Page 90 of Playmaker

Lila combed her fingers through my hair. “It’s hard to imagine anyone not encouraging you. You’re an amazing player. Youshouldbe playing hockey.”

My face burned, and I smiled. “Well, there were people in my life who definitely disagreed with you.”

“Good thing their opinions don’t matter.” She flashed a toothy grin. “Sucks to be them.”

I laughed. When I’d made myself available for the WHPL, it was half about playing hockey and half about escaping a miserably oppressive marriage.

Who knew it would land me in the arms of the last person I’d ever imagined connecting with like this?

Chapter 27

Lila

Hockey fans would be talking about these playoffs fordecadesto come, I just knew it.

Even after Pittsburgh swept Toronto, everyone had expected them to lose the Eastern Conference title to Hartford. Pittsburgh was good, but Hartford had dominated the League all season long. And anyway, no expansion team had made it to the Cup finals in their first season.

During the second intermission of the first game of the Eastern Conference finals, a commentator mused, “If I were the Cup engravers, I’d go ahead and start setting up the machine with all the names of the Hartford players.”

Now Hartford fans were pissed, saying he’d jinxed them. That, or he’d lit a fire under Pittsburgh’s ass. Knowing my team, I’d say it was a little of both, especially after hearing how my teammates reacted to that comment.

“Screw him,” Anya said. “It’s only game one!”

“We’re only down by two,” Euli had declared. “We’ve come back from worse.”

Whatever the case, Pittsburgh came out in the third period, clawed their way back from a 4-2 deficit, and won with abuzzer beater. The next three games were absolute bloodbaths, with neither team willing to give an inch and Pittsburgh clearly playing with a chip on their collective shoulders.

In the end, Pittsburgh committed the upset of the century, eliminating Hartford in a 7-2 blowout in game six. The photo of Sabrina hoisting the Eastern Conference trophy and shouting with triumph was Pulitzer material as far as I was concerned.

Of course, I might’ve been alittlebiased.

Now Pittsburgh was the first expansion team to make it into the finals in their inaugural season, and after six games, it came down to this: game seven. Someone was taking the Cup home tonight. It was either us or the reigning champions, the Calgary Blizzard.

From the energy in the locker room, every member of our roster was more than ready to hoist the Cup.

“Let’s do this!” Coach Reilly cried over raucous cheers from the team.

Everyone was pumped. Everyone wasready.

Almost everyone.

Jamie Tucker looked absolutely shell-shocked. She was a young defender who’d been brought up from the minors during the Eastern Conference Championships to fill in for Nora, who was out with a concussion. Coming up to the majors was intimidating enough—being called up during the playoffs? That had to be terrifying.

“Hey.” I nudged her arm. “You okay?”

She looked up at me with wide eyes. “I think so? I only played two games in the regular season. Now I’m…” She gestured with her glove at a Cup finals banner, and she gulped.

I eased myself down on the bench beside her and leaned my crutches against my leg. “It’s a lot of pressure. Believe me, I get it. But you’re not out there alone, you know? And you wouldn’t be here at all if you hadn’t earned a place.”

The fear held fast in her expression. “I know. I… On some level, I know that. But it’s still…” She swallowed again, and she looked like she was on the verge of tears.

“Take a breath, okay?” I rested my hand on her padded shoulder and looked right in her eyes. “At most, you’re going to play seven or eight minutes the whole game. If all you do out there is keep the puck out of our zone and out of our net while the other defenders catch their breath, then you’re doing just fine. No one’s expecting you to go out there and score the game-winning goal.”

She laughed nervously. “That’s good, I guess.”

“It is. And you’re going to be paired with Euli.” I nodded toward her D partner. “She’s an offensive defender, so she might go into the offensive zone sometimes, which means all you have to do is stay back in case someone tries to break away. If they do, Euli is fast as hell—she won’t leave you hanging.”

Jamie exhaled slowly.

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