Page 112 of Don't Cross the Blue Line
The puck buries itself in the net.
The buzzer sounds, and the arena comes apart at the seams.
This is the only honest description. I’m cheering—the full-body, unselfconscious kind I haven’t done since I was seven, before the divorce, in the family box at one of my dad’s games—and Chloe grabs my arm, both of us jumping, and I knock into Penny, who spills pop across her lap. Coco lets out a short, sharp laugh that I understand instinctively is her version of a standing ovation.
“I’m sorry,” I manage when I recover enough to use words. “I don’t usually—I haven’t been to a game in years…I forgot that it?—”
“Does that to you?” Chloe is beaming. “Yeah. It does. Welcome to the family, Coach Hart’s daughter.” She winks.
“You’re going to fit in here just fine,” Penny says.
It lands somewhere I wasn’t braced for.
I look at the ice. At the celebration—helmets off, sticks raised. The handshake line forms. Both teams, the ritual of it—hand to hand, helmet to helmet, the acknowledgment that lasts about forty-five seconds and means everything. I watch Beckett move through it, unhurried, making eye contact with each player
And then it’s done, and his teammates start moving toward the tunnel.
“Hmm,” Penny says. “That’s different.”
I follow her gaze to the ice, to Beckett making his way toward the far boards. Toward the small media setup that lives at ice level for postgame quick interviews—and the reporter with the handheld mic.
“What is he doing?” I say.
“I don’t know, but I think it’s gonna be good,” Penny says.
The jumbotron flickers.
The postgame graphic disappears, and the feed switches—live, rink-side, Beckett on skates with the reporter’s microphone extended toward him, the arena cameras finding him, the house lights still up. The crowd, still milling, still celebrating, starts to notice. Goes quiet.
The reporter’s voice comes through the arena speakers. “What an incredible game tonight, Beckett. You looked like a completely different player in that first period than the one we saw in the third. What happened?”
Beckett smiles. His dark hair, damp with sweat, is wild, his breath still catching up with him. He looks up as he speaks into the mic, and something flutters in my chest. “Yeah—I was a little off my game at the start. I was a little…distracted.” He pulls in another breath. “I was waiting on someone.”
A ripple moves through the crowd. Or at least in our box. Through me, to be precise. Half confused, half delighted.
The reporter, to her credit, doesn’t flinch. “Is that someone here tonight?”
“She is.” He looks up. Finds the box. “And I owe her a public correction. Because the last time I had a microphone pointed at me, I lied.”
The traffic out of the arena slows, people turning to listen, and I hold my breath.
“Eleven days ago, I stood outside Sutton Arena and told the world that Everly Hart didn’t belong on the ice, that she was nothing to me, because I wanted to avoid a scandal that might risk my career.”
Go, something inside me says. But I don’t move yet. I can’t. I need to hear this.
“The truth is that she’s not nobody. She was never nobody. Everly Hart is the most courageous, smart, compassionate woman I’ve ever met. And if it risks my shot at a contract renewal to be honest about it—well, here goes…” He looks into the camera, those blue eyes flecked with gold. “Everly Hart—it’s later now. What do you say? Will you go on that date with me?”
“Go,” Chloe says.
I’m already gone.
I push through the box door and into the corridor, and I’m running—actually running—boots on concrete, the arena roaring somewhere behind me and above me and all around me, the sound of eighteen thousand people who just watched something happen and are apparently very much in favor of it.
Left corridor. Signs for ice level. The elevator is right there, and I take it, shifting my weight like that’ll make it move faster, watching the numbers change.
The doors open, and my dad is standing at the access gate. Clipboard. Reading glasses on his forehead. He smiles in that very Dad way. Quiet and slight. Warm and full.
“Hey, Dad.”
