33. Zach
ZACH
I wake up the morning after we land to a text from Mackie that says GOOD MORNING FUTURE STANLEY CUP CHAMPION and I lie in bed and stare at it and think about truth or dare months ago and the question she asked me—what’s the thing you want most that you’ve never said out loud—and my answer, which came out before I could stop it: to win the Cup as the starting goalie.
Not as a backup. Not watching from the bench. To be the guy.
Now I’m one win away from the Cup Finals. It’s so close I can feel it pressing against the glass.
Marnie is working on Roman’s shoulder when I walk into the training room. She’s got KT tape between her teeth and Roman on the table and Dex waiting on the next one over. Brody is on the floor stretching. Rodriguez is behind me on the foam roller doing something that sounds like it’s killing him.
I get on the stationary bike and start my cooldown. Earbuds in, but nothing playing.
“You’re flinching,” Marnie says.
“Because it hurts.”
“It hurts because you slept on it wrong again.”
“I slept on it wrong because someone left a book on my side of the bed.”
Marnie pulls a strip of tape and doesn’t respond.
“Ooh is it this month’s book club pick?” Dex turns around and looks at Brody. “Has Elliot started this one yet?”
“Banging the Backup Goalie?” Brody asks
Rodriguez makes a choking sound. “Why would anyone want to bang the backup goalie when the starter is obviously a much sexier choice?”
My legs keep pedaling. My face does nothing.
“Well in the book it’s the captain’s daughter.”
“At least there’s a captain this time.” Roman grumbles.
“Who’s the captain’s daughter?” I ask and immediately wish I hadn’t opened my mouth because now they’re all staring at me.
“The girl in the book. That’s why it’s good. The whole book is them hiding it.”
I become very aware of Rodriguez staring at me.
“Why are they hiding it?” Brody asks slowly.
“Because the dad can’t find out, duh!” Dex laughs. “If I found out Blythe was dating a hockey player I’d murder him, and she’s not even ten so imagine what that’s going to be like when she’s actually old enough to date.”
“Does the dad ever find out?” Rodriguez asks.
“Obviously!” Marnie rips another strip of tape and I flinch at the noise. “When the dad finds out it’s brutal, I literally had to put the book down and walk around the block before I could finish the chapter.”
“Spoilers.” Roman tells her.
“Whatever, you weren’t even going to read it.”
“I wasn’t going to read that part.”
“What parts did you want to read, Cap?” Brody teases from the floor.
I get off the bike before he can answer. Grab my towel and my water bottle and head for the door because if I have to listen to any more of this I might crack.
Rodriguez catches my eye on the way out. He raises his eyebrows at me and he’s got his mouth clamped down tight trying not to laugh.
I’m heading down the hallway toward the locker room when I hear Mackie’s voice.
Not from the direction I expect. Not from the media room where she usually sets up to edit her clips.
From the hallway outside the marketing offices, and she’s not doing her rinkside voice—the bright, professional one she uses on camera that sounds like her but smoother, like someone ran Mackie through a filter that kept the intelligence and removed the chaos. This is her real voice. And it’s loud.
“I never said I didn’t appreciate it. I said it’s not what I want.”
I slow down. The marketing offices are around the next corner and the hallway carries sound further than you’d think so Mackie’s voice is coming through clear.
Then I hear a man’s voice and realize who she’s speaking to. “The media department went out of their way to set this up. They put your name in front of—”
“I know what they did, Dad. And I’m grateful. But I told them I’m more interested in the PWHL side and they said they’d look into—”
“The PWHL.” The way Jack says it isn’t dismissive exactly but it’s close. It’s the way someone says a thing when they’re trying to understand why you’d choose the smaller version of something when the bigger version is right there. “Mackie, do you understand what is being offered to you?”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is the point? Because from where I’m standing it looks like you’re turning down the opportunity so you can—”
“So I can do the thing I actually want to do? Yeah. That’s exactly what I’m doing.”
The smart move is to keep walking. To go to the locker room, get changed, and pretend I didn’t hear any of this. This is between Mackie and her father, and I’m the last person who should be near their conversations right now.
But my feet have stopped. I can hear both of them, and I can’t move.
“The PWHL is three years old,” Jack says, and his voice has dropped like he’s working to stay calm. “I know people who have contacts at every major network and these are doors that most people spend a decade trying to—”
“I don’t WANT those doors.” Mackie’s voice cracks and I hear her trying to keep it steady and failing.. “I want to cover women’s hockey. I want to tell those stories.”
“That’s idealistic.”
“That’s what I want.”
“What you want and what’s smart aren’t always the same thing, Mackie.”
I come around the corner.
I don’t plan it. My feet just move, and then I’m there, and Jack and Mackie are standing in the hallway outside the media office and they both turn and look at me and the air in the hallway changes.
Jack’s face resets. It goes from the tight, frustrated expression he was wearing to the one he shows the team and it happens so fast I almost miss it.
“Almardon.” He nods.
“Hey, Anderson. Hey, Mackinnon.” I say her name the way I’d say any teammate’s kid’s name and it sounds so wrong. “Sorry, didn’t mean to—”
“You’re fine. We were just talking.” Jack claps me on the shoulder as he moves past. “Nice work on the road, kid. Same thing tomorrow.”
“Yes sir.”
He walks down the hallway and I can still feel the weight of his hand on my shoulder and he just called me kid and it sounded exactly the same as always and I don’t know why that makes it worse but it does.
Mackie is leaning against the wall with her arms crossed and her jaw set and her eyes are bright in the way that means she’s either about to cry or about to destroy something because with Mackie it could go either way.
“You heard that,” she says.
“Some of it.”
“He thinks I’m throwing away an opportunity.” She pushes off the wall. “He thinks he’s handing me the career he would have wanted for me and I’m saying no to it for—I don’t even know what he thinks my reason is. He probably thinks I’m being stubborn.”
“Are you?”
She looks at me. “Don’t.”
“I’m not. I’m asking.”
“I want to cover women’s hockey, Zach. That’s a choice. It’s my choice. The PWHL is doing something that matters and I want to be part of it and I don’t need my dad’s permission or anyone telling me that NHL rinkside is the smart move because I didn’t ask what the smart move was.”
“I know.”
“He does this thing where he frames it like he’s looking out for me but really he’s looking out for the version of me that makes sense to him.
The one that stays in the NHL orbit.” She stops and she scrapes her fingers through her hair, twisting it up as she talks.
“He wants me close. He wants me in his world. And I love his world but it’s HIS world and I want my own. ”
I want to touch her so badly my hands ache.
I want to put my arms around her and tell her that her choice is the right one, that Jack will come around.
But there’s a security camera at the end of the hall and a door open somewhere behind me.
The best I can do is stand three feet away and look at her.
“He’ll come around,” I say. “He’s your dad. He wants what’s best for you.”
“He wants what he thinks is best for me. Those aren’t the same thing.” She pulls her bag up on her shoulder. The fight drains out of her, and what’s left looks tired and small—nothing like the person who ran a midnight cookie operation across two floors of my apartment building. “I should go.”
“Mackie—”
“I’ll see you tonight.”
She walks away and I stand in the hallway and watch her go.
Game 5 is at home. We win 4-2. I stop thirty-three shots.
The building is loud, but not the way it gets when a series ends—it’s the sound of one more, one more, one more, and I can feel it vibrating through the ice.
In the handshake line, Jack’s hand is on the back of my neck the way it is after wins.
He says “that’s how we do it, kid.” I smile back, thinking about his daughter driving to my apartment right now.
Thinking about the fight I overheard this morning, and the way his face reset in the hallway.
I shower and get dressed and check my phone.
Mackie
you were incredible
33 saves
ONE MORE WIN ZACH
I’m so proud of you I could scream but I’m in the family suite so instead I’m going to sit here and smile and pretend I’m not losing my mind
Me
come over tonight?
Mackie
already on my way
The Cup Finals. The thing I told her about during truth or dare, the thing I said out loud that I’d never said to anyone.
It’s right there.