Page 73 of Pucking Forbidden

Still, the Kingsmen keep pushing. Every possession turns into a battle. Every shot is contested, and every clean play challenged before it can fully develop.

Julian is different tonight, too. I notice it right away. He’s as sharp and focused as ever, but there’s something unusually restless in the way he moves. His skating is more aggressive. Every shift feels like he’s one step away from losing control of himself.

And he also keeps looking at me.

The first time happens midway through the opening period after a whistle stops play near center ice. He skates backward toward the bench, pulling his helmet off just enough to drag a hand through damp hair. His eyes lift straight to me.

Even from a distance, I see the shift in his expression. His jaw tightens, and his gaze darkens.

A prickle of anxiety rears its head in my mind. Did I do something wrong? Is he overwhelmed? Is he upset that I wore his jersey? Or came to the game at all?

But even as those worried thoughts swirl, my body betrays me. A sudden, deep wave of heat floods straight down to my core, leaving me breathless. I clutch the fabric of my coat in my lap, utterly baffled by what is happening to me. Why can’t I seem to control the way my body reacts around him? It defies all logic. Even when I’m terrified that he might be upset with me, a secret, rebellious part of me just wants more. More of the heat. More of him looking at me like I'm the only person there.

He looks away after only two seconds, skating toward the bench to rotate out.

“Oh my God,” Grace whispers beside me, following the direction of his stare. She has her phone raised, recording video content for the team’s official social media accounts, and she leans slightly past the edge of the boards to get a clearer, unobstructed shot of the bench. “Hadley. Look at him.”

“What?” I ask.

“He looks like he wants to kill someone,” Grace murmurs, keeping her lens locked tight on number eighteen. “No, seriously. That man is having a full-blown crisis right now.”

My stomach completely plummets. I stare through the glass, my pulse racing. A heavy wave of guilt washes over me.

“Oh no,” I breathe, turning frantically toward the girls. “You really think he’s mad? I didn't want him to be upset. What if I'm distracting him? I don't want him playing badly or getting hurt because of me and this jersey.”

Skyler lets out a dry, low chuckle from my other side, adjusting her glasses as she watches Julian’s rigid posture on the screen of Grace's phone.

“Girl,” Skyler drawls, a knowing smirk playing on her lips. “'Mad' is definitely not the word I would use for the way he's looking at you.”

Biting my lip as I think over what Skyler means, I watch as Julian steps back onto the ice and immediately steals the puck near the blue line before driving hard into the offensive zone. One of the Kingsmen players tries to cut him off, and Julian shoulders past him hard enough that the crowd reacts instantly.

The Kingsmen push back harder after that.

The twins are relentless, creating openings where there shouldn’t be any, forcing the Night Hawks defense to collapse tighter around the net. Their captain scores late in the first period after a brutal rebound scramble in front of the crease.

The arena explodes and the Kingsmen bench slams against the boards in celebration.

For the first time all night, the Night Hawks look briefly shaken.

The second period is worse and much more physical. It is brutal, suffocatingly physical, and the ice feels less like a hockey rink and more like a battleground.

“Jesus, Zander is completely seeing red,” Rylee mutters, tracking her husband as he shoves a Kingsmen forward away from the crease. “I haven't seen him this pissed off since…damn, I don’t know when.”

“Jensen too,” Grace adds, her knuckles white as she grips her phone. “He’s skating like he wants to tear someone apart.”

The refs start calling more and more penalties, trying to rein all the players in, but the teams shove each other after whistles, tempers snapping and flaring.

Julian switches out again with Theo, who throws himself into the fray without hesitation. Then, right in front of our section of the glass, the line crosses. Theo is skating hard after a loose puck when Asher Winthrop delivers a vicious, blind-sided hit from behind, sending the rookie crashing face-first into the boards.

An illegal check. Cruel and entirely uncalled for.

Theo snaps, pushing himself up and dropping one of his gloves, ready to throw down right there. Before a full fight can break out, Theo is called back to the bench, and Julian goes back out.

Halfway through the second, he scores.

The entire sequence happens so fast, I almost miss part of it. Jensen steals the puck along the boards and flips it across the ice to Owen, who redirects it immediately toward center. Julian catches it without breaking stride and finds himself one-on-one with the defenseman.

He fakes left, cuts right, and then snaps the puck toward the net with all his considerable strength.