Page 70 of Mile High Coach

“Yeah, you take the Crabs to the Cup three times in a row and we’re gonna need a lot more autographs from you to help with Rach’s college fund.”

Seeing Brad, Eliza, and Rachel has only made me want my person more, and when I say goodbye to him, I don’t have to look far before I find her, standing just behind the bench with her sister and dad, who has graduated to using a walker rather than a wheelchair.

All three of them are in Blue Crabs jerseys, though Chrys wears Ben Pacheco’s in place of mine, convinced that he might notice her if she does. Lovie and I have already arranged an “accidental” run-in during the after party.

How this game goes will heavily influence how into meeting someone new he’ll be.

Lovie sees me looking and waves, and I want to go over to the three of them, but there’s no time. The game is starting in just thirty minutes, and my coaching staff needs direction. I dive into the game, all my focus going to the ice, the players, the strategy we’ll use for the next hour of play.

Then the opening face-off happens, and I watch from the bench as my guys fight for the puck, skate hard, pass well, and crowd around the net. I can only hope that I’ve done a good enough job this season, a good enough job beforethisgame, to prepare them.

We tie it in the second period. Telley’s wrist goes out and he has to sub, skating off just in time for the Sharks to take possession of the puck, bringing it down our side of the ice.

Just like all the other games, this one is physical, with guys hitting the ice and penalties being paid. At one point, the puck hits the glass hard enough to shatter it, and we have to wait through a thirty-minute intermission so they can change it out.

Every time I start to feel the pressure getting to me, I turn around and meet her eyes, see her sitting there in my jersey, her hand on her belly, glowing with the happiness of everything she’s ever wanted.

When the guys pull it together, each of them playing with a combination of my coaching and Lovie’s fixes, we hit a kind of seamless collaboration that feels too slippery for the Sharks to hold onto. When Telley insists he can come back in, I think about Lovie’s advice from the night before, about how Telley is exactly the kind of player to try and play hurt, thinking he can help the team. I follow her advice and keep him out and he grits his teeth, hating the decision but respecting it.

When wefinallyget past the Sharks’ tight defense, knocking a third bounce of the puck toward their goal to sneak it in and bring us ahead, I jump and turn, finding my people there in the stands, cheering right along with me.

And when the final buzzer sounds, calling the game with the Baltimore Blue Crabs a full point ahead, I do the same thing I did during that game against the Penguins.

I turn and walk to her, pulling her into my arms and kissing her, taking care not to smash her belly. Around us, the arena is wild with excitement, cheering and clapping and whooping filling the space.

I’ll have to get back down there, for the celebration with the team and for the ceremony, but right now, the only thing I want to do is hold my girl.

“Here,” she says, pressing her lips to my ear so I can hear her. “I got you a victory gift.”

“Oh?” I pull back, accepting the envelope from her. “You were that confident?”

She nods and gestures to the envelope, knowing I won’t have much more time before the media circus consumes me for therest of the night. There are interviews to give and players to congratulate, and a Stanley Cup to hoist up over my head.

But right now—this time belongs only to me and her.

When I look down at the envelope, so tiny and thin, I wonder what in the world Lovie Waters could get me for a moment like this. Then I remember the tiny jersey from before and look up at her, recognition moving through me.

“Is this…?” I’m already choked up, and I haven’t even looked at it.

“Yes,” she breathes, eyes darting back down to it. “I haven’t looked yet, but it’s the paper telling us if it’s a baby boy. I figured, since you won this, you could take this loss gracefully.”

“Oh, really?” I ask, realizing as I slide open the flap of the envelope that my hands are shaking. Through the entire game today, my hands didn’t shake a single time. And now, here I am, hanging onto the idea of having a little girl and trembling with excitement amidst the celebrations of the Stanley Cup. “Because I’m on a roll tonight, Waters. I might just sweep this one, too.”

She laughs, nudges me, her hand wrapping around my bicep as she leans in to look. “Well, come on, I’m dying to know, Harrison.”

“Alright, alright,” I open the envelope, slide the paper out so she can see what it says at the same time I do. That moment between opening the envelope and seeing the words on the paper is infinite, a lot like the puck drop, or that first time I saw Lovie in the airport, or how I waited for her to come to me that night.

And in this infinite moment, I know that it doesn’t matter to me what our baby looks like—boy or girl, tall or short, more like me or Lovie. Blue eyes or brown eyes, hockey fan or more into books, I will love this baby to the ends of the earth.

I’ll love our baby the same way I love their mother.

Terribly, horrifically.

Unreservedly for every moment that I can.