Page 1 of Goal Line
Chapter One
LUKE
“We’ve played six games against St. Louis. We’ve won half, and they’ve won half.” Coach pauses, looks around the locker room on the eve of Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, and then says, “I don’t need to go over their strengths or their weaknesses—you already know them. What I do want to tell you before you take the ice tonight is that you are the better team. You deserve this win. But it’ll only happen if every single one of you goes out there and gives it your all for the next sixty minutes of play. No distractions. No mistakes. Do. Your. Job.”
Do your job.It seems so simple, but each time you take the ice, you face the reality that the game could go either way. On our journey to the finals, we beat teams that were better than us and lost to teams who weren’t as good. So much can go right, and so much can go wrong, during those three periods.
Colt’s the starting goalie tonight, so the pressure’s off me—though I still feel the heightened nerves and adrenaline coursing through the locker room. But as I stand here moments before Game 7, surrounded by my new teammates who’ve welcomed me onto this team in a way I wasn’t expecting, gratitude overrides all my other emotions.
Next to me, Colt digs his elbow into my side with a subtle nod, as if reminding me that my only job tonight is to watch him do his. Despite his reputation as an immature playboy, Colt’s actually a great mentor; he’s quick to provide suggestions, but in a way that feels helpful rather than condescending. He’s made no secret of the fact that he plans to retire after his contract is up at the end of next season, and he wants me to be ready to step into his spot. Whether I will be, or not, remains to be seen.
Coach claps his hand against his clipboard, then glances at his phone. He leans in and says something to our assistant coach before telling us to line up, and then turns and heads out the door.
“That’s weird,” Colt mumbles. Coach never leaves the locker room before the team.
“Huh. Yeah.” I’m not sure why, but I have an uneasy sense that something’s not right. When I glance over at our general manager, AJ, I see the worry on her face, too. Whatever’s going on, she knows this isn’t normal.
“You heard him,” our goalie coach, Evan Knight, says as he steps up to us.
Colt and I take our spots at the back of the line, and as we follow our teammates out the door and down the hallway toward the ice, I notice Coach off to the side, watching us walk by.
“Okay. Keep me posted,” he says into the phone as we pass. “I love you too.”
Behind me, AJ asks him, “Everything okay?”
I shouldn’t be listening to their conversation. I should be focused on the game ahead. But the uneasy feeling gripping my belly and sending a nervous shiver up my spine won’t let me ignore it.
“Eva was just sent to the hospital. Helene is flying to New York?—”
I hear my best friend’s name coming off her father’s lips, and I stop in my tracks.No. No, no, no.This can’t be happening.
I spin around, practically plowing over Coach Knight as I do. “Wait! What’s wrong with Evie?” I can hear the panic in my voice, but I can’t control it. I need to know what they know.
“We don’t know yet. She was rushed to the ER during the layover on her flight back from Europe. I’m sure everything’s going to be fine. Now get out there.”
Swallowing past a sudden lump in my throat, I nod, hoping that he really does believe everything is fine, while also knowing that I need to warn Eva that her mother’s on her way.Shit.I’m headed out to the ice for warmups, and my phone is in the locker room.
I slowly turn to face the line of my teammates. My shoulders are so tense that my pads are practically at my ears, and my hand is clenching my goalie stick so hard that I’m half afraid I might break it.
You need to fucking relax,I tell myself. Nothing terrible can be wrong with her because her dad doesn’t seem that worried. But if her parents find out her secret, things will bevery, very bad. So while I’m walking out to take the ice, in the back of my mind, I’m doing the math.Eva’s mom is flying to New York, but it doesn’t sound like she’s at the hospital yet.
Maybe Eva already knows, and I’m worried for no reason. But maybe not—and I might be the only one who can save her right now. Even though “saving her” is only temporary. Eventually, her parents will find out. For now, at least I can warn her of her mother’s imminent arrival.
“Are you even fucking paying attention out there?” Colt grumbles as we make our way back to the visiting team’s locker room after warmups. I wish we were playing the last game of the Stanley Cup finals at home, in Boston, instead of in St. Louis. We never should’ve let it get to Game 7.
“Dude, my stomach’s a mess,” I say, and it’s not quite a lie.
It’s reasonable that I might need to take a shit before the biggest game of my life. But what I actually need is the privacy of a bathroom stall to text Eva—something my teammates, and especially my coach, can’t know.
“You’re acting like a damn rookie,” Colt says, but the insult doesn’t reach his eyes, which are full of sympathy. Nerves are a very real part of playing, and I certainly wouldn’t be the first player to camp out in a bathroom stall before a game. Even the fifteen-year veteran goalie has probably been there once or twice in his life. “You’re not even playing tonight.”
“I just need to use the bathroom, then I’ll be fine.” I shrug.When he looks at me likeare you fucking kidding me?, I add for good measure, “Unless you can’t cut it out there, old man.” I jab him with my elbow, and Colt lets out a choked laugh. He’s old by professional hockey standards, but given that he’s at the top of his game and a finalist for the goalie of the year award, which he’s previously won three times, he knows I’m just giving him shit.
“The dayyoucome in to replaceme,” he says with an eye roll, “is the day they take me out on a stretcher.”
My eyes widen. Hockey players are superstitious as hell, and we don’t say shit like that.
“Colt,” I say, my voice full of warning. “What the fuck?”
