Page 58 of Puck Me Thrice
The championship celebration was chaos—media swarming, NHL scouts requesting meetings, teammates spraying champagne everywhere despite Coach's protests that this was an athletic facility, not a nightclub.
Logan and Nolan were surrounded by reporters, fielding questions about draft predictions and professional prospects. I stood to the side, smiling for photos but acutely aware that my name wasn't being mentioned with the same excitement.
Enforcers were useful. Enforcers were necessary. But enforcers were not top draft picks.
I'd probably go in the third or fourth round if I was lucky. Maybe to a team on the opposite coast from wherever Nolan and Logan ended up. Maybe to a team that didn't make playoffs, where I'd spend years fighting meaningless fights while my friends—my family—succeeded without me.
The thought made my chest tight with familiar anxiety about being left behind.
I found Mira an hour after the celebration started, long after everyone else had left the rink. She was alone on the ice, still in her coaching clothes but wearing figure skates she'd brought from her room. Practicing her figures in the dark, the only light coming from the emergency exits.
I watched from the shadows as she moved across the ice with impossible grace, her body telling stories I couldn't quite interpret. There was something sad in her movement tonight—something that made me want to go to her, hold her, fix whatever was causing that expression.
I laced up my hockey skates and stepped onto the ice.
She noticed me immediately, stopping mid-spiral. "Blake. Everyone's looking for you. The team wants to celebrate."
"I wanted to find you more."
She glided over, and we stood in the center of the ice, alone in the massive arena, surrounded by thousands of empty seats and the ghosts of our victory.
"You stayed," I said quietly.
"What?"
"The ice show scouts. I saw them leave without you. You turned down their offer."
Mira's expression cycled through surprise, guilt, and something I couldn't name. "How did you—"
"I pay attention. To everything about you." I took her hands, my large ones engulfing her small fingers. "Why did you stay?"
"Because I wanted to," she said simply. "Not for my parents—though your guys' insane generosity solved that problem. Not even for you three, though that was part of it. I stayed because leaving would mean running from the first real happiness I've found. I'm tired of running."
My chest felt too tight, too full of emotion I didn't know how to process. "Mira—"
"But Blake, we need to talk about draft picks and where you'll all end up. About the fact that this—" She gestured between us. "—might not be geographically possible."
"I'll follow you," I said immediately. "Wherever your career takes you. Whatever you decide to do. I'll follow. I'll give up hockey if that's what it takes to—"
"Stop." Her voice was sharp, her eyes flashing with anger I'd never seen directed at me before. "Just stop."
"I'm trying to tell you that I love you."
"By offering to give up everything you've worked for?" She pulled her hands from mine. "By sacrificing your dreams for mine? That's not love, Blake. That's martyrdom."
"But I want to—"
"I don't care what you want if it means destroying yourself for me!" Her voice echoed in the empty arena. "I've spent my entire life watching people sacrifice for me—my parents, my coaches, even Sam in his own twisted way. I'm done being the reason people give up their dreams."
"That's not what I'm doing—"
"Then what are you doing?" she demanded. "Because from where I'm standing, you're offering to throw away your hockey career—the thing you love, the family you've built—just to follow me around like some kind of lost puppy. And I won't let you do that."
Anger flared in my chest. "You don't get to make that decision for me."
"And you don't get to make sacrifices on my behalf without asking if I want them!" She shoved my chest—not hard enough to move me, but hard enough to make her point. "I don't need you to give up everything for me. I need you to value yourself as much as you value everyone else!"
"I'm trying to show you how much you mean to me."
