Page 38 of Hockey Nanny

No goals. Just bruises, a few bloody noses, and cut lips.

The second period came faster than I expected, and the pace didn’t ease up. If anything, Dallas turned the screws tighter. A Knights defender went down hard in front of the net. The puckstayed live. Sticks chopped. Bodies piled. Gage dove in, and shoved a Stars player clear so the goalie could smother it.

Henry covered his eyes, peeking through his fingers. “Is that allowed?”

I looked at the ref, who seemed okay with it, then nodded. “I guess.”

The misalignment in the Knights’ forward line cost them again a few minutes later. Boone chased a loose puck into the corner, Dawson circling high, waiting. Boone tried to bank it back. Dawson hesitated, then cut the other way, reading a play Boone wasn’t making. Dallas stepped into the lane, took possession, and sent a clean pass up ice.

The Stars broke in two-on-one.

Time slowed just enough for me to see it coming. The shot snapped past the goalie’s glove and into the net. Red light. The arena fell silent for a heartbeat, then erupted with more boos.

Henry slumped. “They scored.”

I swallowed, but didn’t say anything back.

On the ice, Dawson stared at the goal for a long beat. Boone skated past him, mind already on the reset. They didn’t look at each other. Not once.

Gage slammed his stick against the boards as he skated by the bench, a chasm forming in his control. He went right back out on the next shift and tried to drag the game back by stubborn force alone. He leveled a Stars defender at center ice, and won another draw. Then he fired a shot that forced a rebound that nearly tied the game.

The Knights finally answered late in the second period, when it felt as though everyone had given up on a comeback. A messy scramble in front of the net. No clean lines. No pretty setup.Gage jammed the puck loose with sheer will and someone buried it himself before Dallas could clear. The arena exploded, and it felt like the sound ricocheted through my bones.

Henry was on his feet, yelling. I found myself yelling too, hands shaking.

By the horn, the score sat even. One goal each. The ice was carved up. Players skated off slower now, shoulders heavy, tempers barely leashed.

I sank back into my seat as the teams disappeared down the tunnels. My head rang with noise and guilt and the sense that this game was balanced on something fragile. And that it was all my fault.

Henry leaned against my side, finally looking like his ramped up energy was on the wane. I wrapped an arm around him and stared at the ice, wondering how many more small fractures it could take before something broke for good.

The third period burned down to its bones. Dallas pressed hard, cycling the puck deep, forcing the Knights to collapse and scramble. Gage stayed in the middle of it, taking hits, throwing bodies off balance, hacking the puck free where finesse failed. He blocked a shot with his thigh and didn’t even check it before pushing back into the play. Another rush came fast. He cut it off with his shoulder, skated the puck out himself, and dumped it down ice for a moment to gather the team. The crowd rode every impact, every cleared puck, every save, noise cresting and crashing in waves that made my ears ring.

The goal came late, almost ugly in how hard-earned it was. A broken play thanks to the ongoing feud between Boone and Dawson. A rebound kicked loose after Gage barreled the net and took two defenders with him. The puck slid into open ice and a Knight buried it before Dallas could recover.

I was on my feet before I knew it, Henry yelling beside me, his hands gripping my arm. Dallas threw everything they had left at the final minutes, but Gage went into overdrive to keep the lead, stepping into lanes, knocking rabid Dallas bodies aside. He dragged the clock forward inch by inch. When the horn finally sounded, the relief hit harder than the need for celebration. The Knights had won. Barely. And watching Gage skate off, shoulders squared, sweat pouring down his face, I knew exactly who had carried them there.

*

The house had gone still in the way it only ever did late at night when everyone was asleep, when even the pipes seemed to give up and the walls stopped shifting. Henry was up in his room, already a couple of hours into dreamland. A sliver of light from the lamp in the hall cut across the living room carpet and stopped short of the sofa, like it knew better than to intrude.

I sat pressed into the corner cushion, knees drawn up, remote abandoned on the coffee table. The TV screen had gone dark half an hour ago. Maybe longer. Time slacked without anything to mark it.

This was what I’d wanted all day. Quiet. Space. The chance to let my shoulders drop.

It turned out to be totally useless.

Without the noise of skates or pressing flight practicals or Henry’s questions about whether actual knights could really fight stars in the sky, everything rushed in. Boone’s grin, too close. Dawson’s face on the bench, fixed on the ice but never quite tracking the play. That hitch between them I couldn’t unsee once I’d first spotted it. Too many missed passes. The two of them suddenly unable (or unwilling) to read each other.

My fault.

I pressed my thumb into the seam of the cushion until the fabric bit back. This job had been clean on paper. Temporary. A paycheck, stepping stone with careful lines I hadn’t planned on crossing. I would’ve understood if Dawson had fired me on the spot that night in the hotel. It would’ve been easier. A hard stop instead of this dragging unease, this sense that I’d reached between two brothers and pulled something loose I didn’t know how to put back.

I tipped my head against the back of the couch and stared at the shadows playing on the ceiling. My phone lay face down on the table. I didn’t flip it over. I couldn’t bear reading any more of my dad’s apologies that did nothing but reach into the empty stretch where he should’ve been.

The first tear caught me by surprise. It ran down the side of my face, warm and annoying. I scrubbed it away with the heel of my hand and sat up straight, then another followed, and another, until the effort of stopping felt pointless. I folded forward, arms around my middle, face tucked into my sleeve to keep the sound in check. The house held every noise. I couldn’t give it anything to echo.

But it came out anyway. Broken little pulls of breath that shook more than I wanted. Guilt pressed in from all sides. Boone. Dawson. Dad. The way I kept misjudging where to stand, who to trust, what I could afford to want.