Page 20 of My Athlete Neighbor

Kane stripped the tape off his stick and started over. "Those numbers don't mean anything. We're a good team playing good hockey. That's it."

"Says the guy who keeps checking his phone," Oliver muttered, then yelped as Kane's ball of discarded tape hit him square in the head.

In his corner, Liam had assumed his pre-game meditation pose, eyes closed and breath measured. But even the usually-zengoalie seemed off, his mantra interrupted by occasional twitch and flinch.

Kane's phone lit up. His heart jumped before he saw it was just the team's booster chat. He wasn’t in the mood to engage with them right now. It was a text from Jenny with a picture of Allison wearing his sweater. He grinned and clicked it to save in his photos.

"All right, listen up!" Coach Vicky's voice cut through the locker room chatter. She stood in the center of the room, commanding attention without effort. "I know there's been a lot of talk about luck and superstitions. About magical pucks and winning streaks."

Kane focused on his tape job, trying to ignore the weight of her gaze.

"But you know what I see? I see a team that's finally playing to its potential. A team that's connecting passes, finishing checks, supporting each other. That's not luck. That's hockey."

She moved around the room, making eye contact with each player. "The Blitz don't care about our trinkets or our traditions. They care about ending our streak. So I need every one of you focused on what matters—the system, the team, the sixty minutes ahead of us."

Her gaze landed on Kane last, heavy with meaning. "Individual distractions cost team victories. And this team's worked too hard to let anything get in our way now. Clear?"

"Clear, Coach," Kane said, along with the rest of the room. But his phone felt like it was burning a hole in his pocket.

As Coach left to give the media their pre-game soundbites, the room settled into final preparations. Kane forced himself through his usual routine—stick flex, shin pad adjustment, helmet strap check. But his mind kept drifting to Allison.

"You know," Dmitri appeared beside him, somehow making hockey gear look graceful, "in ballet, performance is best whenheart and head work together. Cannot separate feeling from technique."

"This isn't ballet."

"No?" Dmitri's smile was knowing. "Then why you dance around feelings like nervous understudy?"

Before Kane could respond, Oliver called out, "Hey Cap, want to say anything to the fans about playing without our lucky charm?"

Several things happened at once: Kane's stick tape job went crooked, Liam's meditation mantra stuttered, and Dmitri launched into what appeared to be an interpretive dance about longing.

"There is no lucky charm," Kane said through gritted teeth. "We're here to play hockey. That's it."

"The fans disagree." Oliver held up his phone, showing comment after comment asking about the puck, about Allison, about the team's chances without their newfound luck. "They're pretty invested in the romance of it all. Star player, legacy family, magical artifact..."

"There's no magic involved in this." But even as he said it, Kane's phone buzzed with a message from Allison.Good luck.

His heart did something complicated in his chest.

"Cap's right," Marcus cut in, though he was still frowning at his stats. "We need to focus on the game plan. Though I should note that our face-off percentage does show a statistically significant improvement when—"

"Enough!" Kane stood, addressing the whole room. "Listen up. We're a hockey team, not a fairy tale. We win because we work hard, play our system, and trust each other. Anyone who thinks we need luck hasn't been paying attention to what we've built here. So forget about pucks and superstitions and other things." He definitely didn't think about Allison in his sweater. "We've got a game to win."

The speech would have been more effective if his phone hadn't chosen that moment to buzz again. This time it was Mrs. Peterson:Let’s go Chill!

"Very inspiring," Dmitri said solemnly. "Like Swan Lake when prince denies love for swan queen. Very tragic, much drama."

"I'm not denying—it's not—" Kane ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "Can we just focus on hockey?"

"Hockey is focused," Dmitri said with surprising gentleness. "But maybe captain is not, yes? Maybe is okay to want both—victory and love. Like perfect program needs both technical skill and artistic expression."

Kane was saved from responding by Coach Vicky's return. "Five minutes. Get your heads in the game. And if I see a cell phone in the next ninety minutes, it’s going up your ass."

The room fell into familiar pre-game patterns. Dmitri finished his stretches with a flourish. Oliver put his phone away. Liam settled into his final meditation. Marcus muttered statistics under his breath as he adjusted his gear.

Kane looked down at his phone one last time. No more messages from Allison. He shouldn't care. Shouldn't be thinking about her watching the game in his sweater. Shouldn't wonder if the ice really did feel different without her there.

"Let's go!" Coach called, and the team began filing out toward the ice.

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