Page 135 of False Play
The second our eyes met, I yanked off my helmet and tossed it somewhere across the ice. She was already running, and a moment after the next, she was in the air. I caught her effortlessly, her legs wrapping tight around my waist as I gripped her thighs.
My heart had never been so full.
She buried her face into my shoulder as confetti rained in bursts of blue, white, and silver around us.
I found the nape of her neck, gently pulling her back so I could see her.
Her brown eyes shimmered, brimming with happy tears. “You did it, pretty boy.” She grinned.
“We all did it, Kenny baby.” I leaned in, pressing my forehead against hers, and whispered, “I love you so much. I love you, I love you. Ifuckinglove you.”
Her smile turned soft as she swept my sweaty hair off my forehead. “I love you, too,” she whispered.
The way she looked at me like I’d hung the goddamn moon… It felt right. It felt like fate. It felt like every version of me had always been waiting for her to look at mejustlike that.
In true Strikers fashion—sincewe were creatures of habit and all—the celebration moved from the rink to Tim’s. We shut the place down, with only players, family, and front office staff in attendance. The Cup sat in the center of the bar like a holy relic, gleaming under dim lights as we all stared at it in collective awe.
The night was chaotic in the best way.
At some point, Parker set up karaoke and started singing all his favorite songs. But then, when he started singing “My tears ricochet” by Taylor Swift (his go-to song every time he was completely wasted), Valentina cut him off, declaring it too much of a downer for the night and swapped in a playlist packed with 2000s throwbacks. We screamed the lyrics with half-lost voices and danced with our sore bodies, but it had been so much fun.
When the bar finally closed, the energy was still too buzzed to call it a night. So a few of us headed to my place to keep the party going on the rooftop of my apartment.
“Aaaand that’s game,” Olivia announced triumphantly as the last ping-pong ball dropped into a red cup. She slapped Kennedy’s hand with a grin.
Hayes groaned, plucking the ball out of the cup before downing the beer in defeat.
“How the hell are you so good at this?” Donovan asked, genuinely baffled.
Olivia shrugged like it was nothing. “Had my wild days back in college.”
I shot her a look. “I don’t need to hear about my little sister playing beer pong at some frat house.”
“We’re twins,” she deadpanned.
“I was born two minutes before you.”
“Oh my God,” she shrieked. “Not this again! Is this why I moved to Chicago? For you totortureme?”
“Welcome home, little sister.” I grinned, lifting my cup in salute before taking a sip.
“Leave her alone, Anderson,” Kennedy said, feigning sternness.
I arched a brow. “What, you’re both going to gang up on me now?”
“Duh. Girls gotta stick together, bro,” Olivia quipped without missing a beat.
I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face. We’d won the fucking Cup, and I still barely believed it. But another part of it was everything else. Anthony had pulled Kennedy and me aside at Tim’s to tell us my father had tried to throw her under the bus with Marcus, but he shut him down. Things got heated, and security escorted my father out of Strikers HQ.
My father tried to reach me tonight, but when I saw his contact pop up on my phone, I finally bit the bullet and blocked his number.
It was hard to cut him off without fixing anything first, but sometimes in life, things didn’t get resolved. Sometimes you had to choose distance and call it survival. It was what I needed to do to start healing, to let go of the resentment I’d been dragging around for years. Having Kennedy in my corner made that possible. She didn’t push. She just stood with me every step of the way. Always patient. Always kind.
And though I wasn’t ready to tell anyone aboutWillow House, tonight was the first step in the right direction—a step toward the life Iactuallywanted. I was even going back to therapy. I made my first appointment last week, and I was really looking forward to it. Excitement bubbled inside of me, knowing that little by little, I was going to gain control of my life again.
I looked around and took everything in with a deep breath. Everyone was playing around, being loud and messy. Completely unfiltered and still riding the high of the win.
And yet…it felt like home. Found family in every sense of the word.
