Page 49 of Penalty Box
But I’d never felt safer than I did with her like that. Pummeled and broken in her steady hands.
I let my forehead brush against hers. Let my hand rise to the back of her neck, fingers sliding into her hair. Because fuck it.
Like she’d said: If I wanted to kiss her, I should.
“What the fuck, Calder?”
We jumped apart like the electric current coursing through us snapped back and backfired. Cass dropped her hand, face flushed. In my alarm, I’d slid off the table too fast and pain flared all the way from my side, up to my shoulder.
Grayson stood in the doorway of the med bay and glared at me, jaw set. His eyes moved from me to Cass, and I could see it… He knew. He didn’t have to say it, but it was written all over his face.
Coach’s voice bellowed from somewhere down the hallway behind him, but he didn’t so much as blink.
“Post-match talk’s about to start,” he said. “You better get your ass to the locker room. Now.”
Then he turned and walked out.
15
Mason
I stepped onto the ice and the noise hit me straight in the face. Crowd on their feet, cowbells clanging, feet stomping the bleachers. Among the painted posters punching the air for Grayson, was my own name. Me. Mason.
The rush was indescribable.
Especially tonight. We’d been practicing all week, reviewing past game footage. We were ready. The fans were ready, too. Frost Bank Center had never been louder. Tonight it was personal.
Dallas Stars.
The team that kept us from the Cup last season. The team I’d replayed in my nightmares on a loop, every missed pass, every blown coverage, every damn second of that collapse.
“Tonight we’re rewriting things,” Coach said, his eyes sweeping over us. “Forget everything that came before this. Tonight we take what’s always been ours.”
He met my eye as we skated off and circled the zone. His arms were folded tight, but the nod was all I needed. I found my rhythm, blades carving into the ice. Grayson skated past me,tapping his stick once against mine. No words. The top line was locked in.
But it wasn’t just the game that had my heart pounding against my ribs. I glanced up into the fourth row and waved at my dad and Hallie. He was tense, but she was talking his ear off, ignoring the opening pre-game anthem buzz.
Toby Keith’s “Should’ve Been a Cowboy” blared over the system, and I easily picked out Cass arguing with the sound tech. He shook his head, refusing to give in. Good. That was a hard hundred dollars to part with, but at least he was good for it.
She stomped off, clearly pissed off in her defeat. Even from the ice, I caught the fire in her stare, the way her eyes narrowed and her lips twitched in annoyance.
I lifted my glove and saluted her, all smug, just to twist the knife. She didn’t flip me off, but the eye roll she gave me could’ve knocked me flat if I wasn’t ready for it. And yet, for all that sass, she didn’t look away.
It was that kind of silent pull that makes the rest of the world drop away, and the blood in my ears roar louder than the crowd. God, she made it hard to focus.
“You gonna skate or start writing poems?” Grayson elbowed me in the ribs as we lined up for face-off. “Head in the game, Calder. I won’t remind you again.”
“I’m in it.”
And I meant it, too. The game was all that mattered now. Not eye-fucking Cass across the arena. Just sixty minutes, the puck, and sweet revenge.
The ref dropped the puck, and we exploded into the point we were there to prove.
Grayson won the draw, sliding the puck back to Tucker, who dumped it deep down the ice into Stars territory. I chased it down, shoulder-checking a Stars defenseman hard into the boards. The crowd erupted. My legs burned, lungs sang. This was the kind of hockey I lived for.
Dallas came back hard.
Their winger took a cheap shot at Hunter early in the first. Skates too close, body brushing the crease. He shoved back, mask to mask, and the officials broke it up before gloves hit the ice. For now.
