Page 177 of Until We Burn
“Wherever you end up, we’re gonna support you one hundred percent,” Luke promises.
At that moment, I realize that it’s not the trophies and the titles that make the game worth playing. It’s the boys.
There’s no hockey without them.
A smile breaks across my face. “Thank you for being the best brothers in the world.”
Luke sniffles and he doesn’t care who sees. “I love you motherfuckers.”
We bump our fists together and clobber each other in a group hug. Through our foggy visors, I can see our families cheering us on in the front row.
There’s Ron, Aunt Edie, Uncle Manu…and my parents.
I stare back at them in shock as they wave their leis.I don’t know what’s come over them, but they’re here and they’re supporting me, and it’s everything I’ve ever wanted.
Wallace, Shelby, Stella, and Diana sit above them. When she smiles at me in her Griffins jersey, I’m ready to risk it and call out her name.
She’s my girl. After everything, she’s here and she’s all mine even if no one else knows.
I peek up at the very top. With his hands in his pockets, Matthias stares me down from the glass windows of the private suite. I shouldn’t give him my attention. But I want him to see that after all he’s done to take me down, I fight my way back onto the ice every time.
“I gotta say, mutt, I’m feeling a little sentimental.” Simon skatestowards me with a sweaty grin. “This is going to be my last chance to make you bleed on the ice.”
I chuckle bitterly. “If you keep running your mouth like that, you’ll be the one bleeding, Valdis.”
Simon’s face darkens. His lips curl, trembling and ticking. I swear he would’ve throttled me right then and there if we didn’t have to stand for “O’Canada” a few seconds later.
When the last note hits, the air in the stadium shifts. The strobe lights disappear and the fluorescents flash on for the first period of the Frozen Four.
Anthony Benigno comes forward with the puck.
“Good luck, boys.” He nods at Simon. When he turns to me, he holds out his hand. I take off my glove to shake it. My confidence builds at the conviction in his voice.
“You got this,” he whispers.
“Thanks, Anthony.”
He smiles and claps my shoulder.
I push out a deep, steadying breath before I crouch down for the puck drop.
Suddenly, a buzz erupts.
I think my ears are ringing until Anthony recoils back. “What the hell is going on?”
Suddenly, all the screens in the stadium go black.
Then my voice blasts through the speakers,“Someday, things are all going to work out and we’re gonna have a million more dates and a million more photos together.”
The screens flash back on.
Every single one shows video footage of Diana and me talking on the hood of my car, of us kissing in the orange tunnels after Mellonbaum’s exam, and of us in my car in the parkade. My moans and her gasps echo all over the stadium.
Nausea wracks my body until I’m wavering on my skates.
“No, no, no.”
People jeer and holler. Flashes of light flicker on as phones record videos that play on the screens in a loop.
