Page 117 of Twisted Shot
His eyes sweep the stands, instinct carving a path through the chaos.
There. A few rows behind the bench.
Mila’s wearing his jersey, sleeves pushed up, her hair tied back in a loose braid he wants to drag his fingers through. Her cheeks are flushed from the cold, eyes sparkling as she leans over to say something to Natalie, who’s sitting beside her also decked out in Whalers gear, massive soft pretzel in hand.
The sight of Mila in his name, his number, his world, hits him in the chest with the force of a body check. He does not need her to wave. He does not need her to scream. She’s here. That’s enough to make him feral.
He looks away fast, afraid that if he stares too long, he will losehimself completely, so he drops his head and pushes into another lap, pouring focus into muscle and repetition.
But instinct is louder than logic.
He glances back and nearly loses his edge.
His mother is seated beside Mila.
Janet Eagan-Tilbury, flawless as ever, regal in her posture and dressed in high-necked designer black, better suited for a gallery opening in Manhattan than a hockey game in Hartford. Her hands rest neatly in her lap, fingers interlocked, her mouth composed in a line of cool civility as she leans in toward Mila with the practiced warmth of someone who has perfected polite conversation like an art form.
Seated beside her is Quentin, unbothered as ever, one leg crossed over the other and an arm slung lazily along the back of his chair as if the entire section belongs to him. He looks every inch the clean-cut trust fund kid in an expensive coat and polished loafers. He hasn’t seen his brother in years. Since Theo left for college and didn’t look back.
Theo slows, carving a tighter loop near the boards. His grip tightens around his stick, gloves creaking from the pressure.
They never come.
Not once in the years he’s worn the Whalers navy and green have they shown up, despite Hartford being barely an hour from Westport. Their absence has been a quiet constant in his life, not a wound anymore, but something worse. Scar tissue. Something thick and hard that he has learned to live with.
And now they’re here.
It can’t be a coincidence. Mila is the variable. It has to be her. She must have invited them. She must have gone behind his back, not out of betrayal, but something deeper, something stupidly kind and hopeful, the way she always is when she shouldn’t be.
His stomach turns sharply, but it isn’t anger that hits him. It’s quieter and far more dangerous. Gratitude, raw and reluctant, sinks its teeth into him before he can brace for it. It is a weight he does not know how to hold, sharp in its edges, achingin its depth.
It rattles him.
It makes him want to find the nearest wall and slam his shoulder into it until the feeling bleeds out.
Instead, he digs the edge of his blades into the ice, grits his teeth, and rockets forward in a punishing corner turn. The cold cuts against his face, and his breath tears out of him in heavy bursts as the crowd roars in his ears.
Syracuse wants blood tonight.
Let them come.
He’s got more than enough rage to spare. And now he’s got something to win for.
The dressing room is a goddamn zoo.
The walls vibrate with victory. Someone—probably Carter—is blasting music loud enough to shake the ceiling tiles.
The man himself sitting shirtless on the bench with a towel around his shoulders and a beer in hand, grinning like he just won the lottery. Which he might as well have. He scored the go-ahead goal—top shelf, thirty-eight seconds left on the clock—and the team practically knighted him.
Jesse’s flushed, laughing, chirping back at someone while pointing at the scoreboard written on the whiteboard: 4–3 Final. He bagged two goals tonight, both filthy, and hasn’t stopped talking since they got off the ice.
Theo sits in the corner, still half-dressed, steam rising off his skin like a furnace finally shut down. He’s wiped, but not broken. Not even close. Every muscle hums with satisfaction. The Storm came at them hard—cheap hits, board battles, a third period that felt like a war—but he didn’t let a single one of them through without paying the toll.
And the crowd? The crowd had screamed for him. Every blocked shot, every bone-jarring hit, every clean steal ripped the roof off the rink. Hartford’s got hockey in its blood, and tonight, Theo and the team gave them something to bleed for.
He tugs on his shirt, slips on his tie in the mirror. Drops of water from his shower cling to his jaw, and his knuckles are raw.
He doesn’t give a shit.
