Page 115 of Dirty Pucking Player

Don’t fucking blow it, guys.

I don’t need to say it to them. My guys know what this means. They know this is our chance.

We don’t want to go into OT with the Bulldogs.

We’ve played like shit in OT this entire season and lost twice in OT to the Bulldogs already this series. Games we should have won. Games we had in hand until things went to shit at the last second. We need the win now, and we are going to get it.

It’s times like this, I wish Bash was still playing, that he was experiencing this as a Scorpion, on the ice with his friends.

I know it kills him to watch from the stands, to not be able to step in when he sees something going to shit, when he sees us needing help. And I know he bites his tongue probably more than I could count on things he wants to tell me to do or instructions he wants to give to the guys. But as he’s told me multiple times, they didn’t hire him as a coach, they hired me. The fact that he echoes exactly what Dad once told me always makes me laugh.

Have faith in yourself, Greer.

You got them here.

It took a lot of sweet-talking and begging and reminders of our history to Bob to allow me to stay after what happened. But the conversation Bash had with him when he retired smoothed over things enough that Bob was willing to let me stay. He believed I was still what was best for this team despite my suspect decision-making where Bash was concerned.

Now…here we are. The place we could’ve been with Bash only a few years ago if things had gone a little differently.

I still wonder if the way the team fell apart that season had anything to do with what happened between Bash and me, if somehow our toxic relationship, though secret from them, somehow leached out into their psyches and made us shit the bed.

But I’ll never know what might have been if he had never kissed me. If I had never gone to his hotel room that night. If I had said no or just ran away again.

I don’t want to know, anyway. What might have been will never be now. And now is a pretty damn good place to be.

If we don’t blow this…

I pace behind the bench as they drop the puck. Lebedev swats it over to Mac, who gets it to Hayes. He circles behind the net and turns toward the goal, but he doesn’t have the shot. My nails bite into my palms as he juggles the puck, then he slings it, using the boards to ricochet it back behind the goal to Mac.

The Bulldogs are fast, but so are we.

All we need is one opening.

One split-second is all it will take.

Come on, guys.

I clench my fists at my sides to keep from biting my nails as I watch the puck float back and forth across the ice.

Clean passes, guys. Keep them tight. There you go…

Mac works his way into the slot with the puck and fires. It ricochets off the pole and back toward the neutral zone. Everyone chases after it, and the Bulldogs come away with it and break toward our goal.

Dammit.

I glance at the clock. One fifteen left. Plenty of time to get it closed out and done for either side.

We’re not losing this game.

We didn’t come all this way to lose in game seven.

Not these guys.

Not this team.

As good as we were our first season, we’re better now. Stronger. We’ve lost some excess baggage and gained some new players. We truly are a team to be reckoned with, and I’m not about to lose what we worked so damn hard for. What I missed spending time with Bash for. What I missed putting Annabelle to sleep for all these years.

I stop at the end of the bench and watch intently. My lungs seize in my chest as Anders fires for the Bulldogs. Pierre’s wicked fast hands shoot up, and he catches the puck in an immaculate glove-save.

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