Second period: back checked hard enough to murder a two-on-one, carried the puck coast-to-coast, and found Hog for a one-timer that kissed iron.
"Keep those dishes coming, pretty boy!" Hog bellowed. "Feeling dangerous!"
Third period, game knotted, five minutes remaining: their defense gambled wrong, leaving me alone with their goalie and forty feet of virgin ice.
My breakaway developed frame by frame. The goalie squared up and made himself fortress-wide. Every highlight reel humiliation flashed through my head in rapid-fire succession.
My training kicked in. I went low.
The puck threaded between his pads with surgical precision, and the goal horn came for me. Loud. Joyful. A little obscene. Four hundred people achieved collective transcendence.
With my arms up and grinning like someone had just told me the secret to life, I looked toward our bench and nearly forgot how to skate.
Evan was smiling. Not his usual measured approval or professional nod—vast, unguarded, and beautiful. He'd forgotten to protect himself from his feelings.
Twenty teammates buried me in a celebratory pile. Someone chanted my name. Someone else tried dehelmeting me. Hog lifted me off the ice and spun me around.
"That's my fucking boy! THAT'S MY BOY!"
As we slowly returned to the locker room, I heard measured words in the distance. "—development curve's impressive. Vision's caught up to his hands."
Another voice answered. "Riley? Been tracking him since that podcast hit. Character concerns feel manufactured."
Back to the original. "Rockford's sniffing around. More than a tryout if this trajectory holds."
It was a pair of scouts. Here. Watching me and thinking I might matter beyond Thunder Bay.
When we hit the locker room, Pickle bounced over. He leaned in close, whispering in a conspiratorial tone. "Vegas! Hear that? Scout in the house! Rockford!"
"Yeah." I forced a grin and tried to ignore the weird knot in my stomach. "Keep it to yourself."
Taken to its logical conclusion, it was supposed to be a victory. The call-up would prove I belonged somewhere bigger than Thunder Bay's beautiful, busted-down barn.
So why did it taste like a loss?
I sat in my stall, gear half-peeled. I should have been riding the chemical high of a perfect game. Two goals, one assist, plus-three, and zero moments where I'd embarrassed myself or my bloodline. It was the kind of night that made you believe in destiny and second chances, maybe even happy endings.
My phone buzzed with notifications I didn't want to read—probably screenshots of social media losing its collective mind over the breakaway goal, or worse, someone had already turned it into a TikTok with dubstep and sparkle effects. I left it face-down and focused on the victory celebration happening around me.
"Riley."
Coach Rusk's voice cut through the noise. He stood in the doorway, still wearing that backward cap.
"Yeah, Coach?"
"My office. Two minutes."
The celebration continued without me as I followed him down the hallway, past team photos going back decades. His office was what you'd expect—cramped, cluttered, and smelling faintly of old coffee.
He closed the door and leaned against it. "Hell of a game tonight, kid."
"Thanks." I shifted my weight from foot to foot, still wearing skates that made me three inches taller. "The team played great. Pickle's been working on that shot, and Hog—"
"Sit down."
I sat. The chair creaked ominously.
Coach pulled off his cap and ran his fingers through disheveled gray hair.
