Page 111 of Breaking the Ice

“It’s weird he brought up Hayes,” Gavin said thoughtfully.

Gavin would think it was weird. Zach didn’t think it was weird at all, and he definitely wasn’t going to tell Hayes, because if he did, Hayes would probably correctly assume Morgan hadn’t been able to keep his name out of his mouth.

Which begged the question—if he was that desperate, why had Morgan not gone to Tampa and done his own share of begging for forgiveness?

“Not really,” Zach said flatly.

Gavin looked over at him. “No,no,” he said, comprehension dawning on his face.

“You said it, not me.” Zach pushed off from the wall. “Come on, it’s nearly warmups.”

It was easy-ish to let the flow of warmups and then the game empty his brain of anything that wasn’t hockey.

The first period started slow, both teams feeling each other out, until Elliott grabbed the puck and flew across the ice. It felt like the whole arena held its collective breath. Elliott held it a breath longer than he normally did, maneuvering around to the goalie’s right side and then shot. He pulled it a little too much, and it bounced right off the post. Ell made a face, and then the lines were switching again.

“Find some urgency,” Gavin told the guys the intermission after the first period ended. He sounded calm, like he wasn’t really worried, and Zach wasn’t either.

This was a beatable team, and the Evergreens had overcome slow starts before.

But a slow second period was a different story. Mal took a great shot, and by some fucking miracle, the goalie managed to deflect it, a miracle of a save that would probably end up on his end of season highlight reel.

But it piled up. Shot after shot, some of them even high quality, none of them going in. Zach could tell Elliott was getting frustrated, because he barked at Mal the next time they were on the bench, Ivan leaning over and putting a reassuring hand on his arm.

Finn was playing great, too, beautiful in the crease and not looking perturbed at all when they headed out for the third period. But it didn’t matter how good of a shutout he was putting together. They couldn’t win the game if they couldn’t score goals.

It was only late in the third, when Brody stole the puck and sent it Ramsey’s way. That was the beginning of a lot of theirbest setups. With his chess-master’s brain and the way he saw the ice, he always knew the best place to send it after that.

But this time he didn’t pass it. He took the shot himself, finding the perfect angle through all the traffic between him and the goal.

The goalie hadn’t expected Ramsey to take it and wasn’t ready, the puck hitting the back of the net.

The arena erupted, Ramsey flinging his arms in the air, Brody crashing into him.

Zach let out the breath he hadn’t been aware he’d been holding, and next to him, he felt Gavin fractionally relax.

Now they just needed to hold the lead for the next few minutes.

The Sabretooths pulled their goalie in the last minute, but it didn’t matter, because the Evergreens’ crushing defense, led by Ramsey and Brody, stifled them before they could get anything going, even a man up.

Elliott looked unusually subdued in the locker room after the win, quiet as he pulled his equipment off.

Gavin didn’t have to send him over—or even give him a glance. Zach saw and he was already planning on taking care of it.

“Hey,” Zach said, heading over and knocking a fist against Elliott’s. “Great game.”

Elliott didn’t look convinced. “We were fucking ineffectual out there.”

Next to him, Malcolm grunted his agreement.

“You weren’t bad. Sometimes no matter how many shots you take, they just don’t go in,” Zach said. “You had some good setups, especially on the power play—”

“Yeah, exactly,” Elliott retorted.

Zach wasn’t going to bring up the second power play team; he wasn’tthatstupid.

Elliott would just demand for the hundredth time they double shift him.

“We’re the top line on the team,” Mal said in a low, frustrated voice.