had frozen, just like it had in that moment with Galloway. The question had hung between us, heavy with possibility, and instead of rising to the moment like I wanted to, I'd deflected with joke after desperate joke.
And watched her close off to me.
Three years later, different setting, same cowardice. I talk a big game when the stakes are low—loud and proud—but if they gave out trophies for consistently failing at crucial moments, I'd have a whole shelf. The summer camp, my debut game as captain, the locker room with Galloway…
Fail.
Fail.
Fail.
"Fitzgerald? Is that you up there?"
The voice cuts through my pity party, and I glance down to see one of the rink attendants—Jimmy, I think—standing at the edge of the lower bowl, squinting up at me through the dimness.
"Yeah, just watching," I call back, my voice hoarse from disuse. "Good to see you, Jimmy."
"The women's team's about to start warm-ups. Are you sure you don't want a seat closer to the action?"
"The view up here is spectacular," I say, forcing my usual grin. "Really gives you perspective on how much gum's stuck under these seats."
Jimmy chuckles and shakes his head. "Well, enjoy yourself, and don't take the loss too seriously."
I give him a mock salute, and he disappears back toward the concourse.
A second later, I hear the sound of skates on ice below, the women's team filing out for their season opener to the tepid cheers of an arena that's only one-third full.
Still, it's not a bad crowd, given they're a brand new team.
But the crowd is the least of their problems.
From up here, their jerseys look like they raided a youth league's lost and found. The numbers are clearly ironed-on, because I can see edges peeling, and they have none of the army of support staff and specialized gear on the bench that the men's team gets.
Part of me wants to leave, because I feel like an imposter here.
And, honestly, the last thing I need is to watch Morgan's team get demolished while I sit here marinating in my failures.
I already feel guilty after she'd been dismissed by Galloway earlier, and a waxing at the hands of Princeton would just top it.
But something keeps my ass glued to this uncomfortable plastic.
The puck drops, and I settle in to watch what I assume will be a massacre.
And five minutes later, I'm sitting forward, elbows on my knees.
They're running a 1–2–2 neutral zone trap.
But it's not the lazy, half-assed version most college teams—male or female—attempt when they're trying to kill the clock.
This is the real thing, which requires every player to know exactly where they need to be at all times and to trust their teammates completely.
Their center—Rachel, I think, who looks like she could check a freight train—forces the puck carrier wide.
Instead of chasing, she drops back to clog the middle.
The wingers collapse in perfect synchronization, creating a wall at the blue line.
The defense—Morgan included—stays home, patient and disciplined.
Princeton tries to force a pass through the middle, but it's intercepted cleanly, and suddenly Morgan's team is transitioning, five players moving as one unit up the ice. And I realize then that they're not just playing a system, they're playing the one I should be implementing.
The one that wins when you don't have the best players.
Which I don't, since Mike and Maine graduated.
Jesus fucking Christ.
A few minutes later, they get called for a penalty, and their penalty kill is perfect. Sticks always in passing lanes, bodies rotating, and always talking to one another. I can hear them even from up here, communicating in short, sharp calls keeping everyone connected.
The other team can't get set up.
They can't get inside the Morgue.
My own team's power play disaster flashes through my mind: Kellerman had been at the point, assigned to hold the blue line, but when the puck rimmed around, he'd chased it instead of staying home.
Their forward walked in, alone and right past where Kellerman should have been, and hit it at my top shelf.
Goal.
I'd slammed my stick against the post hard enough to crack it. Not because Kellerman made a mistake, but because I'd let him think hero-ball was acceptable, and because I hadn't drilled it into him exactly how I wanted that situation to be handled.
But, down there, Morgan's team kills the penalty without allowing a shot.
My eyes find her, and I stay locked on.
She's not the fastest player, her skating is efficient but not pretty, and her stick-work is so-so. But she might be the smartest player I've ever watched. She doesn't chase, she anticipates, and when she has possession, she makes the simple play—the right play—every time.
Never the hero.
When she takes a brutal check along the boards—the kind that should've been called but wasn't—she goes down hard, her helmet bouncing off the glass with that distinctive crack. My whole body tenses, but she gets up immediately and shakes it off.
No complaint. No theatrical writhing. Professional.
The game grinds on, the score stuck on 0–0 deep into the third. It's not pretty hockey, but I'm utterly captivated. Because, while there are no highlight-reel moves and no showboating, Morgan and her team are putting on a masterclass in grinding, systemic, disciplined hockey.
Winning hockey.
With three minutes left, Morgan forces a turnover at the blue line. The opposing defender gets caught flat-footed, and Morgan's past her, driving the net. The goalie comes out to challenge. Morgan doesn't try to deke. The defender catches her from behind, sending her crashing into the end boards.
But before impact, she slides the puck across.
Mills is there, exactly where the system says she should be.
She buries that garbage goal like she's taking out the trash.
1–0.
There's celebration, but it's contained. No hot-dogging. Just genuine happiness for each other, for their system, for proof that doing things right actually works. And, as Morgan skates to the bench and taps Mills's helmet once, it's a thanks and an acknowledgement and a sign of trust.
The gesture punches me in the gut.
They defend the lead for three minutes of hell.
Eventually, Princeton pulls their goalie, and it's six attackers against five defenders who look ready to collapse.
Through it all, Morgan's team bends but doesn't break.
They clear pucks, block shots with their faces, do all the thankless shit that wins games.
On the last gasp shot, Morgan takes a shot off her ankle that has to hurt.
Then the final buzzer goes.
1–0.
The small crowd goes absolutely apeshit, and the team celebrates with exhausted hugs. But there's no victory lap and no grandstanding, just a grateful wave to those fans who came out to watch and the quiet satisfaction at a job very well done. And, a moment later, Morgan leads her team off the ice.
I stay as the arena empties. The lights start shutting off, section by section, darkness spreading toward me.
The maintenance crew will be here soon, but I can't move.
And, soon, I'm the only person in the entire seated area of the arena, a place I've played dozens of games but never seen a more significant moment.
Because I've just watched a real captain lead.
I've watched someone build a fortress from scraps while I'm letting a palace crumble.
She's building an empire with nothing, while I'm destroying a dynasty with everything.
Morgan Riley—the woman I humiliated with shitty jokes, whose resources I've helped steal through complicit silence—is twice the leader I am.
And she did it with iron-on numbers and leftover ice.