Page 343 of The Lies We Play

“Play the puck, Wade.”

He does.

Perfectly.

Asshole.

During the media timeout, I look up again.

Liv’s eyes find mine right away.

There she is.

My wife, my impossible woman, leaning forward with both hands around her coffee, watching me like the whole arena is only a detail she has agreed to tolerate. She lifts her fingers once. Not a wave. Not quite. A tiny touch to the inside of her left wrist.

The trinity knot.

I feel mine under my tape and glove.

Halston sees her do it.

He touches his too—for me.

The noise drops away for half a second.

Then the whistle blows, and the game drags me back by the collar.

The third period is goaltending.

Monty stops everything we send at him.

Our second unit gets three shots on a power play, and Monty stops three shots on a fucking power play.

The Hartford kid gets a breakaway with four minutes left: finally reads the lane correctly, finally gets Monty moving, finally pulls him just far enough to open space on the blocker side.

Monty fishes the puck out of his glove and flips it to his defenseman like he’s been waiting for the kid to try exactly that since warmups.

The kid comes back to the bench breathing hard and staring at the ice.

I tap his shoulder.

“Better.”

“He stopped it.”

“Yeah. He’s a bastard. But it was better.”

Mihalik gets a slap shot from the point with ninety seconds left that should’ve been a goal. It’s screened. It’s hard. It changes direction off somebody’s pants.

Monty turns his shoulder a quarter inch.

A quarter fucking inch.

The puck goes into the netting behind the goal.

Mihalik puts both hands on top of his helmet.

I skate by Monty on the reset. “You’re making this personal.”