Page 118 of The Off Limits Captain
Section 312.
Too high. Too crowded. Too many waving towels and raised phones.
Then I see Sierra’s dark hoodie. Beside her, a baseball cap pulled low, one hand pressed to her mouth like she is trying not to smile too wide.
Peyton.
She is not hiding from me.
The knowledge hits harder than the shot block.
She has come without credentials. Without access. Without anything to take.
Our eyes should not be able to meet from that distance. The arena is too loud, the glass too bright, the bodies too many. Still, something in her posture changes. Her hand drops. Her face lifts.
My heart kicks once.
Then Colt slams into me from the side.
“Do not stand there looking tragic. We just clinched.”
I catch my balance. “I am not looking tragic.”
“You were looking like a movie poster for emotional constipation.”
“Celebrate somewhere else.”
“No.”
Colt drags me into the mob.
The locker room is chaos in the best way. Music too loud. Champagne spraying in hard arcs. Someone has already lost a shirt. Finn stands on a bench yelling a speech that is mostlyprofanity and community pride. Evan has stolen the clinch puck and is refusing to say where he put it, which means it is probably in his equipment bag and definitely covered in something unsanitary.
Coach Sully waits until the noise crests, then whistles once.
The room quiets because Sully’s whistle can stop traffic.
“Listen up.” He is soaked from shoulder to shoe and grinning like he hates how proud he is. “You earned that. Every inch. Every blocked shot. Every hard change. Every ugly minute you played the right way when the building wanted something stupid.”
His eyes land on me for a beat.
“Enjoy tonight. Tomorrow we work. The playoffs do not care that you made history.”
The room goes up again.
I take the spray, the hugs, the shoulder hits. I give the right answers to the local cameras when they come in. Clinched a spot. Team effort. One shift at a time. The words are true enough and useless enough that nobody can cut them into trouble.
Underneath all of it, I keep seeing Section 312.
Peyton in the cheap seats.
Near midnight, after the cameras leave and the crowd in the room thins, Evan drops onto the bench beside me with two slices of cold pizza balanced on a paper plate.
“You saw her,” Evan says.
I unlace my skate. “Who?”
“Terrible. Truly. You lie like a youth pastor with a gambling app.”
