“Wait, seriously?”
“Why wouldn’t I? Muffy and Aunt Hilda are on a tighter budget and don’t get opportunities like this very often. And Alina’s missed a lot of games because of her weird travel schedule. They’ll have fun.”
It never occurred to me that there were people who’d want to go to a game but couldn’t afford it. And here she is, offering to share tickets with annoying family. “Fuck, I really don’t deserve you.”
“Oh, stop. Who else would’ve played a total dodohead to make another guy look better to his completely irrational future grandpa-in-law? And I know you made it well worth Elmer’s time to get him to serve us dinner last night.”
“You make me sound nicer than I am.”
“You’re not mean. Not unprovoked, I mean. Even if sometimes you’re not directly provoked. You’re just not always…”
“Nice?” I supply dryly.
“Acutely aware of other people’s feelings and wishes,” she finishes diplomatically.
“Huh.”
“But you’ve never really made it a secret that hockey’s your life, so it’s not like you’re lying about wanting to be something you’re not.”
Sugarbear gallops over again, tongue lolling like a dog, her tail swishing. I rub her head before I toss the ball again.
“Kami?”
“Hm?”
“Thanks for giving me another chance.”
“You earned it.”
There’s a smile in her voice that makes me smile too. “I’m coming over after the game.”
“I’ll consider answering if you get a shutout.”
“Tiger will let me in.”
She sighs dramatically. “She’s so easy. I need to get back to work. I think my next patient just showed up. Play good tonight. Muffy and Aunt Hilda deserve a good show. And Alina will give you shit for weeks if you don’t.”
“You sweet talker, you.”
“And no more presents,” she warns.
We’ll see about that.
“Oh, dammit, I have to go. My battery’s dying.”
I smile. “Better get that thing charged, because you’re gonna be snapping pictures of me all through the game.”
The last thing I hear before I hang up is her laughter. I toss the ball around with Sugarbear a while longer before heading inside to start my normal pre-game power nap routine.
Kami’s coming tonight.
And I’m going to play the best fucking game of my life.
On the ice.
And then off the ice too.
Thirty
Nick
My favorite thing about Mink Arena is that you can hear the crowd from the dressing room.
You know the fans are out there, waiting, hopeful, excited, ready to scream their fucking lungs out to cheer us on to victory.
I was four the first time I had a hockey stick in my hand. Five the first time I stood in the crease. I didn’t even know what the crease was, but I knew if I could play goaltender in hockey, I could be tougher than any shitheads who wanted to shove me around on the playground and tell me my mom slept with the mailman.
Fuck, I didn’t know what your mom slept with the mailman meant then either, but I got the feeling it was something worse than everyone having happy nap time like we had after lunch every day in kindergarten.
But tonight?
Tonight, there are seventeen thousand people up there, waiting for us to take the ice and kick some Minnesota ass.
Ares is getting his ankles taped.
Sokolov and Jaeger are trading Pokémon cards.
Don’t mock it.
Habits are habits and superstitions are superstitions, and they’re both on fucking fire this year.
“You shaved again,” Lavoie says, sitting down and pulling on his skates—right skate first. He’ll put the left on before he ties the laces on either, because it’s what he does.
“The beard wasn’t cutting it this year.”
He eyeballs me between tying his laces. “Looks like you found your game brain.”
Coach said the same earlier today.
I’m trying to not let it go to my head, but I feel different tonight. Like I could fly if I wanted to.
Coach comes in for our final pep talk before the game, then we all pull on our jerseys and line up to hit the ice.
Our entrance song starts when we enter the tunnel. The spotlight’s spinning over the doorway, lights flashing, announcers booming.
Felicity’s out there somewhere. Heard she was pulling a stint in the announcer’s booth with Thrusty tonight.
And Kami should be sitting right next to the home bench.
I knew she was pissed at me when the seats I bought her for our previous games were empty. She and Felicity and Maren and Alina don’t pass up good seats for anything.
Never have.
I lead the pack and stop so everyone can rub my helmet on the way out onto the ice. They file past, and I hit each of my guys with their normal complicated handshake if we have one, which is fucking ridiculous with all our gloves on, but it works. The crowd roars louder with every one of my teammates that skates out onto the ice, and when I join them, it’s pandemonium.
Don’t feel like I deserve their loyalty this year, but I’m fucking grateful for it.
I circle our half of the ice, stick gripped tight, one arm lifted in a wave to the crowd, and then I find what I’m looking for.
There’s Kami, front row, right next to the bench, hollering and cheering with Alina, Muffy, and her aunt.
She’s here.
I’m going to fucking kick ass tonight.
I flip my helmet down and head to my spot at the net, digging in good to get ready for that biscuit to drop. “Hey, Jaeger!” I call.
The second-line forward skates over and flips his helmet up. “Yeah?”
“Your girlfriend’s over there with her mom. You should toss her a puck.”
I nod toward Kami, and swear on my left skate, the dude goes pink in the cheeks. “You’re such a fucker,” he mutters, but he bends over, grabs a puck that Zeus just sent flying my way, and carries it over to toss it over the boards.
Muffy’s eyes go huge, and she catches it, clasps it to her heart, and sinks into her chair.
Thank you, Kami mouths to me.
I wink at her, then reach out to grab one of the pucks flying at me from Ares, Lavoie, and Frey, who are lined up and taking practice shots.
“Head in the game, eh, Murphy?” Frey says with a grin.
The crowd fades away as we count down the final seconds to game time, and there’s just the ice left.
Just the ice, the enemy, and me standing between them and the goal.
Lavoie, Frey, and Ares head to the center line.
Zeus and Sokolov skate over to me, and we trade fist bumps.
“Got your back, Murphy,” Zeus says.
Sokolov nods.
“Your wife here?” I ask Zeus.
He grins and points behind the bench, where Joey, Gracie, and the baby all wave.
“Don’t embarrass her, okay?” I tell him.
Sokolov laughs. Zeus punches me in the arm, but he pulls it so I don’t even waver from where I’ve dug in at the crease.
“Let’s play hockey, bitches,” Zeus says.
And that’s exactly what we do.
Thirty-One
Kami
These. Seats. Are. Amazing.
I’ve been to dozens—hundreds?—of Thrusters games over the years, but I’ve never sat right here. At the edge of the rink.
Watching my boyfriend play.
Oh, I’ve watched Nick play plenty, wishing he was my boyfriend, but tonight—I think he really is.
“Ohmygod!” Muffy flings herself back in her seat as Zeus shoves a Minnesota player into the boards right in front of us, pivots, and takes off again like a demon on blades, chasing the puck before Nick has to stop it.
“Shew, those boys are hot.” Aunt Hilda fans herself.
Alina’s dark brown eyes meet mine, and her lips twitch in an amused smile. “How many more sets of tickets do you have?” she asks me.
“Twenty-seven. I think only six of them are front row, but the others are really good too. None more than third—Oh! BLOCK IT! GET IT—phew.”
I sink back into my own seat next to Muffy.
That was close.
I thought Minnesota was going to score.
But Ares and Manning are driving the puck toward Minnesota’s goal now, and Nick’s still holding steady.
He hasn’t looked this way since the game started. Not even when they left the ice between the first and second periods. He was downing water and talking to the goaltender coach, brows drawn together, sweat dripping off him.
And there I go getting all warm and excited between my thighs.
My phone dings. It’s Mom—she’s watching the game from the box she and Dad get every year, and she wants to know how my view is.
I’m not sure what I text her back, because I drop my phone when Minnesota goes on a breakaway, heading straight for Nick, unopposed because Zeus and Sokolov are caught off-guard, which means it’s just the big bad Minnesota guy and Nick, and—
And oh my god, how does he stretch his body that fast? He’s like a freaking panther on the ice, dodging and lunging and dropping and deflecting the puck so fast, it takes me a minute to find it again.
“This is so fucking awesome,” Muffy breathes.
She’s clutching her puck to her heart, and I don’t know if it’s intentional or not. I’m too busy watching the game to see if she’s watching Jaeger flying over the ice, or if she’s watching all of it.
“Kami, you know I love you,” Alina starts, and I tear my gaze off the action on the ice to glance at her cautiously as she continues, “but I’m starting to wonder if you might need to take one for the team and just sleep with Nick until he retires, because he’s fucking hot tonight.”
“That…wouldn’t exactly be a hardship,” I tell her.
“Does he want kids?”
I sigh. “He knows I do, but we haven’t really talked about it.”