Page 127 of Ricochet

After pulling on his hockey pants, he turns to me with that smirk of his that’s both beautiful and arrogant. “Gonna miss me out on the ice, baby?”

I pick up the ball of tape that fell to the ground and throw it back at him. “You know I will.”

“Is anyone going to missme?” Brooks asks from a few stations down.

Teasing “nos” get thrown back at him. More tape flies across the room in his direction while he pouts.

As laughter rings out, Nate hobbles over on his skates, fully dressed.

“Before this game, you should know something, Cal,” he says, his helmet tucked under his arm. His grin is a little different from those of the rest of our teammates. “The team and I have talked already. It’s unanimous. They want you to be their captain next year.”

My jaw goes slack. “Me?”

“If you want it.”

I peer over at Stone who’s smiling like he already knew. When I glance around the room, I find the rest of the team’s eyes on me, all smiling too and looking back expectantly.

Clearing my throat because I know my voice would come out all choked up otherwise, I nod. “I’d be honored.”

A chorus of hoots and hollers sings throughout the locker room, and a few of the guys come over to pat me on the pads of my shoulders and tell me congratulations.

After everyone goes back to getting ready, I turn to Stone. “Now I’ll miss you even more. Would’ve been fun having you call me Captain.”

He leans over and drops his voice. “I could always call you Captain in bed,” he says with a suggestive hike of his brows.

I laugh and shake my head, shoving him away.

Once the team is ready, we grab our sticks and head out through the tunnel toward the raucous noise of the crowd. Our assistant couch—well, our head coach now—is waiting for us at the bench. He’s already given us our pre-game pep talk in thelocker room, but he looks between us as though he wants to give another.

“You guys got this,” he says, his voice carrying above the blare of shouts and cheers. “No matter what happens out there, play for yourselves and no one else.”

He ushers the first line out onto the ice, and we gather at the red line with the team from Maine for the puck drop. The noise in the arena grows. Blood rushes in my ears. The puck drops, and it’s slapped away by Stone’s stick, right to my tape.

I take off, blades carving the ice as I weave past a defenseman before passing to Nate. He passes to Stone who takes a shot at the goal. The puck bounces off the goalie’s pads, and I pick it up, barely avoiding getting barreled into by an opposing player, our pads brushing as I skate back toward the blue line.

The puck gets passed around, intercepted, bounces off the ice. We’re once again applying pressure in Maine’s defensive zone when Nate gets checked hard and goes down. They take it back across the red line and score on an odd man rush.

We’re trailing by one at the end of the first, but the energy in the locker room between periods hasn’t dwindled from before. It’s still buzzing, our spirits still high.

Whether we win or not, we made it here.

But wewillwin. Because we want it more.

Early in the second period, Maine finds a loose puck in front of the net and slips it past Fitz to take the lead two to zero.

Instead of letting that slow us down, we’re all out for fucking blood.

Stone and I sit side by side on the bench as our second line goes out. Maine applies pressure in our defensive zone for nearly a full minute, players crashing into each other all around the goal, before Fitz slaps the puck away from the crease. Our right winger takes it back across the red line and attempts a shot thatbounces off the post. Brooks finds his way in front of the net and puts home the rebound.

As the lamp lights up, all of us on the bench stand and cheer.

The rest of the period is filled with penalties on both sides as the war rages on. Both teams take turns on power plays that come up empty due to strong goaltending on both sides.

At the end of the second, it’s two to one.

We still have some catching up to do, but Brooks’s ridiculous celebration of his goal during the period break keeps the energy up. I’m pretty sure he was doing an impression of the Hulk, but it was so bad I can’t be certain.

It helps that Coach comes in and congratulates him first before telling us where we need to tighten up our plays. Actual guidance and strategy advice instead of just shouting and shaming.