Page 92 of Breakaway Daddies

And I feel it. That electric pulse through my arms. That deep gut instinct.

I wind back. Snap my wrist.

The puck flies.

Top shelf.

Goal.

The horn blasts like thunder, and the stadium explodes. Screaming, stomping, a tidal wave of sound crashing down over the ice.

Bruno grabs me mid-stride, slamming into me like a truck, and I just start yelling. Nothing coherent. Just raw, pure joy.

We’ve got a lead again.

But there’s still time.

Still a clock ticking.

Still blood to spill and pressure mounting with every heartbeat.

And if we want to win this thing?

We’re going to have to earn every last second.

I’m skating like a man possessed, adrenaline pouring out of every pore, banging my stick against the boards like it’s a war drum.

“Let’s go, Marauders!” I yell, throat raw, heart pounding out of rhythm with the roaring crowd. And they roar back, like they believe we’ve already got one hand on the damn trophy.

The whole arena feels like it’s vibrating. Like we’ve stirred up a storm and now it’s surging at our backs.

As he coasts past, I catch Bruno by the collar and give him a rough shake, wild-eyed. “You ready to crush some souls, or what?”

He grunts, low and deadly. “Always.” Then he headbutts my helmet lightly like a Viking about to march into battle, and I laugh, because of course he does. Of course.

We circle back toward the bench, where Coach is waving us in like a pissed off air traffic controller on a runway full of lightning.

Everyone piles in, shoulder to shoulder, sweaty, red-faced, breathing like we just sprinted out of hell and ready for more. Our energy’s off the charts, crackling in the air like static before a thunderclap.

Coach doesn’t waste a second.

“They’ve figured out your cycle pattern,” he snaps, stabbing at his clipboard so hard I think he might crack it in half. “Every damn time you run that low to high play on the left, they’re collapsing the lane. It’s predictable. They’re shutting it down.”

He flips the board around, starts drawing with furious speed, arrows slashing, circles flying, a couple Xs that get aggressively crossed out. It’s chaos, but it’s genius chaos. We can see the plan forming in real time.

“You flip the ice,” he barks, “Use Bruno and Liam for screens and go backdoor on their weak side. They’re leaving it open. I want you sneaking in there like ghosts and burying it before they know what hit ‘em.”

Rowan’s nodding like he’s already visualizing it. Bruno’s not speaking—he’s calculating. His focus is razor sharp, like he’s mapping every movement in his head before we even leave the bench.

Then Coach turns to me. His marker points at my chest like a dagger. “You’ve got speed, Boyd. So use it. Stretch their defense. Force ‘em wide. Bait the hit, draw the coverage, but don’t go full hero mode. We win this as a unit. No solo glory. You understand me?”

I throw him a salute. “Yes, sir, General Dad.”

He sighs so hard it could power a wind farm, but he doesn’t yell. Not this time. He just says, low and lethal, “Execute. Get the damn job done.”

We break the huddle and charge back onto the ice like we were born there. The crowd swells again behind us. This tidal wave of sound and belief and hope. Every muscle burns, every breath feels like fire, but it doesn’t matter.

We’ve got a new plan.

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