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With the goal-scoring adrenalin spurring me on, I play stronger and meaner than I’ve played since the Cup started.
I know it’s because she’s out there. I want her to fucking see.
I swear, as I get smashed into the glass by Ace fucking Brixton, I see a flash of red behind the players’ bench, but again, I don’t open myself up for distraction. Instead, I push my way out of his stronghold and tell him to fucking watch himself.
As I straighten out, play resumes with seconds left in the first period. Ty flicks me the puck on the fly as I maneuver around Ace and make straight for the net. I make my slapshot once more, but it ricochets off the goalkeeper and straight back to me, so I take another slide at the puck and fling it faster than lightning into the back of the net right on the buzzer.
“Fuck yeah!” I wave my stick in the air again, with some fancy footwork as my teammates skate over to congratulate me as the crowd goes bananas.
“Fucking nice shot.” Ty flips up his visor and gives me a wide-set grin. “You’re on fire tonight, bro.”
Don’t I know it.
We all skate over to the players’ bench, and coach does some quick strategizing, but pats me on the shoulder since we’re two goals up.
I’m disappointed to see that the seats behind us are empty, and I’m hoping that they left just to get some beverages, if that indeed is where they were sitting.
“Hey, Ty,” I holler, out of ear shot of Coach Carter, as I pull my helmet off and have a drink of water. “Where’s Cindy sitting?”
“Right where you’re looking, brother.”
So they are sitting here behind the players. Interesting.
I try not to think about that too closely.
After the break, it’s time to show Miss Emmerson Daley what I can do.
We’re back out on the ice before I know it and I make a play of skating close to the bench to check. Sure enough, I see her hair, but it’s hard to make out anything else unless I act like a complete stalker.
I don’t know why it spurs me on to do better, why it even matters, but I go out hard and make no bones about slamming Ace into the glass as many times as I can.
It’s a long-time rivalry. Even when I played for the Nashville Saints, we hated each other.
No one is fucking with me tonight. Between me and our other star striker, and the youngest on the team, Jake Hudson, we bang three more, to their one into the net. The crowd is unstoppable, and I feel the roar and the thunder of their screams running through my veins. You can’t buy this kind of adrenaline, or recapture it any other way.
I’m on fire. I glide so fast, even Ace has trouble keeping up with me.
It’s the third period when I get more than a flash of her.
Ace and I face off right in front of the players’ bench, after a play where he tackles me and sends us both flying into the glass. I hear a fucking crunch, and I hope I didn’t break anything valuable on my body.
I stare with unseeing eyes at Emmerson sitting practically at the front of the rink. Smashed up against the glass isn’t the way I would ever have pictured seeing her again, but here we are.
But she’s staring at me with wide eyes before I spin out of Ace’s grasp and we both go crashing down on the ice because there’s no place else we can go.
When I pick myself up, Ashton and Ty are by my side, ushering Ace away and telling him to fuck off.
I’m not worried about him. I want a closer look at Emmerson, and at the same time I wonder if I’ve had one too many knocks to the head.
As I slowly push myself backwards, facing the bench, I see her again.
And I’d know her face anywhere. I’d remember her soft, angelic looking gaze, her full pink lips, and the most piercing eyes I’ve ever seen, the kind I’d recognize in a crowd of thousands, any day of the week.
We stare at each other as I skate away and my heart rate picks up in my chest, thrumming as hard as the chanting around the stadium.
I feel so fucking alive.
There’s still five minutes to go in the final period, and I have a score to settle with Ace Brixton before I pack up my skates for the night. I can’t see them beating us.
