I turn to Barbie without thinking and he’s just as excited as me, giving me a high five that I have to reach for and makes my hand sting. I high-five all my sisters that I can reach in the row behind us, and when Nova wraps her arms around my shoulders from behind, I lean back into her and hold her hands.
My whole team is going nuts. I don’t know when they all became such huge fans of Delilah, but I’ve never been more proud in my life. I want to stay and watch the rest of her game, but halfway through the second, we have to leave to get ready for our own.
Dad claps me on the back, Mom gives me a quick hug, but I’m sure the one thing all the boys home in on is the way Nova kisses me on the cheek before I go.
* * *
THEY’RE ALL OVER me as soon as we’re in the locker room.
“You said you weren’t with her!” Kovy shouts. Ugh, god, kill me. I glance at Barbie, waiting for him to step in and say something about his constant texting with Nova, but he shakes his head slightly. Apparently that’s a secret for now.
“I didn’t lie.” I get to my stall and step out of my dress shoes, loosening my tie.
“Dude, she literally kissed you!” Kovy argues.
“You act like she stuck her tongue down his throat,” Cauler says. He kicks his shoes off with a little too much force, so they slam against the bottom of his stall.
I think I’m the only one who notices. They’re all too busy speculating, noisily and without shame. All I can focus on is the way Cauler’s got his jaw clenched.
He’s jealous.
“The kid has the social skills of a rock, but he’s still got Nova freaking Vinter,” Colie says at one point.
I’m about to say something like no, you asshole, I do not have Nova, Nova is not a thing to be had, but Cauler beats me to it.
“You realize how creepy you’re all being?” he says. He lets the band of his compression shorts snap against his hips, and I look way the hell away.
“Is that jealousy I’m sensing, Cauler?” Zero says. It’s a passing comment no one else pays much attention to, still trying to get me to admit to the nonexistent thing going on between me and Nova. I’m almost tempted to tell them about eighth grade, freshman year, the on-and-off summer before I left for Michigan just to shut them up. But that’s none of their business and would probably just rile them up even more.
The goal horn and the rumble of a cheering crowd shakes the locker room, muffled, but enough to get everyone to look at the TV where Delilah’s got her stick raised above her head as her linemates crowd her against the boards.
“That’s three points tonight, Terzo,” Dorian announces. “You got your work cut out for you.”
That’s fine by me. I smile as the camera pans over the crowd, the rows we just vacated the only empty seats in the building, waiting to be filled by the women’s team once we take the ice. One thing about the Hartland student body, they come out in support of all their teams, men’s and women’s alike. The camera homes in on my family for a second, Jade holding her hands over her chest and looking down at Delilah with this kind of adoration that makes my heart clench. My sisters scream around her.
We get our warm-ups in on the practice rink while the women’s game finishes up. The energy is high, the guys are ready to go, and even I’m actually kind of excited to hit the ice.
Until we get back to the locker room for our final pregame talk and Dad’s in there waiting for us. Coach Campbell’s got this smug look on his face, like he’s about to bless this team with the greatest moment of their lives.
Judging by the way most of them react, they agree.
“Kill me,” I mutter.
Dorian leans over to me and whispers, “If I kill you, can I have your skates? They’re sick, dude.”
“Your feet would never fit in them,” Barbie says from Dorian’s other side. “He’s got fetus feet.”
Coach actually introduces Dad, like it’s really necessary, before handing the floor off to him. I try to tune him out when he starts his motivational speech, but there’s only so much I can do with my whole team enraptured by him. Most of them have probably looked up to him since they first laced up a pair of skates, same way their parents looked up to Grampa, Wayne Gretzky, Gordie Howe.
He looks so much older than I remember. Maybe because I’ve seen more of him in tribute videos and on the walls of this arena at my age than I have in person over the past seven years.
It’s hard to see myself in him. Not even because I look more like Mom, with her dark hair and eyes and olive skin. But in the way he carries himself, all inviting smiles and squared shoulders.
We don’t even play hockey the same. I had to learn to adapt it to my size on my own, and that makes our play styles nothing alike.
People like Dad for more than his name and his skill. They never have a bad word to say about him, because he’s not a bad person. Just not a great parent.
By the time he finishes his speech, my teammates are on their feet, thoroughly impressed and ready for puck drop. I’m slower to stand, all the buildup from warm-ups burned out of me. The boys press in close, all reaching a hand into the center of the huddle. The best I can do is a hand on the backs of Dorian and Barbie in front of me as the captains lead us in a cheer loud enough to make my ears ring.
Dad pulls me aside on my way out. “We’ve got NHL Central Scouting here, and a scout from the Sabres,” he says. His excitement is tangible as he puts a hand on my shoulder and shakes.
My heart twists. I feel cold sweat on the back of my neck. Being in Buffalo would make a life of hockey so much easier to cope with. Buffalo is home. It’s where I grew up. It’s where Nova is when she’s not working. It’s where I belong.
There’s no way the Sabres are gonna get the top pick this year unless they make huge, unprecedented trades. It’s not gonna happen. There’s no way it’s gonna happen.
But I still need to show them I’d be worth it.
FIFTEEN
The world narrows to nothing but the face-off dot and the puck in the ref’s hand. The Eagles’ center is paying more attention to chirping me than he is to the puck, pretty much handing me the face-off win. I pull the puck back to Dorian on my left and we explode down the ice, our tape-to-tape passes powerful and flawless.
Zero finds an opening within the first ten seconds, firing a rocket through a gap in the defense that goes wide. It rebounds off the glass, right to my glove. I drop the puck to the ice at my feet and send a wrister toward the net. A defender gets a skate on it and leaves it for his goalie to cover as Zero and Cauler bear down on him. Cauler wins the next face-off right to Barbie, setting him up for a one-timer that hits the back of the net a second later.
The five of us go to the bench with the crowd cheering like we scored five goals. Dorian practically punches me in the fist when I offer it to him. “Now that’s hockey!” he cheers.
I sit between Cauler and Zero on the bench, all three of us looking up at the jumbotron replay and catching our breaths. It looks like something off an NHL highlight reel. Not even twenty seconds in and the Eagles are already pulling their goalie in favor of their freshman backup, Ralph Lu.
Cauler elbows me and leans over to say, “’Bout time they replaced the sieve.”
The fact that he’s acknowledging last night’s message at all makes my face flush.
After that first shift, the Eagles buckle down on defense and push back harder than we expected them to. Doesn’t help that Ralph Lu is some kind of goaltending prodigy. The scouts have gotta be loving him right now. We throw fifteen shots at him in the first period and go into the intermission with nothing to show for it outside that one goal.
I look up into the stands on my way into the tunnel. The twins are taking a selfie together. Mikayla, Bailey, Sid, and Karim are all huddled in close to talk over the crowd. Jade’s leaning forward to drape her arms over Delilah’s shoulders in the row in front of her, and Nova’s talking to a few of the women’s team excitedly. Mom and Dad both look at me, smiling and waving when they have my attention.