Page 79 of Pucking the Single Dad
From the living room, Finn called out, "Dad! Can you help with this fraction?"
"I've got it," Serena said quickly, knowing I couldn't get up. "Daddy's reviewing game footage."
"Is his knee being stupid again?" Finn asked with the casual acceptance of a child who'd normalized his father's deterioration.
"Little bit," Serena admitted.
"I'll get his ice pack!"
"Already handled, baby. Focus on your homework."
She looked back at me, and we shared a moment of perfect understanding—three weeks of performance, of pretending Daddy was fine, of managing crisis like we managed everything else: together, terrified, but too stubborn to quit.
The first round against Dallas turned my knee into a science experiment in pain management. Game two, Sampson caught me flat-footed in the neutral zone—my knee had locked mid-stride, turning a routine pivot into a statue impression. His shoulder drove through my chest, boards rattling my skull, but worse was the grinding sensation as my patella tried to relocate itself.
"Wilder's slow tonight," the commentator observed, unaware I'd pre-gamed with enough painkillers to tranquilize a horse.
Theo started shadowing me without being asked, always mysteriously appearing wherever the puck was headed my way. Second period of game three, Benny lined me up for a career-ending hit. Theo materialized like a guardian angel, intercepting him with a cross-check that earned two minutes but saved my knee from becoming modern art.
"You owe me," he gasped through the penalty box glass.
"Beers for life," I promised, trying not to show how my leg trembled just standing still.
Between periods, Dr. Patricia wrapped my knee in so much tape I looked like a mummy from the waist down. "You know you're a complete fool, don't you?" she muttered, injecting cortisone directly into the joint—my fourth shot in six days. "A stubborn, reckless fool who's going to destroy what's left of this knee."
"Noted," I said, then limped back out for twenty more minutes of pretending I wasn't dying.
We survived Dallas in five games, mostly because Yamamoto went supernova, scoring hat tricks in games four and five while I played defensive chess, using positioning to compensate for the fact I couldn't accelerate without screaming.
Vegas came next, and Pablo—that calculating bastard—figured out my weakness by game two. Every shift, he'd force me left, making me pivot on the bad knee. During a power play, he caught me trying to protect Theo's pass. The hit was clean but devastating—my knee hyperextended backward, ligaments making sounds like bubble wrap. I stayed vertical through pure spite, using my stick as a crutch the refs somehow missed.
"Daddy looks hurt," Finn observed from the family suite, his voice crackling through Serena's phone during our Video call between periods.
"Daddy's tough," Serena deflected, but her eyes told me she saw everything—the way I couldn't put weight on it, the tremor in my hands, the glassy disconnect in my eyes from too many painkillers.
Game six. Everything. Win and reach the conference finals. Lose and it's over—season, career, the last payday that would secure Finn's future.
The arena thrummed with eighteen thousand hearts beating in sync. Finn sat in the family suite, inhaler clutchedlike a talisman, wearing the custom jersey Serena had made—"DADDY'S WARRIOR" across the shoulders.
Vegas came out violent, targeting my knee with surgical precision. Nico clipped me behind the net—not enough for a penalty, enough to send lightning through my joint. Carl finished his checks a second late, always catching me when my weight shifted wrong. By the second period, I could barely push off for faceoffs.
"You're done," Coach said during a TV timeout, reading my body language like an obituary.
"One more shift."
"Brad—"
"One more."
He was still arguing when I jumped the boards.
2-2. Three minutes left. My knee had transcended pain into something metaphysical—I felt disconnected from it, like operating a broken joystick. Nico wound up for a slapper from the point. Pure instinct made me drop, bad knee screaming as I blocked it. The puck bounced to neutral ice.
Nobody expected me to chase it. That's why it worked.
I pushed off with my left leg only, dragging the right like a vestigial limb. The Vegas defenders had relaxed, assuming Theo would retrieve it. But adrenaline and desperation created propulsion. I reached the puck at their blue line, alone.
Leo came out to challenge. Everything hurt. Time crystallized—I could hear individual fans breathing, feel the building's ventilation system cycling air. My body made the decision without consulting my brain: fake forehand, drag backhand, elevate.
