6. Dean
Dean
The ice always settles me.
It doesn’t matter how loud the arena gets, how many bodies fill the seats, how much energy builds before the first drop—once I’m standing here, watching it all unfold, everything narrows into something I understand. Clean lines. Controlled chaos. Movement with purpose, if you know where to look.
The guys spread out across the ice during warmups, each of them falling into their own version of routine. Some keep it tight, controlled, working through reps like clockwork. Others burn through it faster, letting the energy bleed off before it spikes too early.
And then there’s Luka. Because of course there is.
He’s already in the crease, mask off, hair damp, gloves loose at his sides like he hasn’t decided yet if he’s warming up or putting on a show.
He slides his gloves on and mask in place as a shot comes in from the blue line, clean and easy, and instead of settling it like he should, he snatches it out of the air, holds it for half a second—just long enough for the crowd to register it—before tossing it back with a careless flick that looks like it shouldn’t land as clean as it does.
They react immediately. They always do. He glances up, catches it, and that’s all it takes. Now he’s playing.
Sliding across the crease in an exaggerated shuffle, dragging his stick behind him like he’s got nowhere else to be, dropping into a butterfly just to pop back up again like it didn’t cost him anything.
Another puck comes in—he blocks it with his pad, kicks it out wide, then spins on his skate and…
breaks into that ridiculous moonwalk he started doing halfway through last season.
In full gear. In the crease. Like gravity doesn’t apply to him the same way it does to everyone else.
The crowd loses it. Pressing closer to the glass, phones up, kids jumping, adults just as bad as them.
He plays it up, tapping his stick once against the ice like he’s answering them, then drops into position again like none of it happened, catching the next shot clean in his glove.
It’s chaos. Controlled just enough to work. Exactly where he needs to be. I should be watching his angles. His positioning. The way he tracks through bodies. Instead, my attention shifts. Not to the ice. To the glass.
The Rizzoli family is right where they always are, pressed up against it like they belong there just as much as anyone on the ice.
You don’t miss them once you know where to look.
Gio’s got one hand braced against the glass, the other wrapped securely around one of Liam’s twins, holding him steady while the kid presses both hands flat against the surface like he’s trying to get closer to Luka.
Layla stands beside him, smaller but just as locked in, the other twin balanced on her hip like she’s done it a hundred times before and takes the responsibility seriously.
Lorenzo and Leonardo. Too young to understand the game. Old enough to feel it. Their attention is locked on Luka as he slides across the crease again, dropping low, then kicking one leg out dramatically to block a shot that wasn’t going in anyway, just to hear them react.
Layla laughs. Gio says something I can’t hear but I know is probably half warning, half encouragement. And just off to the side—Paxton.
Three years in this world and it shows. He stands like he belongs here now, not just visiting it, Alessandro settled easily on his hip like it’s second nature, Cross’s kid tucked in close as both of them watch Luka like it’s the best thing they’ve seen all day.
Paxton says something to him that makes the kid grin wide enough I can see it from here, his small hand slapping against the glass in excitement.
Paxton’s ready. For the next step. For the farm.
Damn kid has been training since the day he moved up here with Penelope.
He is a natural, and I had to take him under my wing and make sure he knew he could make it.
And he is ready for everything that comes with it.
And he’s going to take it. Not because anyone hands it to him. Because he’s earned it.
Something about that lands heavier than it used to. I rest my forearms on the boards, letting my gaze stay there a second longer than it should.
Because this—This isn’t just a team. It never has been.
It’s something built into the spaces between them, into the way they show up for each other off the ice just as much as they do on it.
You can see it in moments like this—in the way kids who shouldn’t be part of this world somehow are, in the way no one questions it.
They just make room. Always. I never saw myself in something like that.
Never thought I would. My life has always been structured.
Controlled. Focused on the next step, the next win, the next thing that needed to be handled.
There wasn’t space for anything else. And for a long time—I didn’t think I was missing anything.
Kids. Family. That kind of life. It never felt like it belonged to me.
But lately—That thought doesn’t sit the same way.
My gaze shifts back to the ice, but it doesn’t stay there.
Because without meaning to I’m thinking about her.
The way she stood in the locker room, tucked into the middle of all that chaos like she didn’t quite belong there and somehow fit better than anyone else.
The way her smile slipped out when she stopped thinking about it, real and unguarded in a way that felt different from the one she gives everyone else.
I didn’t miss it. I don’t think I ever do.
And the second it was there something in me locked onto it. Held it. Didn’t let it go.
My jaw tightens slightly as I push off the boards. Because that’s the problem.
It’s not just noticing her anymore. It’s wanting to see it again.
Wanting to be the reason it shows up. The thought settles heavier than it should.
Clearer. More defined. I drag a hand over the back of my neck, trying to push it back into something controlled.
Because I know what that means. I know where it goes.
And I know exactly why I shouldn’t let it.
But even knowing all of that doesn’t stop the image from forming anyway.
Maddie. Looking up at me. Smiling like she doesn’t realize she is.
Not the polite one. Not the one she uses when she’s working.
The real one. The one that slips out before she catches it.
I want to see it again. Not by accident.
I force my focus where it belongs. The game.
The team. The job. That’s what matters right now.
That’s what I’m here for. But as Luka drops into one last exaggerated save—then taps his stick twice against the ice like he’s answering the crowd—something settles under all of it.
Quiet. Steady. Not going anywhere. And this time—I don’t pretend I don’t know what it is.
The final horn hits like a release. Not quiet.
Not controlled. It rips through the arena and everything that’s been building for sixty minutes breaks loose with it—sound crashing over itself, the crowd on their feet, the kind of noise that settles into your bones and stays there long after it fades.
We earned this one.
You can feel it in the way the guys move, in the way they come off the ice with something heavier than adrenaline still riding under their skin.
It wasn’t clean. It wasn’t easy. It was a fight from the first drop to the last second, exactly the kind of game that tests whether a team actually knows who they are when it matters.
Tonight—they did. I move down the bench, clapping shoulders as they come off, catching pieces of it in real time.
Jasper’s still locked in, jaw tight but eyes sharp, already replaying shifts in his head.
Grady’s grinning, that loose, satisfied kind of energy that only comes when he’s pushed hard enough to earn it.
Jake’s steady, grounded—the kind of leadership that doesn’t spike or dip, just holds.
And Luka… he’s eating it up. Mask off, hair damp, grin wide enough to match the noise in the arena as he taps his stick against the boards like he’s still performing for them, like the game didn’t end ten seconds ago.
He’s feeding off it, the crowd feeding off him right back, and I let it go because he earned that too.
He held us in this game when it could’ve gone the other way.
“Hell of a night,” I tell him as he passes.
He flashes that same easy confidence, like he knew it was coming the whole time. “Always is, Coach.”
I shake my head, but there’s no bite to it.
Because tonight—he’s right. The energy follows us off the ice, through the tunnel, still buzzing, still alive in the way a win like this lingers.
Fans lean over the railings, hands out, voices carrying down the hallway, calling names, throwing out congratulations as the guys pass. It’s loud. Chaotic. Familiar. Earned.
I’m halfway through acknowledging another shout from the crowd when I see her.
Maddie’s a few steps ahead of me, camera in hand, already working like she always does—capturing the aftermath, the reactions, the pieces of it that don’t make it onto the ice but matter just as much.
She moves easily through it, weaving between the guys without getting in the way, her focus locked in where it needs to be.
This is where she fits. This part. The in-between.
I’ve just opened my mouth to call something out to Jake when it happens.
It’s small. So small no one else would catch it.
But I do. Her posture shifts. Not a full stop.
Not even a hesitation anyone would question.
Just a slight tightening through her shoulders, a fraction of a second where her step loses that easy rhythm before she picks it back up again.
If I didn’t know her—I’d miss it. But I don’t.
My attention sharpens instantly, my gaze following the line of her movement, tracking what she’s reacting to before I even consciously decide to.
Three guys stand off to the side of the tunnel, pressed back just enough to let the team pass but close enough to be part of it.
They’re calling out congratulations, nodding, reaching out to tap shoulders as the guys move by.
Nothing unusual. Happens every game. Until…
one of them sees her. And everything in me goes still.
His face lights up the second he spots her, recognition hitting hard and fast in a way that feels too familiar, too easy.
He steps forward without hesitation, closing the space between them before she can even fully turn toward him.
“Maddie—” And then he’s touching her. Arms wrapping around her, pulling her into him like it’s instinct, like it’s his right.
Something sharp and immediate rips through my chest. Hot.
Violent. I know exactly who he is before the name even fully forms. Tyler.
Of course. Her boyfriend. I should have expected him.
Home game. Of course he’d be here. But knowing that doesn’t stop the way something in me reacts.
Doesn’t stop the way my hands curl slightly at my sides, the way my jaw tightens hard enough that I feel it all the way up into my temples.
The way I want—for one split, irrational second—to tear him off her.
The thought hits fast and hard and gone just as quick, buried under years of control before it can take shape into anything real.
But the feeling doesn’t leave with it. It lingers.
Low. Sharp. I don’t slow down. I don’t stop.
I don’t look back. Because I can’t. Because I already know if I do, I won’t like what I see. But I hear it. Clear enough.
“Thanks for the tickets,” he says, his voice too easy, too familiar, like this is normal.
Like this is expected. “Come out with us tonight. We’re heading—” The rest fades as I keep walking.
Because I don’t need to hear it. I don’t need to see the way she responds.
I don’t need to watch him stand there like he belongs in her space.
My focus locks forward, the tunnel stretching out in front of me as I move through it, the noise still surrounding us, the win still hanging in the air.
This is what matters. The team. The game.
The job. That’s what I tell myself. That’s what I’ve always told myself.
But as I push through the doors toward the locker room, the sound of the crowd still echoing behind me—there’s something sitting under all of it that doesn’t follow the same rules.
Something that doesn’t care about logic or timing or any of the reasons this shouldn’t matter the way it does.
And no matter how far I walk…it doesn’t stay behind me. It comes with me. Sharp. Steady.
And a hell of a lot harder to ignore than it was an hour ago.