Page 113 of Her Player

I stood up.

I walked to the center of the room.

Thirty men staring back at me. Some of them had been on this team longer than I had. Some of them I'd broken in myself, running them through drills in the weight room until they puked and then handing them a water bottle and making them go again. Some of them I'd sat with in hospital waiting rooms and airport terminals and dive bars at two in the morning after losses that felt like they'd never stop hurting.

Every single one of them was mine.

"Sokolov," I said. "Six-foot-nine, two-sixty. Three PHL championships. Never lost a final. His face-off percentage this season is sixty-two percent which means he wins almost two out of every three puck drops." I let that land for a second. "Which means we don't give him the damn puck drop."

Jett raised his hand. "How exactly do we⁠—"

"He favors his right shoulder on the draw. Every time. Pull tape on any face-off he's ever taken and you'll see it. He dips that right shoulder a half-second before the puck falls." I looked at Jett. "Which means you'll see it coming before he does it."

Jett's grin spread. "So I'm taking the face-offs."

"You're taking the face-offs," I confirmed. "Not all of them. But the ones in their zone, yes. He won't be expecting a winger on the draw and it'll throw his timing."

"And what are you doing while I'm stealing his lunch?" Jett asked.

"Moving right." I looked around the room. "Their left side defense is the tightest in the PHL this season. Locked down, aggressive, well drilled. Their coach runs it as his primary formation any time they're protecting a lead. But the right side?" I shook my head. "Three games of tape and that gap opens up like a goddamn door every single time. They've never been challenged there because Sokolov dominates the center so completely that nobody bothers trying."

"Until us," Moose said from the back.

"Until us," I agreed.

I looked around the room one more time. At Langley, who'd come further this season than any of us expected. At Moose, who'd taken a puck to the face for this team and showed up anyway. At Jett, who somehow managed to be the most annoying person I'd ever met and also the best damn linemate I'd ever had.

"They're going to come hard," I said. "They're going to be physical. They're going to be disciplined and fast and they're going to want this more than they've wanted anything this season." I paused. "So do we."

Coach's whistle pierced the air behind me.

"Gear up," he said.

Four hours later, I skated out onto the championship ice and the noise hit me like a goddamn freight train.

Forty thousand people. Every seat filled. Half of them ours, a sea of Vipers gold and black that rippled from the floor seats to the nosebleeds. The other half a wall of Canadian red that booed loud enough to rattle the glass. Noise makers churning. Fog horns blaring.

I'd been in Caldwell Arena for three years and I'd never once heard it sound like this.

Holy hell.

Forty thousand people in a championship game was something else entirely. The noise didn't build. It didn't start low and climb. It was already at maximum the second we hit the ice, a wall of sound that pushed back against you physically, that you felt in your sternum and your teeth and the soles of your damn skates. The confetti cannons had already gone off. The lights were down to championship configuration, gold and black beams sweeping the upper decks.

I did my backwards lap and let myself feel every single inch of it.

This was what we built it for.

This was what she built it for.

The Jumbotron above cycled through player introductions in flashing gold light and somewhere up in the owner's box, I knew Victoria was standing with her arms crossed and her jaw set and those gray eyes tracking every single thing happening on that ice.

I looked up.

She was already looking at me.

She didn't wave. She didn't smile. She just held my gaze from four stories up, and I felt the steadiness of it run straight through the center of my chest.

I'm right here.