AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Which is a doozy—cutting hard back to the center, making me scramble to mirror his movements. My side is a wildfire of sensation, of protests and anger and pain and frustration.
But I’m here, and I’m living and pushing through and?—
I grunt as I dig my skate in, as I wrench myself in the other direction as he cuts sharply back the other way.
Calm.
Calm.
Don’t panic. Stay centered. Stay facing the puck. Stay up. Stay ready and?—
“Now,” I whisper, whipping to the side, jabbing my stick forward, forcing him to move. To shoot.
When I’m ready.
And I am.
I watch his weight shift, and I’m moving before the puck’s even left his stick, swinging my arm up, glove open, ready, waiting?—
Smack!
The puck hits my palm, the sting reverberating up my arm, into my shoulder, but my hand’s closing, holding tight to that disc of vulcanized rubber.
No fucking chance of dropping it, of giving this asshole another chance to score.
I hold tight and wait for the whistle.
Which comes—a sharp trill that echoes through the rink…
A bare heartbeat before the fucker crashes right into me.
* * *
I wince as I move into the house, just lifting my foot the six inches to settle it on the top of the step is agony, and it’s just as bad climbing the other two in order to make it inside.
But I get there, turning the handle, pushing the door open, moving into the mudroom.
Backpack on the hook, shoes painfully toed off, my side on absolute fire, but I manage to get them off my feet, get them tucked onto the shoe rack, and then I hobble down the hallway.
I’m getting old.
Not even trainer extraordinaire Mandy and all her magical rehabilitation tricks can change that fact.
She can treat my bruises, can bandage a sore joint, can rehab an injury with the best of them.
But…the wear and tear that comes with playing this sport, with these long seasons, the eighty-two games, the four rounds of playoffs, with…getting older and sliding down the leeward slope of my career?—
That’s not something she can fix.
It’s why I retired a few seasons ago, before I was lured back with the promise of just one more.
One more season. One more chance at the Cup. One more year of what I knew before everything changed.
But that season turned into more than one.
And then my chance was almost torn away, that choice almost stolen from me.
And…
