Page 52 of Broken Hearts
I toss the phone to the end of the bed. “Everything’s great.”
We get up and get dressed without another word. Fuck. I don’t know what to do about Carrie, but more importantly I really don’t want things between me and Sienna to end on an awkward note.
Once we’re ready to go, I pick her up, pin her against the wall, and kiss her until she’s breathless and giggling and there isn’t any weird tension between us.
“What was that for?”
“For luck. Are you coming to the game tonight?”
“Yeah, definitely.”
“Hang after we win?”
She nods.
“Cool.” I pick up my bag and then take hers, too. “Ready?”
“Don’t I need to wait until everyone leaves?”
“Nah, no reason to sneak out. It’s too late for them to do anything about it now.”
Heath was right. Sneaking around is fun, but watching my teammates glare at me with jealous eyes—that’s fucking awesome.
* * *
The crowdat our home arena is pumped. With this many people watching, it puts a little extra juice in every movement I make. So does spotting Sienna in the student section wearing blue and yellow with a little roadrunner painted on one side of her face.
I wink as I skate by. She smiles big and keeps clapping with the rest of the arena.
Adam makes his rounds during warmups getting us all in the right headspace. When he falls in beside me, I’m already there.
“Has this place ever been this loud?” I do another quick scan, taking in all the filled seats. I can’t believe we made it here. The championship game. So close to the Frozen Four I can taste it.
“Definitely not.”
We each take a shot on goal and skate back toward the bench.
“You good?” he asks.
I knew that was coming. He’s asked me so many times in the past month it’s laughable. This time before I can answer he adds, “You look good.”
“I’m fucking fantastic.” I glance once more at Sienna before I step off the ice. “Let’s do this.”
The adrenaline of playing in front of our hometown crowd gets us an early lead, but even up by two, the threat of being knocked out keeps us working hard to prevent Southern U from scoring.
Coming onto the ice for the start of the third period, we’re tired, but the entire arena gets to their feet and it’s easy to push it aside with so many people cheering us on. We’re so close.
I look to Adam before the puck drops. Like me, this is it for him. We lose and our hockey careers are over. The hard set of his jaw tells me he doesn’t want to go out like that. Especially not here in front of our home crowd.
Southern is physical in the final period. Desperation makes them meaner and tougher.
“I think that motherfucker bit me,” Heath says after a SU jersey gets a penalty for holding.
“They know they’re done. Let’s put the nail in the coffin,” Maverick says as we set for the power play.
Everyone in the arena is back on their feet. It’s so loud I can’t even hear Coach yelling from the bench. Doesn’t matter. We’ve got this.
It’s a game of cat and mouse as we pass the puck around firing shots, grabbing rebounds, and taking turns hacking away at their goalie.
