Page 101 of The Fall
I’m at the boards before I realize it, arms in the air, dizzy with victory. Hollow slams into me, then Hawks, then Hayes.
“Fuck yeah!” Hayes yells. He grabs my helmet, shakes me like I’m a doll, and probably cracks half my brain cells in half. I let him. I’m smiling like I haven’t in years.
“Atta boy, Kicks! Fucking stick with it!” Hollow shouts.
The crowd is on its feet, the building shaking with noise.
And through all of it, through the pile of teammates and the roar of voices, I find Blair.
Our eyes meet across the ice. He tips his chin to me, his eyes a sharper blue than any ocean I’ve ever tried to sketch. For a split-second, the world is only him and me, suspended in floodlights and adrenaline. I let myself breathe it in, the knowledge that I did one thing right tonight for him; It’s the first deep breath after a long skate. I carried a piece of his burden for one shift, one shot, one heartbeat.
Then Divot crashes into my back, whooping, and the spell breaks. Blair turns away, skating to center ice for the face-off. He taps his stick against the ice as he passes me.
Coach pounds my shoulder as I hop over the boards back to the bench. “That’s what I’m talking about, Kendrick!”
The locker room explodes when we get back after the final buzzer. A 3-2 win, my goal standing as the game-winner.
It’s been a long, long time since I breathed this giddy victory adrenaline.
The ruckus in the room drops out when Blair stands, holding a game puck in his hand. A thin sheen of sweat still glistens on his forehead.
“Hell of a game out there, from the first shift to the last.” Blair pauses, lets his gaze travel around the room. “That’s going to set our pace for the season.”
He holds up the puck from my goal. “Kicks,” he says. “This is your first as a Mutineer.”
The room erupts. Sticks rap against the floor. “First of many!” Hayes shouts.
Heat rises to my face. It’s tradition—your first goal puck, presented by the captain.
He crosses the room and holds out the puck. When I take it, our fingers brush, and his eyes linger on mine. I’m lost in his blue oceans; they look like the sun sinking into the horizon at the edge of the ocean. I can’t breathe. Our hands remain clasped around the puck for one beat, two, three, longer than necessary.
This is for you, I think.
Then he releases my hand and steps back. “Well done, Kicks.”
“Thanks.”
I sink back onto the bench, turning the puck over in my hands, tracing its scratches and scuffs. Black rubber, white tape where Blair wrote the date, the score, my name. I’ve scored goals before—hundreds of them—but this one is different. On a day when October means everything except hockey, he and I have given this game to each other.
My first goal as a Tampa Bay Mutineer. The puck is cold and solid in my hand. Every early-morning practice, every late-night training session, every moment I pushed my body past what I thought it could endure—it’s all compressed into this three-inch circle of vulcanized rubber.
I turn the puck over, and turn him over in me. Could I compress my love for Blair into a puck I can pass to him so he could catch it, cradle it, keep it near? Could I wrap a strip of tape around my love and scribble My first, My only, My you for him?
The puck’s edges bite into my palm as I grip it tighter. The celebration continues around me—towels snapping, music thumping, the chaos of a winning locker room.
This puck weighs nothing and everything. It’s three ounces of rubber that sailed past a goalie’s glove. Three ounces that brought Blair’s eyes to mine across twenty feet of ice. Three ounces that brought his hand to mine, his fingers against my fingers.
I haven’t touched him since…
Hayes drops onto the bench beside me. “Hell of a shot. Top shelf where mama hides the cookies.”
“Thanks.” The word comes out automatically while my mind stays fixed on Blair, on October.
He claps my shoulder and heads for the showers. I should be moving, too, should be showering, but I don’t want to yet. When I leave this moment behind, it becomes memory, and memories have proven unreliable in my life.
I close my hand around the puck. This is a small circle of proof that I could be what he needed. For one shift. For one shot. For tonight.
Twenty-Four
