18. Buzz
BUZZ
THEN
Iwrote the L on my tape before warmups because I was an idiot.
Not a regular idiot either. A committed one. A full-contact idiot with a Sharpie, two minutes of unsupervised locker room time, and absolutely no plan for what I was supposed to do if one of the guys noticed.
Which, obviously, Mase did. He saw it while I was pulling my glove over my left hand and immediately leaned across the bench like I had personally handed him evidence for trial.
I yanked my wrist away. “Mind your business.”
“That is the letter L written on your tape.”
“You pass English? Good for you.”
Mase’s grin spread slowly across his face. “Lucy?”
“Lactose.” I looked him dead in the eye. “I’m raising awareness.”
He stared at me. “You are deeply unwell.”
Simon’s face lit up. “Buzz has a love talisman.”
“I will throw you into a locker.”
The room erupted around us, guys laughing too loud, shoulder pads half on, skates clattering against rubber floors. Someone started chanting Lucy’s name under his breath until I launched a balled-up sock at his helmet hard enough to knock it sideways.
Coach Whittaker walked in at exactly the wrong moment. He stopped just inside the door, clipboard tucked beneath one arm, expression flat. “Everybody dressed in five,” he said. “Helmets on. No hero routines in warmups. No shooting from the red line to impress your girlfriends.”
A few guys made extremely subtle noises. I looked at the ceiling.
“Burns.” Coach’s gaze sharpened, but his mouth twitched. “Stop making whatever face that is.”
“This is just my face.”
“Tragic for all of us.”
The guys laughed harder that time.
I loved it.
The noise. The heat. The smell of sweat and tape and damp gear. The way the room bounced before a big game, like everybody in it was trying to move in six directions at once.
Usually, that feeling settled my blood.
Tonight, it kept missing the mark.
Because under the locker room noise, under Mase chirping me about romance tape and Simon accusing me of witchcraft, under Coach barking at everybody to finish taping sticks and stop acting like we had never played a playoff game before, I knew there were people here for me.
People in jackets that meant things. People who wrote things down.
People who could call other people and suddenly a kid from Northbend had a future outside Northbend.
Coach had told me there might be interest. Dad had told me to handle my business.
Thane had texted me that morning from somewhere near Chicago:
Don’t embarrass the family.
Or do. Easier for me.
You coming to watch me become the favorite son?
Already bought popcorn for when you trip over the blue line.
That was basically I love you in Burns.
But Lucy had texted me too. I had stared at that message. Not because it was different from the thousands of sarcastic things Lucy had sent me over the last two years. It wasn’t. It sounded exactly like her. Dry. Bossy. A little entertained in spite of herself.
But now I knew what her mouth felt like when she whispered my name in the dark.
I knew the sound she made when she was trying not to laugh while I asked, for the second time, whether she was sure she was okay.
I knew what it felt like to hold someone afterward and realize your whole life had somehow changed inside the same old truck you used to drive to practice.
Two days ago, Lucy Thomas had looked at me like I was permanent.
So, yeah. I wrote an L on my tape. Because I was an idiot. Because I loved her. Because tonight mattered, and for some reason, making sure she was on the ice with me felt as important as sharpening my skates.
When we finally left the locker room, the hallway outside the ice was louder than it had ever been. Sound vibrated through the concrete under my blades. The band was already playing, the student section already screaming, and the low thrum of the crowd pressed against the walls like weather.
Mase bounced on his skates beside me. “You nervous?”
“I’m too good-looking to be nervous.”
“Eden Prairie’s first line is going to use your face as a rink decal,” Mase teased.
Simon leaned forward from behind us. “I’m nervous.”
Mase chirped, “You keep missing the net high-glove in warmups.”
Simon gave him a wounded look. “Why would you say that?”
I reached back and tapped Simon’s shin pad with my stick. “Ignore him. He’s mad because his hairline started receding at sixteen.”
The doors opened. The sound hit like a body check. For half a second, everything became white ice and flashing lights and noise so big it seemed to get inside my ribs before my skates even touched the surface.
Then I pushed forward. I collected the first puck near the boards, cut behind the net, and snapped a shot off the crossbar because it felt good. The metal ring cracked through the building, and the Northbend side lost its mind.
Mase yelled something at me, so I shot another puck. That one went in.
I circled once, half listening to the crowd, half tracking the shapes in the stands.
My family sat where they always sat when Dad got his way.
Back row for him, because by the third period he would refuse to sit and complain if anyone complained about it.
Grandpa Hal beside him with his roster. Kendrick leaning forward like he was already annoyed to be impressed.
Thane sitting still enough to make strangers uncomfortable.
Mom was there too. Grandma Ruth. Naomi. Arlo, with nachos, because of course Arlo had nachos before puck drop. And Lucy.
I had been in love with Lucy for years, which sounded insane when I thought about it too long.
At fifteen, I barely knew how to talk to her without saying something stupid.
But even then, she had looked at me like there was more in me than hockey and noise and the version of myself everybody else already understood.
Now she sat with my family like she was part of the shape of them. Like she would be there later. Years later.
I turned my wrist so she could see the tape. Her eyes caught on the L. The entire building could have collapsed and I wouldn’t have noticed. I tapped the glass once, small enough that nobody else would understand, then looked up and winked.
“Burns.” Coach leaned over the boards. “You know why people are here tonight.”
“I’m very popular.”
His eyes did not move. “There are eyes in the building,” he said. “You understand me?”
I nodded once.
“Play the game in front of you.” His voice stayed low, firm enough to cut through the arena. “Not the scouts. Not your brother. Not your father. Not your girlfriend. The game.”
My jaw tightened before I could stop it.
“You are the best player I have ever coached,” he said.
Something in me went still. Coach Whittaker did not say things like that.
He barely said good job without making it sound like a warning.
“But the best player on the ice is not always the one who wins the game,” he continued.
“Sometimes he’s the one who understands what the game needs before everybody else does. ”
I looked toward center ice without meaning to. A man in a Fargo jacket stood near the reserved section. Another wore St. Croix State colors. A third man did not need a jacket. He had the kind of face scouts wore when they did not want teenage boys to know whether they were impressed.
My pulse kicked once.
Coach’s hand landed on the back of my neck, brief and heavy. “Do not chase anything, Burns. Play.”
For the first few minutes, I played like every person in the building had paid admission to watch me specifically.
Which meant I played like an idiot. A talented one, but still.
On my second shift, I saw a pass that did not fully exist yet and tried to make it anyway. Most nights, my hands could turn almost into enough. Most nights, I could force a lane open because I believed in it harder than the guy defending me believed he could close it.
Eden Prairie was not most nights. Their defenseman read me half a second early, got his stick into the seam, and sent Carlson the other way with open ice in front of him.
I chased. I almost caught him. He went forehand, backhand, roof.
The horn sounded.
Eden Prairie led 1–0.
Because of me.
I coasted toward our bench while the black-and-red student section screamed my name in the worst possible rhythm. “Burns! Burns! Burns!”
I kept my face blank because that was what you did when you screwed up in front of thousands of people and three men whose opinions could follow you out of the building. You did not show them the hit landed. You did not look toward the stands. You did not look toward your father.
Coach opened the bench door. I stepped in. Nobody spoke for three seconds. Then Mase leaned close and muttered, “Bold strategy. Giving them hope early.”
I shot him a look.
He bumped his shoulder into mine. “Get it back.”
Exactly what I needed.
I did get it back.
Not with some perfect revenge shift where I turned the whole game around because that would have been too easy, and Eden Prairie did not give us easy.
They made us earn every inch of ice. They finished checks.
They clogged lanes. They baited me after whistles, chirped my family, chirped Lucy, chirped my mistakes, and spent half the first period trying to drag me into the box.
Once, along the boards, Carlson smiled through his cage and asked if my whole family had shown up to watch me choke.
For one red second, I wanted to put him through the glass hard enough to make the scout in the Fargo jacket write that down too.
Then Coach’s voice cut across the ice. One word. A warning.
When I got back to the bench, Coach did not look at me. “They want you in the box.”
“I know.”
Late in the first, Eden Prairie took a holding penalty against Simon. He came back to the bench red-faced and furious with himself, muttering that he was playing like ass.
Mase opened his mouth.
I cut him off with one look, then leaned around him and tapped Simon’s shin pad. “You drew a penalty.”
“Because I almost fell.”