Page 86 of Hockey Bois
Give it time… before, I held out hope because he seemed interested. Now Iknowhe won’t act on it, even with the perfect opportunity.
It’ll always be a what-if, and I have to come to terms with that if we’re going to move on.
Oh well. Plenty of fish in the sea, he’d get back on the horse someday, yadda yadda yadda. He could text Jenna later if he needed more inspirational quotes. Right now, there was something much more important to focus on.
We can still score. We can still win games.
We can still winthis game.
Two goals were enough to make the other team take notice. Nick was closed out of every opportunity before they’d even really developed. GG and Brady and occasionally the defensemen were getting him the passes, but he never had anywhere to go. They’d double-team him to make sure he had zero chance of scoring again.
Not that he necessarily wanted the hat trick. It was kind of the hockey dream to get three goals in a game, like it’d once been a dream toseea hat trick live. He’d lost his favorite Caps hat years ago thanks to Ovi, and now he longed to know that thrill for himself.
Okay, so yes, hewantedit… and that was a very different thing from getting it. This close, and he still didn’t believe it was a thing that could happen to him.
Kind of like him and Brady getting together. Technically plausible, but the universe was against all the pieces actually aligning the way they needed to.
It was a stupid stray thought, and he spent an entire shift trying not to think too hard on the comparison.
Three minutes left in the game, the score still a painful 3 to 5, they got a neutral zone draw. Benns was on the ice, and he quickly circled back to yell instructions to Guy.
“Oh shit,” GG said. “He’s gonna pull the goalie.”
The ref blew the whistle impatiently, and Benns didn’t have time to share his master plan with the rest of them.
“Who goes out?” Mags said.
“Is he even going to try it?” Lexi whispered, his eyes glued on Guy.
“They have to win it first anyway—”
Benns won the draw, and they entered the zone. Seconds later, Guy came sprinting to the bench.
Lexi opened the door for him, and on the other side of the bench, Brady opened the other one.
And shoved Nick out.
“Wha—?”
“Alternate Captain. Executive decision. Go fucking score a goal.”
Brady was the better choice. Brady scored goals like they were nothing, and Nick had struggled to get the few points he had. He wanted to turn around and argue thatthiswas a bad idea, but it clicked. They’d already lost the game. This was Benns, this was thewhole team, giving him the chance at the hat trick.
Nick’s feet cooperated, and he dashed over to the far end of the ice. He dipped in and tried to ignore the other team’s bench screamingEMPTY NET!at the top of their lungs.
Nick parked himself in front of the goal. The goalie barked an order to one of the defensemen, who did his best to keep Nick out of the crease. Every inch Nick gained, he had to fight for, or he risked falling flat on his ass.
Behind the goal line, Donno fought with an enormous defenseman. They’d eaten up twenty seconds battling for the puck, all twenty seconds of which Nick had been pushed and shoved and harassed. Miracle of miracles, Donno stripped the guy of the puck. They made eye contact, then Donno sent him the pass.
It was a shitty angle. Nick had been forced so far to the blocker side that it was a stupid, greedy, reckless shot to take. The goalie was pressed against the goal post, not even a speck of daylight visible. If Nick took the shot, the most likely outcome was the puck bouncing harmlessly away and the other team stealing it to burn up the remainder of what precious little time was left.
Never in a million years would Nick think it was a good idea to take this shot.
None of this stopped Nick’s stupid body from swinging at the incoming puck. He cringed internally when he made contact, assuming it would go right into the goalie’s chest or maybe go wide and cost them all of Donno’s hard work. He’d screamed at his TV when professional NHL players had taken the same damn shot and missed. He’d swornhewould never do that.
And that was why he stood there, dumbfounded, when the puck squeezed through the goalie’s pads and went in.
The seconds leading up to the goal, he’d lived in slow motion. Every inch the puck had traveled, every muscle of his body reacting while his brain was blissfully empty, all of it had taken years to happen.
