Page 126 of Puck Your Feelings
"Alright, listen up!" Coach's voice cuts through the noise, and everyone turns toward the booth. "We're doing player intros. Pre-season presentation. I call your name, you skate past the camera, wave, smile, try not to look like serial killers.Becker."
"Why do I always catch strays?" I yell back.
The intros start. One by one, guys skate past the camera Mateo's operating, most of them hamming it up. Petrov does some weird flex that makes the chat explode with emojis. Wall waves with all the enthusiasm of someone at a funeral. Groover blows a kiss directly at the camera—at Mateo, obviously—and nearly wipes out doing it.
When it's my turn, I manage a cocky grin and a two-finger salute that I hope reads as "confident" and not "about to vomit from nerves."
Kane goes next, and of course he looks perfectly composed, giving a small nod to the camera like he's accepting an award. No one watching would guess that in about twenty minutes, he's about to blow shit up on live television.
No pressure or anything.
The teams are dividing up—I'm on the same side as Kane, which was strategic.
I need to be on the ice with him when this goes down.
"Five minutes!" Mateo calls out.
My heart's trying to escape through my throat. I skate over to the bench, grab my water bottle, and take a long drink that does absolutely nothing to calm my nerves.
Kane appears beside me, and for a moment, we're just standing there, two guys in full gear, surrounded by organized chaos, about to do something either incredibly brave or monumentally stupid.
"Becker," he says quietly, and there's something in his voice that makes my chest tight.
"Yeah?"
He doesn't look at me, just stares out at the ice. "Thank you. For this. For everything."
I want to say something meaningful, something that captures how fucking proud I am of him right now. But my throat's too tight, and anyway, we're surrounded by twenty nosy teammates who would never let me live it down.
So instead, I bump my shoulder against his. "That's what boyfriends are for, right? Helping you commit media suicide on the internet."
He huffs a laugh. "When you put it that way—"
"One minute!" Mateo shouts.
The teams line up. Coach and Mateo start their commentary intro, their voices streaming to hundreds of thousands of people.
"Welcome, everyone, to the final scrimmage of the Wolves' training camp," Coach announces in his best professional voice. "I'm Coach Martin, and with me is—"
"Mateo Rossi, anthropology student, Groover's boyfriend, and your guide to understanding hockey players in their natural habitat," Mateo finishes cheerfully.
"Did you just introduce yourself as my boyfriend before mentioning anything hockey-related?" Groover yells from the ice.
"You are hockey related, babe!"
I glimpse the live chat on one of the monitors near the bench, comments flying past faster than I can read them.
Kane's beside me in the lineup, and I can feel him vibrating with energy that he's trying desperately to hide. His tells are subtle: the way he's adjusting his gloves for the third time, the slight tension in his shoulders. The fact that he's been staring at the same spot on the ice for the past thirty seconds.
I lean in slightly, keeping my voice low enough that only he can hear. "Are you sure?"
He looks at me, and there's something fierce in his eyes.
He nods once, sharp and certain.
The referee skates to center ice, whistle poised.
This is it. No turning back.
