Page 109 of Full Body Hit: Part 2
Everybody in the room believed that they could do it. Playoffs were a different beast—everybody knew stories of teams who had barely scraped into the playoffs and then gone to the very end.
They could do it.
But they didn’t.
The third period was brutal, Auston and his teammates throwing their weight around. Everybody knew they had no more chances if they wasted this one, their rivals included—they were fighting back just as hard.
It wasn’t a flashy play that did them in. The period was held scoreless until almost five minutes to the end, when a Leopard tipped in a blue-line shot. The puck bounced off Koa’s glove and into the net.
The fans in the Spirits’ arena groaned, and that was it. They weren’t able to rally. They pulled the goalie to get an extra skateron the ice, but the Leopards scored an empty-net goal with twenty seconds to go, a final nail into thin, lacquered wood.
Auston’s heart dropped to his feet, the familiar sensation of disappointment, of his fingers skimming but not being able to reach what he wanted.
And then…peace. An odd silence as the last buzzer sounded and they trudged into the locker room.
Noah was the last to go in, looking at his team, face so much older than his years. “They won’t be able to say we didn’t try,” he stated quietly.
The scent of the room didn’t shift, staying sunken in its damp, stifling acidity.
Auston forced himself to step up. “You know, I’ve been here before. Years of not making it. Of just barely making it. Of making it and burning to the ground in the first round. I know it feels shit, and that this might sound like platitudes, but this is the road to the cup. This fucking disappointment, this hunger that you can’t feed yet—this is what you need to make it. I know a winning team when I see it, and the core is right here. Don’t you fucking forget that.”
Auston turned to Noah and Sammy and Chase meaningfully. To Koa, who had played his goddamn heart out as first-line goalie. At Grigory, who’d had a break-out year.
Some of the guys in the room wouldn’t be there next year—wouldn’t be there when the Spirits raised the cup—but Auston knew deep in his gut that the group of guys that made the heart of this team would make it.
They just had to suffer through years of disappointment first.
And Auston wouldn’t be there for the ride. He’d expected his gut to hurt at that, but instead, there was a sort of peace. Hehadbeen in a room just like this, part of a core that couldn’t stop losing. Had scraped his knees dragging himself up and up on the gravel road to victory.
He’d done it. Made it to the top, the bottom, the top.
Did he want a taste of that again? Yeah. Sometimes, it felt more like a need than anything else.
But it wasn’t. He’d survive without it.
At home, Chase wrapped around him, going on his tip-toes to reach his neck. “Sorry. I wanted you…I wanted us to do it for you.”
Auston squeezed him. “Thanks, baby, but that’s something that we had to do together, not something one could give the other.”
Ironically, the last few games of the season went perfectly. Now that the weight had been lifted off their shoulders, they played loose, having fun with it.
The last game of the season was against the Houston Grizzlies, the current division leaders. It should have been an easy game for them, but the Spirits weren’t taking it lightly.
Auston felt as if he were fifteen years younger, rushing across the ice like both his hips were intact. Every pass connected, every rush exhilarating. This was what he’d been looking for all year with his teammates—the sort of synchronicity he’d felt with the Beasts.
It was fucking perfect.
They won with a three-goal difference. The crowd around them roared. The win didn’t mean anything in the standings, but it still felt golden, a shot of adrenalin into Auston’s pumping blood. This pulsing part of him, savage and alive in the cold of the ice, was never going to be let out like this again.
It was Auston’s last game as a hockey player. This was something he’d never feel again.
Time didn’t stop for him. No matter how much it killed him, it trampled on.
The team agreed they’d go out the next day. Even after a win, they all needed to go home and lick their wounds in peace,knowing that however pissed off the Grizzlies were right now, they were just gearing up for the most important part of the season, while the Spirits wouldn’t even get a taste.
He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting from Chase. A conversation for sure—platitudes, comforting words. Instead, Chase didn’t talk. He sat Auston on the couch with a beer and ordered them food. They curled up together in the living room nest until the hype of the game died down, and they could go to bed.
Under the sheets, Chase peppered him with kisses—his cheeks, the hard bone of his brow, his nose. Auston wished he could cry. Force out the lump in his throat so he could breathe.
