Page 10 of Blueline Baby

I dump a puck in the corner and I can’t stop grinning, because she just wore the enemy into my house on purpose. And it’s a problem, because I’m supposed to look like a professional athlete and not a dog that just heard the word walk.

My D-partner slides up next to me at the boards. “Why do you look like that?”

“Like what?”

“Deranged. You look deranged.” He follows my gaze. “There’s a girl giving you a death stare from the glass.”

“She’s flirting with me.”

“You know her?”

“Working on it.”

“She’s wearing a Toronto jersey.”

“I know.” I can hear how thrilled I sound. “Isn’t it great?”

He skates off shaking his head. I take one more lap. I tell myself to lock in. The puck drops in ten minutes. I’ve got a job to do, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the blonde in the wrong colors behind the net.

The crowd’s never been anything to me but noise. One big wall of it, cheering or booing, and honestly most nights I couldn’t tell you which—I quit hearing it my rookie year. Tonight I know exactly where one person is sitting, pretending she isn’t watching every shift I take.

So I play the first period like a total jackass.

On my second shift I catch their winger coming through the middle with his head down. He's busy admiring his own pass so I line him up and put him into the boards hard enough to rattle the glass. The whole section comes out of their seats. It’s a clean hit. It's also completely unnecessary. I do it entirely because there’s a girl sitting right there who actually knows the difference between a real hit and a cheap one.

I skate to the bench and it takes everything I have not to look at her.

Every Toronto forward I’m out against gets a little something extra. If I can’t have her in my colors tonight, I can at least send her boys home on the wrong side of the scoreboard.

Second period we're up by one. They come down on a rush. I stand their guy up at the blue line then strip the puck clean and instead of chipping it out the safe way, I carry it up the ice myself. Safe doesn’t get you noticed. Tonight, I’ve got an audience of exactly one.

I drop it. I get it back at the point. I lean my entire weight into the stick and put a hard wrister through a screen.

There's a heavy thwack as it ticks off a shin pad then the goal horn goes off. Two–nothing. Mine.

My blood is absolutely roaring. And riding that high, I do the single most unprofessional thing I’ve done in three years in this league.

I peel off to the glass, skate straight toward her section, and I blow her a kiss in front of the entire arena.

She’s already on her feet for the goal. For one split second, she forgot she’s supposed to be hating me. She sees the kiss and instantly drops back into her seat. She wipes the smile off her face and gives me one quick, completely unimpressed nod.

Fine. That's fine.

I’ve scored playoff game-winners that didn’t feel as good as that nod.

We win 4–1. I finish with the goal and an assist and I couldn’t tell you one detail beyond that but the last I see of her, she’s still sitting with her arms crossed, watching me go, and somewhere between the ice and the locker room, I decide I’m going to marry her.

I mean, I’d already mostly decided that. But now I’m sure.

I shower in ninety seconds and go out to the family lounge where guys’ people wait after games. Britt’s already there, she knows how this works from other games, and I’ve half convinced myself that Chloe will already be gone, that she’d have left right after the horn. But she’s there, a few feet back from Britt, and I head toward her.

“You came,” I say.

“I came for my team.”

“But you stood up for my goal. In your little Toronto jersey.”

“That was a reflex. It won’t happen again.”