Hot as Puck(72)

I should have fucking considered that before, but all I could think about at the time was reaching Libby before it was too late and she decided to end it via text as soon as I stepped off the ice.

It didn’t hit me until the entire arena started cooing and cheering and clapping that I might have made a slight error in judgment, considering Libby enjoys the spotlight about as much as I enjoy getting my legs waxed—which I did once after losing a bet with Travers my rookie season, back before I realized that Travers seems like a big, cuddly teddy-bear type of guy, but is actually evil, never makes a bet he doesn’t know he’s going to win, and feeds on the shame of rookies like a blood-sucking vampire.

Travers is a damned fine defender, however, and when he slaps the puck back across the line into goal-scoring territory, I’m right there to catch it and do my best to get that motherpucker into the net.

I may be having a hard time thinking of anything but Libby, but I just scored two goals in the third period, after already scoring one in the first, and now coach wants me out here going for a “hat rack.”

A “hat rack” is Coach Swindle’s non-thing that he’s trying hard to make a thing. But it will never be a thing because what the fuck does that even mean? A hat rack? A hat trick—three goals scored by a single player in a single game, originally coined when a cricket player was rewarded with a hat after hitting three wickets with three consecutive balls—is obscure enough. But at least it has history and tradition and people generally know what the hell you’re talking about.

A hat rack could have any number of hooks or padded pillows or whatever it is you hang hats on. And who, in these modern times, own enough fancy hats to necessitate a hat box, let alone an entire rack?

But I know better than to talk sense to people who have their hearts set on naming things that don’t need to be named, and scoring another goal might keep my mind off Libby for another fifty seconds…

Forty seconds…

Thirty seconds as I dart around Nowicki, who for once is actually paying attention during the tail end of a period, but it doesn’t matter. Because he is a normal guy playing hockey, and I am a demon possessed with the need for this game to end so I can find Libby and tell her in person that I need her more than I’ve ever needed anything. More than I need to hit a scoring goal this season, more than I need that endorsement deal Brendan assures me is going to help me negotiate a bigger salary, more than I need my family to stay healthy and my friends to be happy and the people I care about to believe their dreams can come true.

Fuck, I want to believe dreams can come true.

Twenty seconds…

I cut around the defensemen and circle behind the net, going so fast I’m balanced on the edge of one skate and about to lose purchase on the ice. My blade chatters, but I stay upright long enough to see Nowicki clear and coming in fast. I saucer pass the puck, which does a double bunny hop, and lands right in front of Nowicki, like a finely wrapped box of chocolates.

Ten seconds, and that rookie slaps the shit out of that beautiful present I hand-delivered to his stick, but the goalie is a fat bastard with a stupidly fast right leg. The puck bounces off his toe—off his fucking toe. God the goal is so close I can taste it, salty and tempting in my mouth, and I pounce on the juicy rebound.

Five seconds and the puck is mine, all mine, and I whip that black biscuit right between Big Bastard’s legs. It hits the net a split second before the buzzer sounds and the crowd loses its damned mind. Wild, roaring, rabid-Badger-fan victory sounds fill the air like sweet, extremely loud music, and I thrust my stick in the air with a “Hell, yes, Portland!”

Soon I’m surrounded by the rest of my team, who pound my back and knock affectionately on my helmet, while more hats rain down onto the ice all around us, proving that maybe there is something to the hat rack thing, after all.

I don’t know, I only know that as I skate back toward the bench to grab a seat and see if I’m going to make one of the three stars of the game—yes, I realize it’s pretty likely, but I prefer to keep shit humble until my name’s called over the PA—that I only have eyes for the woman on the other side of the rain of Badger ball caps.

A woman in a red coat and a white pompom hat, holding a sign that says:

Roses are red, violets are blue,

Guess what, Cruise?

I love you, too.

A strangled sound rips from my throat—I’m so fucking relieved I literally choke on it a little—and I break from the rest of the team, zipping across the ice like I’m gunning for another goal.

And I am. But it’s a different goal, a better goal. It’s Libby, my Libby with her silky hair falling around her shoulders and her brown eyes glittering just for me and a smile on her face that tells me she’s every bit as crazy about me as I am about her.