Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 116597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 583(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 583(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
“You good, Fabio?” he asked with a sly smirk. “Look like you might puke.”
“I haven’t ruled it out.” I managed to stand on a wince, nodding at him. “How the fuck are you so calm?”
He shrugged. “I knew we had them.”
A laugh burst from me then, making my stomach cramp more. “Cocky bastard.”
“Take notes. We need you to have that same confidence,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder with a gloved hand. Then, we were skating toward the bench to join the rest of our team.
And all I could think was that we were halfway through the season now. And with this win, we had solidified ourselves as a division leader.
We had a shot at the playoffs.
My nerve endings danced like I hadn’t just played three periods of grueling hockey with just the notion that we might make it again, that we might find ourselves in position to play for the Cup. But on the tails of that buzz came the ever-present doubt.
Would I be an asset to the team, help us get to the playoffs?
Or would I hold us back?
I’d played decently in the game tonight — but that was just it. Decent. Not great, not terrible, just somewhere in-between. I’d won the majority of my face-offs, holding strong in key moments like when we were on the penalty kill. I’d set up Aleks Suter with a slick pass that led to a goal, our chemistry effortless, vision clear.
But I’d also tried to dangle through two defensemen and lost the puck in the process.
I’d whiffed a one-timer, a wide-open slot and great pass that should have equated to an easy goal. Instead, I’d straight up fanned on it.
It was those little mistakes that frustrated me most, the ones that could have been avoided if I held a bit more confidence, if I thought less and felt into the rhythm of the game more. When my adrenaline spiked and I felt the hum of an opportunity vibrating through me, it was tough to tune out the voice in my head telling me I was going to blow it.
And then, half the time, I would.
I tried to focus on what I’d done well as we made our way to the locker room, which quickly turned into a chamber of noise — equipment shuffling, pads hitting the floor, guys laughing and razzing one another.
The energy after a win was always palpable. It was impossible not to float on that cloud, not to feel unstoppable even if we all knew one bad period could have had the game swinging the other way. All that mattered right now was that we’d secured the win.
Coach McCabe stepped into the doorway, his hands shoved into the pockets of his quarter-zip, his sharp eyes scanning over us like a hawk surveying prey. The second we noticed him, the chatter dimmed — not completely, but enough to make the shift in energy obvious.
That was the effect Coach had.
He didn’t yell often. He never had to. He was one of the youngest coaches in the league and had taken Tampa from a team barely considered competition to one of the best. The respect the team gave him was well-earned.
He’d always been a bit of an enigma to me, though. I understood him as a coach, as someone who loved hockey. But I had no idea who he was off the ice. Unlike most coaches in the league, he didn’t have a wife and kids to go home to. And yet, he never went out with the players, never indulged in a way that landed him in any sort of limelight.
I had no idea who he was when he left the rink.
But I knew he was a damn good coach, one I trusted implicitly — one who was healing me from a coach who’d royally fucked me up years ago.
“You played like you wanted it tonight,” he said simply, his voice cutting through the room like a skate blade over fresh ice. “That’s the standard. That’s who we are.”
He paused, his gaze dragging from one end of the locker room to the other, resting on each of us in turn. And for a moment, there was a flicker in his eyes — something unreadable, something almost… tired. But then it was gone, replaced with the same unrelenting fire I’d seen since the day I joined the team.
“Celebrate the win. You earned it. But don’t get comfortable,” he finished, lifting his chin. “Shower up, ice baths if you need them, and bus leaves in forty-five.”
With that, Coach stepped aside, the roar of the locker room returning as quickly as it had quieted. But I couldn’t help watching him as he lingered in the hall for a second longer, jaw tight, like his mind was somewhere far away.
“Jesus, Fabio, you got magnets in your glove or what?” Aleks Suter asked, smirking at me as he stripped his base layer off. “Give the other centermen a fighting chance.”