27. Zach #2
Second intermission. I’m sitting in my stall with a towel over my head.
The towel is a wall between me and everything else.
Under it, I can hear my own breathing, and it sounds even.
That surprises me, because nothing about tonight feels even.
The deflection goal is still running in the back of my brain, but I’ve managed to push it down.
The main feed is devoted to the third period.
I need to keep doing exactly what I’m doing and trust that the saves are enough.
Barrett comes in and walks the room through adjustments—defensive zone coverage, faceoff plays, the specific way their power play overloads the right side—and when he passes my stall he puts his hand on top of my head, on the towel, pats once and keeps walking.
Third period.
The first five minutes are scoreless and relentless and I’m locked in. My body knows where to be before I tell it.
Jack scores at 9:47 of the third period on a power play.
He takes the faceoff, wins it clean to Rodriguez.
Rodriguez cycles it low to Dex. Dex sends it back up to the point, and Jack is standing at the top of the right circle with that patience he has—the twenty-year veteran patience that lets him wait a half-second longer than anyone else would wait.
When the lane opens, he puts a wrist shot through traffic that beats their goalie over the glove. 2-1.
The building breaks open. I can’t celebrate at the other end—I can only stand and bang my stick and watch Jack skate into the boards with Rodriguez and Dex and the whole bench. Somewhere above me Mackie is in the family suite screaming.
2-1. Ten minutes to hold it.
They pull their goalie with two minutes left. Six skaters against five. The ice tilts and everything is coming at me, cycle after cycle, shot after shot. I stop the first, then the second. The third one goes wide. I hear it hit the glass behind me, and the clock keeps running.
Ninety seconds. They send it in from the point and bodies crash the net and I can’t see the puck for a full second and then it appears on my left and I throw my glove at it and it hits leather and the whistle goes and sixty seconds left.
Their center wins the faceoff. It comes back to the point, the defenseman winds up, and I read it.
I hold my position. I let my eyes track the puck, letting my body move to where it’s going instead of where I think it should go.
The puck comes off his stick, headed for the top corner.
My glove goes up. The puck hits the pocket. I squeeze. It stays.
The last forty-three seconds are the longest of my life. I stop one more shot. The clock is running down and the crowd is counting. I’m in my crease watching the seconds disappear, and when the buzzer sounds, the noise hits me and for a second I can’t process it before I realize we won.
We won.
I don’t remember dropping my stick. I don’t remember the first person who gets to me, but it’s Rodriguez, because suddenly he’s there.
Helmet off, gloves off, arms around my neck so tight I can barely breathe.
He’s screaming in my ear and I can’t hear it over the crowd, but his face is pressed against the side of my mask and I can feel him shaking.
He pulls back and grabs my face with both hands.
His eyes are wet, and he says “you did it, Z, you did it, you stubborn asshole.” There’s a ferocity in it that doesn’t match a first-round win.
Jack finds me after the handshake line’s done. He’s standing there watching for me in the tunnel. I wait for the pad tap and the “good game, kid.” but neither one comes.
“Hell of a game, Almardon,” he says. And then he pulls me into a hug with both arms. I stand there in my goalie pads, being hugged by the man whose daughter I’ve been sleeping with for months, hugging him back because my body doesn’t know how to do anything else.
And because part of me—the part that grew up without this, the part that spent years in billets and bus rides and empty apartments—needed it. More than the win. More than any of it.
He pulls back and holds me at arm’s length. “I’m proud of you,” he says before walking down the tunnel to the locker room. I watch him go and I think about his daughter and the lie that sits between every good thing in my life right now.
The locker room is chaos. Music blasting, guys spraying water, Dex standing on the bench leading a chant I’ve never heard before and possibly just invented. My phone has forty-seven notifications and I scroll past all of them looking for one name.
Mackie
ZACH
ZACHARY
ZACHARY ROBERT ALMARDON
YOU BEAUTIFUL STUBBORN WONDERFUL MAN
I’M SHAKING
I CANNOT STOP SHAKING
I had to pretend I was crying because of the win
I was crying because of YOU
come find me
I don’t care where
just come find me
I read it twice. Close my eyes and hold the phone against my chest.
Rodriguez drops onto the bench next to me, still in his gear, drenched in sweat and water from the celebration. The manic energy from the ice has burned off and he’s quieter now, sitting with his elbows on his knees, looking at the floor.
“How you feeling?” he asks.
“I don’t know yet.”
“That’s fair.” He leans back against the wall. “That glove save in the third. Top corner. How’d you know?”
“I didn’t know. I just didn’t guess.”
He nods like that means more than it should. “Sometimes not guessing is enough.” He’s quiet for a second. “You should go find your girl after this. Whoever she is.”
The words sit in the air between us and I look at him and he’s not looking at me.
“I will,” I say.
“Good.” He stands up. “I’m proud of you, Z. For a lot of reasons.” He squeezes my shoulder and walks across the room to Dex.
My phone buzzes again.
Mackie
parking garage. Level 2. My car. I’ll wait as long as it takes.
I’ve got media obligations. Finally I shower and change, walk through the tunnel, and take the elevator to the private garage.
I find her car in the corner of level 2.
She’s sitting on the hood in her Puckaneers hoodie with her legs crossed and her eyes red.
She stands when sees me and doesn’t say anything.
She just opens her arms, and I walk into them.
She wraps herself around me and holds on.
“You did it,” she says into my neck.
“We did it.”
“No. You.” She pulls back and puts her hands on my face. “That was you, Zach. That was all you.”
I kiss her and she pulls me in deeper, her fingers curling into my collar.
I run my hands along the skin above her waistband and she makes a sound against my mouth.
She hooks her leg over my hip and I lift her onto the hood of her car.
I can hear the muffled celebration still rolling through the building above us.
My brain should be calculating exposure risk.
Right now, it’s only filing away the fact that her breathing changes when we’re somewhere we shouldn’t be.
The sheer relief of having her overrides every single rule we’ve made.
“We gotta go,” I say against her mouth. “Someone’s going to see us.”
“I know.”
Neither of us moves.
“Mackie.”
“Five more seconds.”
She holds my face and kisses me one more time, slow and warm. Then she lets go and slides off the hood.
“I’ll be at your apartment in forty minutes,” she says.
“Drive safe.”
“I always drive safe.”
“You got into a street race three weeks ago.”
“That was recreational.” She’s backing toward the driver’s side, grinning.
The lights are glinting off her hair making it look copper and her eyes are still red.
I want to remember exactly this—her face, this light, this parking garage that smells like concrete and exhaust and victory.
“Forty minutes. Leave the door unlocked.”
She gets in the car and drives away. I stand there listening to the engine fade, thinking about Rodriguez saying go find your girl. Jack’s hand on the back of my head. Barrett’s palm on the towel. The puck hitting my glove with forty-three seconds left.
Round 1 is over. We advance.