Page 40 of Triplets for the Pucking Playboys
The puck leaves my blade like a bullet, catches a defender’s stick, then double-deflects off the crossbar and hits the net. Goal horn, then total chaos. I don’t even remember lifting my arms, just the way the air pressure in the rink drops as the crowd roars so loud it shakes the glass. I skate a half loop, see the storm of gloves and bodies coming for me, and get buried under a human avalanche of teammates.
There’s blood on my lip. I taste it, grin, and let Beau slam me into the glass, both of us laughing and yelling at the same time. Grey picks me up, nearly knocks the wind out of me, but I don’t mind because for once, we’re the ones at the top of the pile.
The last sixty seconds are all defense. The other team pulls their goalie and floods the zone, but I’m in a different place now, every nerve dialed to maximum. I read the cycles, intercept two passes, and on the final clear, eat a slapshot off my left calf just to kill the clock. The pain is white and absolute, but I don’t let it show. I hobble to the bench, Ryland’s hand clapping my shoulder so hard I see stars, and as the final horn sounds, I just sit and breathe and feel everything go liquid inside me.
We win 4–3. It goes down as a regulation victory, but really, it’s three points and a message: this team can survive itself.
In the handshake line, my legs barely hold me up. The other captain gives me a look of respect and I nod back, but my brain is already somewhere else. Reporters swarm the glass as we skate off, but I keep my head down.
My stat line will look perfect on paper, but the only thing I can think about is the look in Sage’s eyes, the last time we spoke, and the way nothing ever feels as good as you think it will.
The guys spill onto the ice, gloves off, arms in the air, jerseys tugged and pulled. They earned that chaos. I leave my helmet on and skate a wide loop past the bench, then circle behind the net and duck into the empty stretch between the penalty boxes where no cameras wait. I crouch down, elbows on my knees, forehead pressed to the cool metal of my stick blade, and wonder if I’ll ever feel the high again.
Later, I head to the locker room. Wet towels everywhere, damp tape on the floor, every voice dialed up to max as if we’re not all about to lose our hearing by thirty-five.
It’s supposed to be a celebration. Beau is already shirtless, waving his stick in the air, face flushed and hair dripping, slapping the wall so hard that even the light fixtures shake. McTavish cracks open a beer, chugs half, then passes it down the line, where half the rookies pretend not to be underage but fail at it spectacularly. Ryland bellows something from the showers, the kind of profanity that’s so over-the-top it loops back to almost wholesome.
Someone throws an arm around my neck. “Fucking beautiful, Sorensen,” Beau yells in my ear, breath hot and loud. “That’s the game winner, right there!”
I shake him off with a half smile, barely more than a muscle twitch. “You’re the one who buried it, not me,” I say, even though we both know it was the setup, the assist, the play that nobody but the film crew will ever remember. The real heroes are the ones who fix the mess, not the ones who get their names in the box score.
I find my stall and start peeling off gear, one piece at a time, like a snake uncoiling from its own skin. The jersey is plastered to my chest, half frozen, and the shoulder pads underneath are already stiff from old hits and sweat. My hands are trembling, but I ignore it. Helmet off, gloves next, elbow pads, every layer coming away with a rip of Velcro or a snap of buckle. I don’tbother to shower. I just sit there on the bench in my compression shorts, head tipped back, staring at the water-stained ceiling while the room around me blurs into white noise.
This is the part nobody warns you about. The letdown. The hollow in your chest that should be pride but is just a deeper, rawer hunger for something you can’t name. I could join the guys, could let Beau drag me into a headlock and scream lyrics until my throat goes hoarse. But I don’t. I keep my face blank, my voice soft, and let the others fill the space I won’t take up.
There are new faces in the room too—rookies, medical staff, some comms intern snapping candids with a cell phone. But Sage is nowhere. Not even a shadow on the tile. I try not to care, try to pretend the only thing that matters is what happens on the ice. But every time I close my eyes, I see her in the periphery: clipboard in hand, hair up in a pony, eyes colder than the freezer in the trainer’s office. A month since the lodge, since the night we lost our minds, and the only thing left of her is the echo of her laugh and the rumor that she’s dating a paramedic from another team.
I finish changing, toss my stuff in the laundry bin, and head for the showers. The steam is thick, the tile slippery, and the water alternates between scalding and glacial. I let it hit me in the face, let it sting, let it remind me I’m still alive.
When I step out, the room is half empty. Most of the team has vanished, probably headed for the bar or the kind of after-party that ends with someone apologizing to HR. I linger, towel around my waist, and stare at my reflection in the mirror. Hair flat, eyes rimmed red, jaw set so tight it looks carved from old wood. There’s a scar on my cheek from a slash last year, and a new bruise forming under my jaw, a souvenir from tonight’s crosscheck. I look like every other guy in this room—broken, rebuilt, then broken again.
A month is enough to forget how a person sounds when they say your name. But it’s not enough to forget how it feels when they stop saying it. I get dressed and make for the designated interview zone just so Ryland or Dylan won’t give me grief about not being a team player later on.
As expected, it’s chaos. Everyone wants a piece of the guy who “rescued the season,” as if it wasn’t a team game or I hadn’t spent the last few weeks wishing I could disappear completely. They crowd me the second I step through. The first microphone misses my chin by an inch; the second bounces off my ear and leaves a wet smear of lipstick on my jaw. The questions are all the same:
“What changed in the third, Sorensen?”
“Were you surprised by the speed of that last rush?”
“Did the coach say anything specific before OT?”
I give them what they want, monotone and flawless. “We trust the system. We played our game. Everyone on this team knows their role.” I rattle off the lines I’ve memorized since juniors, the ones they train you to say so no one can ever blame you for anything.
But nobody is really listening. They’re watching my eyes, trying to find the crack, the slip, the proof that I’m still just a kid from Stockholm who doesn’t belong in the NHL. I spot Beau, holding court in front of a dozen cameras, his voice pitched to a frequency that makes women want to marry him and sponsors want to hand him free cars. He’s tossing a puck from palm to palm, winking at the interns, telling a story that ends with the whole huddle erupting in laughter. It’s effortless for him. He was built for this—the spotlight, the affection, the idea that you can have everything if you just smile enough.
He catches my gaze, and for a second, his face softens. The smile drops just a little, the eyes get dark. I want to go to him,want to let him take the lead like he always does, but there’s a wall of bodies and egos between us.
That’s when Talia slides into view, flanking me with the kind of grace that used to make my blood run hot and now just gives me a headache. She’s in full PR mode, blazer sharp, heels so high she’s eye level with me even though I have a solid eight inches on her. She waits until the crowd thins, then leans in, voice syrupy and low.
“Little lost, Sorensen?” she whispers. “Are you missing someone?”
My knuckles go white around the water bottle in my hand. I keep my face dead calm, not giving her the satisfaction, and stare straight ahead.
“I’m fine,” I retort, as cold as I can make it. “No need for drama.”
She lets the smile flicker, just for a second, and then tilts her head toward Beau. “You should tell your friend that. The rumor mill is hungry tonight.”
She ghosts away before I can say anything else.
