GAME 7S WERE CURSED. You couldn’t convince me otherwise.
They were great for television ratings, and I could see why by taking myself out of the situation. If my team weren’t involved, I would have my popcorn ready, excited to watch two teams duke it out, knowing only one could survive. It didn’t matter who’d won the previous games; it all came down to one final showdown.
When it was the Comets, my feelings on the matter changed. Knowing how hungry our boys were to win had my stomach twisted in knots. I wanted this for them. They’d come so close too many times only to fall short. The core group of players was aging, and this could very well be their last chance. Players like Jaxon and Cal would find their way to the Hall of Fame for their outstanding play, but their careers would always be measured against those who did win championships. As the daughter of a three-time champion, I knew that all too well.
Breaking records was nice, but championships were forever. I hadn’t eaten all day. The stress had taken over my body.
Feeling faint, I took my place on the red carpet to fulfill my home game duties as anthem singer when all I wanted to do was collapse in a seat in the family box. I knew most of my night would be spent staring at the scoreboard, watching the clock—praying for it to move faster if we held a lead or slower if we were behind. Thank God Natalie and Amy would be
right there by my side. Their support would help take the edge off. I couldn’t do this alone.
Voice wavering from my nerves surrounding the game, I finished up to the applause of the crowd. Glancing across the ice, Cal’s piercing gaze gave me goosebumps. Giving him a weak smile before I walked away, I hoped he knew that win or lose, I was so proud of him.
Go get ’em, baby.
Traversing the giant maze beneath the arena, I made my way to the elevator that required special access to reach the suites. Scanning my badge, the doors opened, and I leaned against the stainless steel wall, my legs shaky. They would be almost halfway through the first period by the time I made it to my seat, and I pressed a hand to my stomach to try and quell the nausea churning there.
They had to win tonight. They just had to.
Pushing through the door to the family box—the largest in the arena as it had been constructed over the space of three adjoining suites—I saw my friends with their backs to me as they watched the game below.
Taking a calming breath, I forced my feet to move so I could see if I’d missed any scoring. Not sure if I should be relieved or more stressed, I found both teams still scoreless. There was a feeling deep in my gut that this was going to be a long night.
Sighing, I could hear my dad’s voice in my head. “Nothing worth having is ever easy.”
He knew the grind it took to win it all better than anyone. His players idolized him. I only hoped that whatever words of wisdom he imparted upon them tonight would be enough to help get them over the hump and into the next round.
Natalie caught sight of me from the corner of her eye. When she turned her head to look at me, her face fell and she exclaimed, “Hannah, come sit down! You look like you’re about to pass out.”
She wasn’t far off. My legs were going to give out any second.
Jumping into action, Natalie slid off her bar-height chair, walking me to sit at the one next to hers at the high-top counter overlooking the ice.
Collapsing onto the seat, I leaned my crossed arms on the counter, placing my head down atop them. I just needed a minute.
When the black spots cleared from my vision and I sat up straight, our resident mom was sliding a diet cola in my direction as she sat on my right.
Weakly, I asked, “Got anything stronger?”
Giving me a half-smile, Natalie forced the cold glass into my hand. “Let’s see how the game goes before you resort to alcohol.” Assessing me as I took a sip, she asked, “Have you eaten?”
My stomach turned at the thought. I shook my head. “If I do, I’m afraid I’ll throw up. I’m so fucking nervous for them.”
Patting my knee under the counter, she replied, “Me too. We all know how badly they want this. And lucky us—even if they do win, we’re only halfway there.”
From my left, a shot glass filled with my favorite pink lemonade-flavored vodka slid across the counter. A few years ago, a couple of ex-players running a hockey podcast had launched this vodka and ever since, I’d been addicted. I made sure our box was always well-stocked.
Downing the shot, I looked to my left to find Liam smirking as he nudged my shoulder. “Figured you could use that,” he remarked.
Nudging him back, I countered, “You’re gonna get in trouble with Mom.” Glancing over my head at Natalie, he shrugged. “I’ll make you a deal.
You eat something, and I’ll get you another shot.”
Liam was sneaky. He knew I’d want another shot, but I wasn’t sure my mind could convince my body to release the vise grip around my stomach.
Changing the subject, I craned my neck to peek around him, asking, “Where’s Ames?”
Rolling his eyes, he breathed out, “The bathroom. Again.”
Poor Liam. He was in for a rude awakening if frequent bathroom runs were stressing him out. He shot me a glare when I covered my mouth with a hand to hide my snickering.
“I’m glad you find it so amusing. I don’t remember Natalie spending this much time in the bathroom with Beau or Charlie. What if there’s something wrong?” He really only had Natalie’s youngest two as a reference since he was in the military when she’d had the older two.
If he was wound this tight over the little things, I wouldn’t put it past Amy to be making extra trips to hide from her overbearing husband.
Natalie let out a heavy sigh. “We’ve been over this. Every woman—hell, every pregnancy—is different. You need to calm down before you have a stroke.”
The noise Liam made in response could only be described as a growl. He wasn’t going to survive until that kid was born at this rate. Almost as if on cue, Amy walked up behind him, dropping a loving hand on his shoulder, and he sprang into action. Leaping out of his chair, he offered it to her, excusing himself to get them both a plate of food.
I tilted my head in the direction in which he fled. “So, how’s that going?” Amy shook her head, her green eyes looking skyward. “He’s been . . .
attentive.”
“That’s one way to put it,” I muttered dryly. “If you ever need a moment of peace, my apartment is available any time you need it.”
She smiled. “Thanks. We have an ultrasound next week. I’m hoping when he sees everything is just fine, he’ll settle down.”
Natalie snorted. “Don’t count on it.”
“I came here to watch hockey, not discuss Liam’s alpha tendencies,” Amy stated, effectively ending the conversation.
Gazing down to the ice, I was grateful for my best friends offering a much-needed distraction. We were still scoreless, and I couldn’t help but tense up every time Cal took the ice.
It hadn’t escaped my notice how he took it upon himself to cover Maddox Sterling, even going so far as to switch sides with Luka, his defensive partner, when necessary. They were old college teammates, but I knew I was responsible for any bad blood between them. Hopefully, when we went public, they could bury the hatchet.
My eyes tracked Cal’s smooth movements as he carved up the ice with long strides. It gave me a small thrill to watch the ease with which he skated backward, his legs crossing as he kept perfect balance. It was effortless.
I knew from my experience playing that skating was the foundation. If you couldn’t skate well, there was a limit to how far you could go in this sport. It needed to become second nature—as natural as walking, mindless. If you needed to focus on putting one skate in front of the other, it stole focus from other aspects of your game, such as shooting and positioning.
Shifting in my seat to ease the ache between my thighs from watching Cal skate, I leaned over to Natalie, whispering, “Do you ever watch Jaxon skating out there, gliding so effortlessly, and it turns you on?”
Pensive, Natalie thought about it for a moment as she kept her eyes on the game. “Skating, no. I’d rather he be gliding other places.”
Well, damn, Natalie.
My mouth dropped open as I stared at her. I spent years trying to get her to come out of her shell sexually, so her statement shocked the hell out of me.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she snapped. “I’m pregnant and horny. Leave me alone.” Exhaling deeply, she added, “God, I need a win tonight.”
That was something you had to be sleeping with a hockey player to understand. When they were hopped up on adrenaline after a win, they turned into animals in bed. When they lost, their temperament ranged anywhere from a pissed-off pit bull to a kicked golden retriever—neither was in the mood for sex.
“Same, girl. Same.” I sighed as we went back to watching the game in stressed silence.
Overtime.
The hockey gods were not looking down on us favorably tonight. The only thing worse than a Game 7 was one that went into extra time. The tension was at an all-time high, and neither team had given the other an inch during the entirety of regulation.
So, here we sat—tied at two goals apiece—knowing the next goal won the game.
During the intermission before overtime, I physically shut down.
Usually, I was loud, screaming at the players like they could hear me from a distance over the twenty thousand other people in attendance. Now, I sat silent and shaking, gripping the edge of my seat near my knees.
Natalie and I moved into the padded fold-down seats in front of the high- top counter when Amelia brought a sleepy Charlie over in the third period.
The players took the ice, and I could only pray this ended quickly, regardless of the outcome. If we weren’t going to win, I’d rather they put me out of my misery instead of dragging the game out all night.
No such luck tonight, it would seem.
Fifteen minutes gone in the first overtime period, and there had been chances, but no one had scored the goal that would declare a winner.
While I leaned forward, my legs shaking uncontrollably, Natalie reclined in the seat next to me, a sleeping Charlie curled up in her lap. Her more relaxed posture was deceiving; I could see that her knuckles had turned white, curled around the armrest we shared between our seats.
My eyes flicked to the clock as it ticked down. Three minutes left. I wouldn’t survive another overtime period. My heart was beating out of my chest as it was, and I could only imagine how tired the players were. Maybe that was a good thing—if they got tired, they got sloppy and made mistakes.
Almost as if I willed it into existence, Jaxon was upended by a stick hitting him in the shins.
I held my breath. It was a blatant penalty, but referees were often reluctant to make a call in games like this for fear of deciding the outcome. Scanning the officials, I saw one with his arm held high, signaling the tripping penalty.
With just over two minutes on the clock, the power play for the Comets would stretch almost to the end of this first overtime. If they could cash in and score, the game would be over and they would emerge victorious. If they didn’t, then they went back to the locker room to prepare for another period. We wouldn’t be leaving this building until someone put the puck in the back of the net.
Relieved that we had an advantage, movement caught my eye on the ice. Cal was mocking Maddox as he headed to the box, giving him a little wave as if to say “bye-bye.”
I groaned. Now was not the time for Cal’s cocky bullshit.
Normally it was hot, but right now, it was asking for trouble. Was he trying to bring on bad karma? Dread settled deep in my belly. Pissing off the other team in a high-stakes game could light a fire in their belly. With our luck, we could just as easily see a short-handed goal by the Speed instead of one for the Comets on the man advantage.
Cal gathered the four other players out with him on the top power-play unit close, and I watched as each man nodded in agreement with whatever he said before lining up for the puck to drop.
Jaxon won it back to Cal, who skirted the length of the blue line. Each second felt like an hour.
“Shoot it, shoot it, shoot it,” I chanted under my breath.
If there was ever a time to believe in telekinesis, it was now. Cal pulled his stick back high for a strong slapshot, but it hit the goalie’s glove hand and dropped to the ice by his skates.
There was a massive pileup of bodies in front of the net. Comets players were trying to chip it into the net while Speed players tried to slap it away. I half rose from my seat in nervous anticipation of who would win the net- front battle.
My hopes were dashed when the puck squirted free and slid along the boards back toward the blue line. Thankfully, Cal was there to stop it. If the puck cleared the blue line into the neutral zone, the entire team would have to pull back to avoid the play being called offside. Regrouping like that would cost us at least twenty seconds we couldn’t afford to waste.
With the puck resting on Cal’s stick, a positional shift happened, and I realized what he was doing. Jaxon skated back to cover at defense as Cal skated toward the goal.
“Oh no,” I whispered.
This was exactly what I’d chastised him for the first time we met. Jaxon was a skilled player, but he didn’t come close to the line of defense Cal provided. If he took a shot and missed, this could very easily come the other way and cost us the game.
Clearly, I hadn’t drilled it deeply enough through his thick skull and would need to hammer it home again.
Lightning quick, Cal shot the puck, and it hurtled toward the net. I couldn’t see even an inch of open space from where I sat. But miraculously, somehow, that puck popped the back of the netting, and every person in the arena was up on their feet, screaming their heads off in an instant.
Natalie jumped up at my side, Charlie still dead asleep in her arms despite the noise and sudden movement. Placing a hand on her shoulder, I took deep breaths, suddenly lightheaded.
“Holy shit,” I breathed out. “I can’t believe he did it.”
Cal’s face filled the big screen, and I found myself smiling at the unbridled joy reflected there. The blond scruff on his face from his playoff beard gave him a rugged look, and I couldn’t wait to fuck his brains out tonight.
He was so damn lucky that activating and taking on an offensive role in that moment had worked. He’d earned himself a stay of execution long
enough to enjoy the victory, but tomorrow, he would get a piece of my mind about his risky play at such a crucial time.
Watching on as the Comets bench cleared and the team raced toward the hero of the game—my man—to celebrate, a flash of white moved through the sea of navy blue. Saint Booker for the Speed, who was a known hothead, came flying through to cross-check Cal square in the back, sending him off balance and into the boards.
It was a cheap shot, but he had nothing left to lose.
Cal’s body hit the unyielding boards, and I winced, knowing he would be feeling that tomorrow. Fighting broke out on the ice, and I said to Natalie, “He’s gonna be so pissed when he gets up. Booker will be lucky if he doesn’t leave in a body bag.”
Nodding in agreement, she shifted Charlie’s dead weight into a more comfortable position. I was gearing up to offer to take her off Natalie’s hands when her lips turned down in a frown. “What’s Jaxon doing?”
“Huh?” I turned my head back at the ice.
The refs were trying desperately to separate the massive fight breaking out between the teams, but my eyes honed in on a panicked Jaxon, waving his arms frantically next to an unmoving Cal.
My legs gave out as a hush fell over the crowd.
Get up, baby. Please, get up.
A few of the players noticed as the trainers ran onto the ice, and the fighting ceased immediately, all of them dropping to a knee. Twenty thousand eyes were locked on Cal lying there motionless.
I prayed that it was something simple, like he’d gotten the wind knocked out of him when he hit the ice unexpectedly. But the longer he laid there, the more my panic ratcheted up.
There was a collective hushed gasp when EMTs wheeled a stretcher onto the ice surface.
From where we sat, I couldn’t tell if he wasn’t moving because he sustained a spinal injury significant enough to rob him of the ability to use his limbs, or he’d been knocked unconscious.
My vision swam as I watched them roll him carefully onto a backboard, strapping him on before lifting his giant frame onto the stretcher and wheeling him into the belly of the arena. My brain was misfiring, but I knew one thing—I needed to get to him. Injured players were taken to the training room for evaluation.
Without a word, I bolted for the door of the suite. Behind me, I heard Natalie call out, “Hannah!” Then lower, muttering, “Shit. Liam, take Charlie.”
Swiping my key card at the elevator, I became frantic when the doors didn’t open immediately. My legs were moving on instinct as I swiped my card at the stairwell instead and ran down the concrete steps until I reached the underground tunnels. Running on pure adrenaline, muscle memory took care of the rest as I found my way to the training room.
Pulling the handle and finding the door locked, I began to pound on it. When no one answered, the high-pitched voice that rose up my throat was unrecognizable as I screamed, “Let me in! Please! I need to see him! Let me in!”
“Hannah?” A voice called softly from behind me.
Turning, for a half-second, thinking it was Cal, my hope shattered when Jaxon stood before me, still fully dressed in his gear, his skates giving him extra height.
“Jaxon,” I sobbed. “Where is he? I need to get to him.” Wiping the snot running from my nose, I begged, “Please.”
Pain filled his whiskey-colored eyes, and he hesitated for a moment before responding, “He’s not here.”
“What? Wh-where is he?” Wherever he was, I needed to be there.
“They took him to the hospital. He was unconscious.” He took a deep breath. “I’m so sorry, Hannah.”
I’m so sorry. That’s when it hit me. I’d known this was bad, but until he’d said those words, I hadn’t allowed the seriousness of the situation to sink in. I could count on one hand the number of times I had seen a player carted off the ice on a stretcher in all of my almost thirty-two years. My mind skipped right past a possible spinal injury to wondering if he would ever wake up again.
Jaxon looked lost himself. Cal was his best friend.
Throwing myself into his arms, I collapsed, becoming a screaming, crying mess. My words became incoherent as I begged Jaxon to take me to Cal and begged God to let him survive. My wails echoed off the concrete walls underneath the arena.
Jaxon never wavered, holding me tight as I fell apart, tears swimming in his own eyes.
I couldn’t do this without Cal. He was the missing piece in my life.
He needed to be okay.
I wouldn’t survive if he wasn’t.
