Page 153 of Wild Card 13

I nodded once. “Yeah.”

His jaw flexed. Then he looked toward the hallway full of families and cameras and teammates. “And stop turning pucks over at the blue line like an idiot.”

I grinned. “Knew you loved me.”

“Unfortunately.”

Dad moved first, stopping in front of me before I reached the rest of the family. The crowd roared around us. The guys kept shouting down the hall. Somebody started singing the fight songoff-key near the locker room. My heart was still hammering hard enough to feel it in my wrists.

Dad put one hand on my shoulder. “You handled your business.”

My chest felt like it cracked open. I nodded because speaking would have been a bad idea.

Then Mom reached me and ruined any chance I had of pretending not to be emotional by wrapping both arms around me, hockey smell and damp jersey and all. “My boy,” she whispered.

“Mom,” I groaned, but I hugged her back.

“Eat.” Grandma Ruth shoved a foil-wrapped bar against my chest the second Mom released me. “You must be famished.”

“You’re always right,” I said, taking it. “Thanks, Grandma.”

Grandpa Hal stood in front of me next, roster folded in half in his hand. His eyes were pale and steady beneath the brim of his Northbend High hat. “Good third period.”

“Thanks, Grandpa.”

Kendrick clapped me hard on the back. “Four points. Fantastic. We’ll never hear the end of this.”

“You could try being supportive.”

“I came, didn’t I?”

Then, finally, I saw her. Lucy stood half behind Naomi, hands tucked into the sleeves of her coat. She looked proud and bright and a little pale in a way I did not know how to read yet.

I stepped toward her.

Lucy’s eyes moved over my face, then my jersey, then back to my eyes. “You were unbelievable.”

I tried to say something cocky.The scouts loved the cheekbones.Nothing came out.

So I reached for her instead.

She came into my arms immediately.

The impact of holding her after that game almost knocked the breath out of me. Not hard. Not dramatic. Just complete. Her cheek pressed against the cold, damp front of my jersey, arms tight around my waist, and for the first time since warmups, my body finally stopped moving inside itself.

There.

That was the quiet place.

Lucy holding me, and some part of me that had been chasing the whole night finally caught up.

“I saw the tape,” she whispered against me. “You’re ridiculous.”

“You said romantic wrong.”

“Romantically ridiculous,” she laughed. “Better?”

I lowered my head, needing to tell her everything at once. Fargo. St. Croix. Coach. Dad. Thane giving me the weirdest compliment of my life. The way the whole hallway felt like it had opened in a direction I had been skating toward since I was two years old.