“Fucking move. Clear him out,” I said to my teammate, giving Timmy a tap with my stick.
“Sorry, Tucks,” Timmy replied, nudging the forward as they both got out of my paint.
My eyes were already back on the puck, darting between it and the face of the forward who currently had it on his stick. Micah crowded the guy into the corner so he couldn’t take the shot and then they were both skating behind the net. I kept my gaze focused, shifting my body with every movement of the Carolinaplayer. He deked to the side, but Micah was there, his stick out, trying to poke the puck away.
The Carolina forward knocked the puck to his teammate and my attention shifted again. Carolina kept it in the zone, passing from one player to the next, but my boys weren’t letting them find a shot. We were all getting antsy, and I knew their legs were probably jelly, but none of them would even attempt to do a change with Carolina in our zone.
Finally, the Carolina center took his shot, but I spotted it through all the traffic in front of me and snagged it with my glove when they tried to go top shelf, ending the play.
“Sweet save, Tucks,” Timmy called out, tapping his stick against my pads before he skated to the face-off dot to my left. Dom easily won the face-off and sent the puck over to Micah so the forward line could do a shift change. Our third line hit the ice, and Micah passed Sweets the puck before he and Timmy exited the ice for Lamb and Fishy to hop on.
The next fifteen minutes passed by quickly with no one scoring, and then Carolina pulled their goalie with ninety seconds left, allowing for an extra forward on the ice. I rolled my shoulders and tapped both pipes. “Let’s finish this,” I said, hitting my stick against my pads. I squatted and then did a jump, keeping my eyes on the puck throughout.
“Get an empty,” I called out to Tally, who grinned and attempted to snag the puck from one of the opposing forwards. He had two of tonight’s goals, so another one would give him a hat trick. It was common practice that, if a guy had two goals, everyone else did whatever they could to help that player get that hat trick—within reason, of course. We weren’t going to get sloppy and allow Carolina to get the puck and score. Our focus would not slide.
Carolina was in our zone, and the extra attacker just made for more people that I had to concentrate on. Carolina passed thepuck back and forth, moving in closer to me. Their first shot banged off the pipes, but they got the rebound. Micah checked the guy with the puck into the boards and then the two of them were battling for the puck. Santa and Sin joined the mess along with two more Carolina players, and I made sure to fill as much of my net as possible.
The puck got loose, but ended up on Carolina’s stick, and I narrowed my focus on the guy. His eyes darted from left to right, and when he took his shot, I was there, snagging it out of the air before it could sail over my shoulder and into the net.
“Fuck yeah,” Sin called out, a wide grin on his face.
The two centers crouched over the face-off dot, but Carolina won, quickly taking another shot, which luckily bounced off the pipes. Tally grabbed it and streaked up the ice and between the two Carolina defensemen before they could stop him. The empty net was all his and he shot. The goal buzzer blared and hats rained down on the ice. It was still a decent amount, but it would’ve been more if we were home in Denver.
Now we just had to get through the last ten seconds for me to get my shutout.
When play started again, those last few seconds wound down. Carolina made one last attempt, but the horn blared the end of the game and I had my first shutout of the season.
Fuck yeah.
I loved every helmet tap and grin from my teammates as they congratulated me. Then we all skated back to the bench and headed to the locker room to celebrate our win.
Damn, I loved this game more than anything, and I couldn’t wait to play against the Blizzard in two days. Roger could go fuck himself.
Chapter 18
DANI
“Miss Dani, you’re looking very glowy. That new moisturizer I recommended or is it just love?” Mason asked, a bright grin on his face as he sat down next to me at the center Saturday afternoon.
“Ooh, it’s love. But with a guy. Yeah, no thanks,” Mira said, lifting her head from the puzzle she was working on across from me.
“It’s probably the moisturizer. Do I look dewy and well rested?”
“She’s evading, even if she looks fab doing it,” Mason teased. “We know you’re dating that hot hockey player.”
“I want to learn how to play hockey but that’ll never happen,” said Chloe, one of the older tweens. She had just turned twelve, while Mira was sixteen and Mason was almost seventeen.
I almost asked why not, but I already knew. Hockey was expensive and most of the kids that came to the Center didn’tget too much in the way of love and support from their family members for basic stuff, let alone encouragement for extracurriculars. I avoided telling the kids that I was trying to get some of the players to help out here just in case it didn’t happen. I trusted Gabe, and had had a great meeting with Meredith, but I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up.
Mason shuddered. “No thanks. I like all my teeth exactly where they are. In my mouth.”
Mira rolled her eyes. “You can just get fake ones. Does your man have fake ones?”
“Uh, I’m not sure,” I said.
“Maybe he leaves them in while they’re hooking up,” Mason chimed in.
“Uh, how about we talk about something else?” I said. “How’d that chem test go this week, Mira?”
