I barely got three hours’ sleep last night. After Dixie got in the car I walked all the way back to my hotel, and then Jasper called to tell me about his night and how the team misses me and how jealous he is I was called up. He tried to ask a million questions about what it’s been like and how it’s going, but I know he watches the games and he knows how it’s going. So I evaded the questions, and after we hung up I took a long hot shower and then ignored all common sense and unwritten rules and sent Dixie a selfie in the bathroom mirror. I’m naked and wet holding a towel in front of my cock, barely covering it, but I’m also standing sideways so the side profile of my ass is on full display. I cut my head off, though, so no one can identify me. I figured she wouldn’t get it until she woke up, but fifteen minutes later I had a text from her.

I’m still chuckling when she sends another.

It was everything we both knew we shouldn’t be doing, but for the first time since I joined the team I felt grounded and centered again.

Coach started Eddie, and for the first time since being called up, I’m enjoying being on the bench. Okay, enjoying it might be an overstatement, but I’m at peace with it. Eddie had a good first period, only letting in one goal. But we’re only five minutes into the second and he’s let in two more, and both of them looked weak. He should have stopped them—at least I know that’s what the coach is thinking. As a goalie, I also know not everything is how it looks from the bench.

Levi finishes a shift and hops over the boards. I can hear him swearing all the way down at the end of the bench. “Jude, I need you to fucking score and get this thing back.”

“Yes, Captain.” Jude grins and winks at my brother. “I’m on it.”

And he does score, two shifts later. But then Eddie fumbles a puck with seconds left in the second period. It bounces off his chest and he scrambles to catch it, but it hits his glove and bounces out, over his shoulder and into the net. Our net. He fucking scored on himself.

“What. The. Actual. Fuck!” Coach Schneider barks.

Levi and Jude both let out a “For fuck’s sake!”

Beside me on the bench Duncan snickers, and I smack his helmet with my hand to get him to shut it. Seconds before the period ends, Coach shuffles down the bench. “You’re in for the third, Casco. Be ready!”

That calm I was getting used to wavers a little, but I nod, and when the whistle blows I march down the tunnel first, and skip the locker room, heading to an empty medical room to give myself a minute to prepare. I concentrate on holding on to that sense of normalcy. That calm and control.

The locker room next door is pretty silent, as is usually the case when we’re losing. I can hear people talking as they walk by—trainers and staff. I stay in there until I hear Lu Price call my name. I take a deep breath and step out into the hall. He looks at me with his hawklike features, his expression cool. “You good?”

“Yep.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

The team starts filtering out and toward the tunnel, and I fall in step next to Levi. He bangs his helmet against mine. “Get us out of this mess.”

I nod.

We’re ten minutes through the period and I’ve stopped four shots. In that time Jude and Levi both score. We’re one away from a tie, and our team definitely has the momentum. The thing is, the Saints know it too, so they’re playing more frantically. Before I know it they’ve got the puck and they’re back in our zone.

I block two more shots, and I dive to catch a rebound while a Saints player lunges for it. Darby cross-checks him in the back and he tumbles over me. The puck flies free and everyone scrambles down the ice except Duncan and the Saints guy, who have decided to continue their shoving match in my crease. I start to get up at the same time the Saints guy tries to punch Duncan, but he loses his balance and some part of him, I’m not sure which part, hits me near the bottom of my mask. Hard. I feel cool air waft against the skin where my neck meets my jaw. It’s startling. I reach up. My plastic neck protector is off. I drop my stick and frantically search for the plastic piece in my crease.

I don’t give a fuck about the game, I only give a fuck about my neck. Behind my eyes, as I look at the ice, I see flashes of the bloodstained ice from that day. I can almost feel the warm stickiness against my palm.

Luckily Duncan is in a full-on brawl with the Saints guy now and the refs have stopped play and are fully involved in trying to break it up. Hopefully the crowd and TV cameras are too, because I know I look like a panicked child right now. I see it. It somehow ended up inside my net. I reach down and grab it. When I stand back up I feel a hand on my shoulder. It’s Levi, concerned brown eyes staring at me from under his visor. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I bark and shrug off his hand as I grab my stick and skate swiftly across the ice. I hold up the piece so the coach knows what’s going on as I step off the ice. The equipment manager, Allen, rushes over and we stand next to the crowded bench trying to reattach the damn thing. I’m breathing heavy, like I’ve been skating laps around the ice. My heart feels like it’s trying to crack my rib cage wide open.

“The fucking thing is broken,” he announces. “Do you want to go without or—”

“He’s not going without. What the fuck is wrong with you?” Coach Schneider snaps at Allen, and then he turns to Eddie. “You’re back in while they fix his equipment, which better not take long.”

Allen scurries down the tunnel, and I follow along as quickly as I can on skates. The whole time I’m struggling to breathe normally. It’s so bad now I’m almost panting. Fucking hell. I wait in the hall, just next to the tunnel, while he runs down to the equipment room. My eyes are closed, but as soon as I hear the clicking of heels on the concrete they fly open. She’s walking down the hall toward me in a tight black pencil skirt and a soft pink blouse, a bunch of papers in her hand. Her eyes are on me, absorbing every inch of my demeanor, which I know must be radiating chaos.

She pulls her eyes from mine and glances up and down the hall. It’s empty. She stops directly in front of me, a few feet away. “You’re okay.”

It’s not a question. She’s stating it in a calm, even tone.

We stare at each other in silence. My eyes slide over her beautiful face, and the calm confidence of her expression seeps into me, making it possible to take a deep breath. I glance down the hall. Still empty.

I’m moving faster than I ever thought possible on skates and weighed down with pounds of equipment. I haul her into the empty, dark medical room and before she has time to stop me I press her back into the wall and cover her mouth with my own. She fights me at first, dropping her papers and pushing against my shoulders. But it doesn’t last long and in seconds her arms are wrapped around my neck, pulling me closer. When I try to break the kiss, she bites my bottom lip lightly. I press into her and slide my tongue back into her mouth.

“Casco?!”

The voice in the hall is loud and panicked. We jump apart like a bomb has gone off, and I leave her there in the dark and walk out into the hall. Allen sees me and marches over with the new neck guard. “I thought you fucking went to play without it, and Coach clearly doesn’t want you to do that.”

“I don’t want to do it,” I reply as he hurriedly ties the guard onto my helmet. “If my jugular can be sliced with this thing on, imagine what would happen without it.”

“Yeah, dude, I saw that video, and it was brutal.” Allen finishes tying the guard, and I nod and rush back down the tunnel.

While I was gone Duncan scored and tied it up.

“Casco thirty-five!” Coach Schneider barks, using my number to differentiate between me and Levi. “You’re in next whistle. Good?”

“Good!” I call back.

My breathing is normal, my pulse steady. I’m okay. Just like Dixie said.

I finish the game and we go to overtime, which remains scoreless. In the shootout I stop everything that comes my way—easily. Levi scores to give us the win. I am so happy I want to throw my equipment off and roar. But it’s just a regular midseason game, and I’d look like a fool.

Instead I settle for the team coming over to congratulate me one after the other.

Back in the locker room Dixie breezes in, holding the same papers she had earlier. The ones I made her drop all over the dark medical room’s floor. Her eyes sweep the room. “Levi, Brian and Elijah, you’re doing interviews tonight.”

“What about me, Baby Braddock?” She bristles at Eddie’s condescending comment. He doesn’t seem to notice. “I’m the game-winning goalie. No one wants to talk to me?”

“Eddie, don’t talk to her like that,” Levi says firmly.

“What? She’s Jude’s baby sister,” Eddie argues and shrugs. “He scored her a job the way you scored Eli one. Hockey is renowned for nepotism. It’s accepted. Nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“I’ve told you, that’s bullshit,” Jude mutters.

“So, Baby Braddock, add me to the interview list,” Eddie says to Dixie.

“No one wants to interview you, Rollins, because even when the backup doesn’t have to step in to save the game you tanked, you leer at the female reporters like they’re cheerleaders and you’re a creepy school janitor at a pep rally,” I tell him, pulling my jersey over my head. I run my hand through my hair because it’s fallen into my eyes. “And if you keep being a disrespectful little shit, Dixie’s never going to schedule you again.”

Eddie gives me a cold, hard sneer. “You’re mighty lippy for a kid who shakes when a skate gets too close to his precious face.”

“My name is still Ms. Wynn to you,” Dixie says, turning to face Eddie, towering in front of him with her hands on her hips. “If you call me anything else at any time I will not acknowledge you even if you’re been set on fire and you’re asking me for the glass of water in my hand. Do you understand, Rollins?”

“Listen, Dix—”

“Ms. Wynn,” she cuts him off again. “And four reporters requested that lippy kid, as you called him. Not because he stood on his head in that shootout, but because he’s a better interview than you. You’re really fucking boring.”

She storms out of the locker room.

“Fucking bullshit,” Eddie grumbles and storms around the corner toward the showers.

I pull off my pads, and as I reach for my hoodie to throw on before the reporters come in I notice Jude staring at me. “What?”

“You like sticking up for my sister,” he remarks.

“Yeah, well, someone has to do it. You didn’t.” Okay, I don’t need to be defensive or insulting. That’s not exactly playing it cool.

Jude smiles. “Oh, I will always defend and protect her. When she actually needs it.” He stands. “Remember that.”

I watch him grab a clean towel and scrub his face with it. I think he suspects I’ve got a thing for his sister, and that’s a problem. As we start to strip down and wait for the reporters Dixie is sending in, Levi asks him if Zoey came to the game.

He shakes his head as he pulls off his jersey. “She’s watching it on TV with my family at my parents’ place. My dad has a bit of a cold, so everyone stayed with him, including Zoey, who said she was too exhausted to come all the way to the arena anyway.”

“Too bad. Tessa was hoping you two would go grab dinner with us,” Levi says and turns to me. “You wanna join? You could invite that Julie girl you’re sort of involved with.”

“Ha. No, I can’t,” I blurt out without thinking. Levi’s eyebrows furrow and Jude stares at me, lifting his. I shrug. “I told you, it’s not really a thing, and I’m not subjecting any girl to meeting you if I don’t have to.”

Levi flips me the middle finger as Jude pulls his phone out of his suit jacket hanging in his locker and checks it. I’m about to turn away, but the fact that his face just completely drains of color right before my eyes stops me. Levi notices too. “Jude? What’s wrong?”

“Zoey’s at the hospital. She’s in labor.”