Page 150 of The Home Game

It was all of that, probably, but what Antoni knew for certain was that all of their lives were easier and better with Matty around.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

With Nico back on the ice, he and Matty were the top pairing again.

Matty couldn’t stop his grin as the puck dropped to start the game and a fizz of excitement went through him as Dustin immediately took possession, smacking the puck straight onto Colton’s stick.

Colton tore across the ice at breathtaking speed, darting between Montreal’s defense, flying past them like they were standing still to tuck the puck into the back of the net before their goaltender could blink.

The Lynx had historically been one of the Fisher Cats’ biggest rivals but they seemed slow and sluggish off the hop tonight, definitely no match for Colton’s speed and skill.

Matty roared along with the crowd as he crashed into Colton, Dustin, Erik, and Nico, trying to pull all of them in for a tight hug. God he’d missed this.

The skating, the scoring, the cellies … all of it.

Across the ice, Matty spotted Dom’s tight smile on the bench but he still tapped his stick against the boards and held out his fist for Colton to bump as he flew by.

Poor Dom.

Matty felt a pang of sympathy in his chest.

Colton was incredible to watch, and Matty had seen how hard he’d worked this summer to bring his game to the next level. He’d spent some time on their top line last season but he had officially moved into that role.

It had to be a blow to Dom’s ego to see his own role diminish, shifted from top line center to second line last season, to the fourth line now.

Dom would do his best because he loved to play, loved the team, and only wanted the best for them. But Matty could imagine how it must hurt Dom to watch his skills and his usefulness decline.

He’d spent his career as the big goal scorer, the flashy player who won Cups and trophies, the guy who’d gone from having tens of thousands of people chant his name to booing him when he made a mistake.

No matter what Dom said to the media, no matter how fine he pretended to be, it had to hurt. It had to.

Matty had tried all summer to get him to talk about it but Dom had clammed up, even when Matty poured alcohol down in his throat in a desperate attempt to get him to fucking open up.

And look, Matty wasn’t exactly the poster boy of talking about his feelings. His family wasn’t big on that and well, hockey hadn’t exactly helped. But he’d seen La Bouche do it and if their former goaltender could manage that, be the heart and soul of the team, become the first guy in the league to come out, and still have fans chanting his name, then why couldn’t Matty?

He’d watched Dustin learn to open up and talk things out with the guys and Matty had also seen what it did to Felix when he did the opposite and bottled everything up.

So Matty had dug deep and gotten better. He’d tried to be really open and honest with Antoni lately and it seemed to be working and God damn it, Dom needed to get there too.

Dom’s transition from star player to supporting role was probably making him feel like shit and he needed to talk it out. That was why Matty couldn’t be mad right now.

Even if they still weren’t really speaking except for hockey.

“Yo, you alive in there, Mats?” Nico hollered, popping him on the ass with the blade of his stick to get his attention. “You wanna play some hockey or something?”

Matty blinked, realizing they were lining up to drop the puck again and he shook his head and skated into position.

Okay, maybe the entire team needed to talk about their feelings more but there was definitely too much thinking going on right now. At the moment, Matty needed less thinking and more hockey.

After the temporary distraction, Matty settled into the flow of the game, battling for pucks and shooting clean passes to his teammates.

The Fisher Cats got a second goal but the Lynx slowly gained steam and by the end of the second period, they were tied 2-2.

Determined to get a win for Antoni and the kids, Matty played his heart out at the beginning of the third period.

He stole pucks and blocked shots and slammed their opponents into the boards.

“What the fuck, Carlson?” Chad Morrison said as he shook himself off following the last hit. “Why are you fucking playing like it’s game seven of the playoffs, dude?”

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