My entire body stiffened. My teeth crunched together like I was gnawing on bone and I couldn’t control my fingers curling into fists and shaking by my sides.

I hadn’t expected Chloe to be so honest. I figured something bad had happened but I hadn’t realized just how serious it was. And I was sure there was more to the story than she was telling me. Which I understood and didn’t take offense to. Sometimes, there were secrets we couldn’t share.

My first concern was ensuring that I protected her. I wanted her to know and trust me when I told her that I wouldn’t let that little fucker do anything to her. I would protect her in whatever way I could. It wasn’t my place to assume she would even want such a thing, and I knew she was fully capable of handling this herself, but I still wanted to be there for her. I wanted to force that fucker to go fuck himself.

“I need you to agree the plan,” I told her. “I know you don’t know me for shit. I know I have no right to ask this of you. I don’t even have to live with you. I’m just across the street. But this fucker isn’t going to quit until he thinks you’re his again. He seems like a fucking psycho. So I’m asking you to trust me, to trust that I want to take care of you.”

“But why?” she asked, looking up at me with confusion in her blue eyes. I couldn’t blame her. I was just as confused as to why I was doing this. “I am no one to you. I’m not trying to put myself down because I know what an awesome friend I am but this isn’t your issue, you don’t know me, and you have tons of other things on your plate that you shouldn’t be worrying about me and what I’m going through.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know,” I replied.

She pressed her lips, nodding her head. It almost seemed as though she was thinking. Finally, she nodded her head again.

“Okay,” she said. “You can sleep on the couch. If we’re going to make this believable, we have to make it believable. Tim comes from money. Like think about the highest number you can imagine and double it. He has no problem stalking me and following me and pushing people out of the way to get to me. I think he has addictive tendencies that run through his family history that make him this way but, of course, no one has ever been officially diagnosed with anything.” 

I felt myself relax when she agreed to the plan.

“So you’ll come to my game tomorrow?” I asked, interrupting her.

“Wait, what?” She tilted her head to the side, scrunching her face. Adorable wasn’t a word I used ever but she looked adorable. “Come to your game?”

“I play hockey,” I said, as though that was explanation enough. 

I wasn’t sure how else to take the unasked question. Instead, I gave her a level stare and hoped she didn’t notice the way my heart pounded against my chest, like I was some teenager asking a girl to prom.

I was such an asshole.

“And you want me to go to your game?” she asked, still skeptical.

I shrugged. This line of questioning was starting to make me feel uncomfortable, as though I had done something wrong.

“Yeah,” I finally got out. “You’re my girl now. And I expect, at least, I would hope that my girl would be there to support me, especially when we’re one round away from the finals.”

She curled her lips into a smile and nodded her head. Her hand came up and swept strands of blonde hair away from her face and behind her ear.

“Okay,” she said. It almost seemed like she was shy about it, which was odd, because Chloe was many things, but she sure as shit wasn’t shy. All of a sudden, her face contorted into a furrow. “What do I wear?”

- -

The Sea Side Ice Palace was the home rink of the Newport Beach Seagulls. It was located on Pacific Coast Highway, right across the street from the ocean. When it got quiet enough, you could hear the waves crash into the shore from the parking lot. The parking lot surrounded the oval-shaped building and it was already packed. There were two exits that had to be regulated by traffic control sent over by the Newport Beach Police Department. It filled up quickly. Those that didn’t like having to pay for parking opted to park on the street and walk up the hill.

I didn’t have to worry about walking or parking. The players got a special place for parking to ensure we weren’t late and that our cars were safe.

Chloe would meet me after the game so I made sure to get her a premium parking pass so she had good parking and left her glass-seat ticket at will call. I asked if there was someone else she wanted to bring but she said no, that she had no problem going by herself. I wouldn’t have cared either, except there was some asshole who was after her and who had money to buy out this entire fucking rink if he wanted.

After I got there, I made sure to talk to the section’s usher and requested he keep a special eye out for her, which he agreed to do. Steve was a good guy, had been working for the Gulls for the entire time that they’d been a team.

I knew I would be able to count on him with something as important as this, which freed up some of my headspace to just play.

The team convened in the locker room, completely relaxed and shooting the shit. We did our usual twenty-minute warmup where the fans would gather at the glass to watch us. Every now and then, Xander Vane and Dimitri Petrov would pop a puck over the glass for the kids. Dean and I liked to go at it with each other, just to keep our legs fresh and our instincts up. Being defensive partners with someone like yourself made it easy and reliable. I knew his decisions like the back of my hand and could predict them as well. It made things more fun with less pressure.

Thorpe gave a speech after warmups, while they zambonied the ice and we had a good ten minutes for peaceful reflection. Cherney said nothing; he let Thorpe handle everything, staying quiet and off to the side. It was something I respected about him as a coach - that he trusted his team enough to handle everything rather than to constantly interject and to involve themselves. A lot of the young teams needed that but we were compromised of mainly experienced players, some vets, some playing their second or third year in the league. For the most part, we knew what we were doing.

They announced us with two minutes left to play. Dean and I were always paired with Negan’s line, which either started the game or went out during the second shift.

I always got excited during that moment just before puck drop. My heart hammered in my chest, flooding my bloodstream with adrenaline. Any issues, anything I was holding back or purposefully not thinking about in order to keep my patience and my temper in check suddenly came to the forefront of my mind, spinning and whirling inside of me like a turbulent tornado. I was ready to unleash everything on the ice.

I forgot to look for Chloe in the stands. I should have done it just before the game to make sure she was there but I was too focused on what I needed to do. I started thinking about how I was going to play, the one job I wanted to excel at, if nothing else. I wouldn’t ever talk about it, but I was a big proponent of visualization and seeing myself play the way I wanted to play. The way I expected myself to play. The only thing that mattered to me at the end of the day was effort. As long as I didn’t slack off, as long as I skated hard and didn’t glide, as long as I tried, that was all that mattered to me. Winning would be great but in order to do that, my individual effort needed to be prioritized as well. 

I also liked consistency. I was probably not the best player on the team. Hell, I knew I wasn’t. But I was one of the most consistent. Just like Drew Stefano, even though we were two different players. I was dependable. And when I fucked up, I tried to fix my mistake as soon as I could.

I didn’t have too much experience playing in the playoffs. When I was with Arizona, we went two years in a row and only made it to the first round both times.

Being in the semi-finals was a completely different story. It was as though the Cup was right in front of me, just out of reach. There was something in my blood, something that told me I would get my name on that thing, with all the other hockey legends. I only needed to do it once and I would be fine, I would be happy. Just once. And something inside of me told me I would.

That first game, I played like I was already skating around my home arena, holding the Cup in my hands, thrust over my head and cracking a legitimate smile. Like I was the luckiest son of a bitch on the planet. Not that I believed in luck, but it was luck I was traded to a team that was going to make the playoffs in the first place.

I didn’t think anyone thought the Gulls stood a chance. Hell, I didn’t think they did. I thought I would be playing a mellow season and in the off-season, the GM would make some moves and potentially draft some players that might get us there in a few years. I didn’t know that Seraphina was an unexpected genius. I didn’t know that her pickups - which included Ryan, Negan, me, and Morgan - would somehow gel well together and take this team and turn it into a Frankenstein. I didn’t think someone with as little experience as her - this was her second year as owner and manager - would be able to turn it all around so quickly.

Not that I knew her personally, I knew how stupid my ignorance was. Seraphina Hanson was a goddamn firecracker and she could do anything she put her mind to. Lord help the man she finally settled down with. No one was probably good enough for her, especially with her grandfather being Ken Brown. He would probably go into the hockey hall of fame himself. He might not have even made playoffs when he was manager and owner of the team, but he started this team from scratch and brought hockey to Southern California. Gulls fans liked to say that the competitiveness that stemmed from having two teams forty miles away - the Hollywood Stars and the Gulls - compelled the Stars’ GM to get his shit together and build a competitive team. Neither team had won a Stanley Cup yet, but this year, the best chance anyone had to win one was ours.

And we would.

I knew it in my bones.

We wound up winning by one. Thorpe had a shutout and Zachary Ryan had the only goal - a dirty goal, a lucky goal, where he went where he was supposed to - in front of the net - and managed the puck squirted out from the goalie right in front of Ryan. Ryan didn’t even hesitate and lobbed that puck top-shelf.

Game One was over. We had won. Game Two was two nights from tonight, still at home. If we could grab a second win, we would have an advantage before heading into Houston.

Before I skated off the ice, I remembered to look at where Chloe was sitting. She beamed at me, standing up, cheering, and the feeling I felt was almost as great as this win.

I shook my head and turned away. I tried to stop a small smile from littering my face but wasn’t as successful as I hoped to be.