“Holy shit!” My teammates are jumping all over me. “Goal! Goal! We’re going to overtime! Fuck yeah!”
The Orcas’ captain is arguing with the ref, who’s blowing his whistle and making the goal sign.
“We made it! We made it!”
There’s shocked murmuring in the stadium as we head down the tunnel to the locker room.
“One more goal,” Ellie tells us. Her eyes are dancing. “You showed them! Did you see their faces?” She’s giddy. “They didn’t think you could do it, and you have them on the run! Oh my god,I love hockey! Okay.” She rubs her hands together. “Here’s how we’re going to win…”
Then she rattles through the plays as she draws with a pink marker on the board. “We just need one goal. It’s sudden death. One goal. Then we win.”
“Ren, are you good?” I ask him. His eyes are bloodred, and I think he’s missing another tooth.
“Fuck yeah.” He slams his helmet on his head. “I want these fucking West Coast bastards squealing like a stuck pig on the back of my pickup truck.”
We can do this. We can beat the Orcas. Ellie thinks we can do it.
The hope, the elation, is short-lived.
The Orcas aren’t giving an inch. It’s like being struck by a typhoon.
We hang on. The game somehow is twice as fast as the last period. The refs can’t even keep up with us as we speed across the ice. It’s just like the second period, though. The Orcas get more shots on goal than us. The puck stays on our side, not theirs. Sure, Ren saves them, but they just need to get lucky once.
And I’m gassed. I’m a split second slower than the Orcas players. The puck doesn’t fly quite as fast across the ice as it should. Hudson’s right—I’m not a real NHLer. I didn’t spend all summer honing my hockey skills. I just walked onto this team. I don’t belong here.
We need a miracle.
And he’s there, sitting right next to Ellie on the bench, swinging his feet.
19
ELLIE
“Wow, overtime! Go team!” I scream as the huge men speed a hundred miles an hour across the ice. I can barely follow the puck.
The Orcas want to win. They want to win at all costs.
The Seattle coach is giving me the evil eye through the glass. He thought this was going to be an easy win, thought they were going to go home ten to one. And we had them on the ropes the whole time. Now the game’s in overtime.
Fletcher screams my name as he zooms by with the puck. One of the Orcas defenders smashes him against the boards. I wince, and Cookie covers his eyes.
“Put Cookie in!” Fletcher yells as he races past the bench after the Orcas player.
The Finn has the puck and is heading to the net.
“You have to put him in!” Fletcher roars, the words fading as he flies through the neutral zone. He’s tired, though.
I chew on my lip. He’s played the most minutes, and he never stopped. The Orcas’ roster is more balanced than ours, and while they’re not well rested per se, they are slightly more rested thanFletcher, and that kind of edge is all you need in hockey to make a break.
I suck in a breath as the puck bounces off the post and Ren pounces on it, tossing it to the Finn.
“Make it happen!” Fletcher bellows.
“Cookie.” I rub the eighteen-year-old’s shoulder. “Cookie,” I singsong to him. “Don’t you want to go play with your friends? Look, everyone’s having fun.”
“I’m going to make us lose,” he says in a small voice. “I can’t play.”
“Cookie, you can play. You’re amazing.”
