Page 216 of The Fall
The restless crowd wants blood. They want me to fail again, publicly, so they can say they knew I was never worth the draft pick.
Overtime solves nothing. It’s three-on-three chaos, chances at both ends, but no finish. Hawks rings one off the crossbar. Their rookie center breaks in alone and shoots the puck into Axel’s chest.
The buzzer sounds, and we’re headed to a shootout.
I know before Coach taps my shoulder. It’s Vancouver, they’re a hostile crowd, and everything is on the line. Of course it comes down to me.
“Kicks, you’re up.”
If I score, we win. If I don’t...
Blair intercepts me at the boards. He cups the back of my neck, pulling me close enough that our helmets touch. “You’re going to bury this. You’re going to score, and we’re going to win, and then you’re going to skate off this ice knowing that you don’t owe them shit.”
“Blair—”
“Look at me.”
I do. His eyes are so, so blue.
“You’re going to win this right now.” The noise swells around us. His glove tightens on my neck. “Now go show them who you are.”
The crowd boos long and loud when he lets me go. Someone starts a “Kendrick sucks” chant that catches and spreads through the lower bowl.
“Fuck ‘em, Kicks!” Hollow shouts.
I collect the puck at center ice and start forward. Each stride feels like I’m moving through water. The goalie—Becky, who used to sneer at me in the locker room—squares up.
I’ve taken this shot a hundred times in Tampa: quick fake to the backhand, pull it forehand, reverse, then elevate over the pad. It’s a move I perfected with Blair, a shot I was never capable of in Vancouver.
I push left, and Becky bites hard. He shifts, committing to the slide, and that’s when I pull it back, the puck dancing from backhand to forehand and back. The net opens like a door: top corner, glove side, more room than I need. I snap my wrists and the puck takes flight, black on white against red pipes and twine.
It hits the back bar with a sound like music. The goal light flashes. The ref’s arm goes up.
Game over.
Silence detonates, the perfect opposite of a cheer. Twenty thousand people groan, unable to believe what they saw as my teammates explode over the boards.
They slam into me in a tangle of limbs and sticks and shouts. Hayes gets there first, and then Hollow and Hawks pile on, then Svoboda and Reid, until I can’t tell whose gloves are pounding my helmet.
“That’s how you fucking do it!” someone screams in my ear.
Blair works through the knot of guys and throws his arm around my neck. We’re in the spotlight, on a national broadcast, in the middle of a sold-out arena, but I want to kiss him and never stop.
He pushes his helmet against mine, forehead-to-forehead. “Play stupid games.” Blair grins. “Win stupid prizes. Nobody fucks with what’s mine.”
The bus ride to the airport feels like we’re flying already. Guys rehash the game, all of Blair’s hits, Axel’s saves, my shootout goal. Blair sits beside me, our thighs pressed together, his hand resting on my knee. Vancouver blurs past the windows, all its ghosts staying exactly where they belong: in the past, in my rearview.
Tomorrow we fly to Calgary, then Edmonton, and if the wins and the points keep going the way they are, we’re going to the playoffs for the first time in a long, long while.
Vancouver can keep their fucking boos.
Forty-Two
Over Calgary,on our approach, Blair leans across me to look out the window.
“See that neighborhood?”
He points past my shoulder, his finger drawing a line across the glass. City lights bleed amber through the window. “That’s where we lived.” His voice is soft. “That was our home.”
