I caught it with a defenseman flying at me. I held it half a second past comfortable, till the guy committed his hips, and then I dropped it low to Heath behind the goal line and went to the net.
He didn’t even look for me. He knew and sent it back into the middle of the ice onto my tape with the goalie sprawled thewrong way. The entire top right corner of the net sat open for me.
I didn’t shoot the puck. I placed it.
The lamp came on, the horn went off, and nineteen thousand people rose out of their seats at once. The noise rattled the walls.
I did what I’d been told to do. Instead of looking for Rook, I headed straight for center ice.
He was already on the way. I heard his skates approaching, and we met where the big crest is painted into the ice.
I dropped my gloves and ripped my helmet off, letting it bounce on the ice. He already had his off, carrying it under his arm. I placed my hands on either side of his face. The building was roaring.
With no further thought, I kissed Rook at center ice.
He kissed me back. His hand came up to the back of my neck, and he held me there in front of our team and the entire hockey world.
I started talking. “I did it. Here we are. Did you see the goalie? I placed it. I didn’t even have to—“
Rook kissed me again. He leaned back in and stopped the words with his lips. When he pulled back, he smiled and said, “Hi,” as he would on any weekday afternoon.
Before I could answer, I turned my head to see the entire team coming, and behind them, still at the boards, was Rafe.
He had one glove off, with his hand white-knuckled on the top of the dasher. He was crying. It wasn’t a soft sob. He had tears running all the way down his twenty-year-old face. His cheeks were red, and he didn’t try to wipe the tears away. Rafe wasn’t hiding, and he stared at the two of us standing there with our helmets on the ground between us.
He could have been me at twenty, in a room full of men I was studying for evidence that I could survive when they found out the one thing about me I was hiding. All season I’d been teachinghim to be unmissable in front so nobody looked in the back, and I’d not really thought about what the kid might be keeping in the back.
The team hit us. Cross got there first, and he put one glove on the back of my neck and the other on the back of Rook’s. He pulled our two heads in against his for one second and then let go, skating off to avoid being crushed by our teammates.
Heath came in behind him and couldn’t speak. His mouth was moving, and nothing was coming out of it. He grabbed me by the front of the jersey and shook me. That was his entire speech.
Kieran had his phone and was filming. He knew we’d want to see this later, so he remained calm while the rest of us were losing our minds.
“For the archive,” he called, and kept filming.
Rook glanced over my shoulder as the team surrounded us in a crushing group hug.
“Go get your kid,” he said.
Somehow, I wrenched myself free of the mob and skated to the bench. I got both my hands into Rafe’s cage and pulled his wet face toward me. “Hey,” I said. “Hey. Look at me. You’re okay.”
He laughed, a huge, wet, broken laugh. “I’m sorry, sir—I couldn’t help it.”
“Don’t you dare be sorry.” I gave the cage a little shake, his head with it. “Not for this.”
He nodded and kept crying, letting me hold his head for a second longer.
***
The house was quiet.
The Kovac piece had gone live while we were getting ready for bed, and I refused to read it without him. That was a major feat of self-control.
“You read it,” I said, handing him the laptop. Then I took it back. “No. I’ll read it. You do voices badly.”
“You read everything better than me.”
“I do.” I propped it on my knees and pulled him over against me, reading aloud in the lamplight.
