35

luca

I could have made that pass in my sleep.

Unfortunately, tonight—I miss it because tonight I am playing like total shit.

Absolute, flaming garbage.

The pass bounces off the sideboard and ricochets like a goddamn pinball. Parker, who’s had my back since the first day of training camp, gives me a look as he chases it down, no time to dwell on my fuck-up.

My legs are heavy, my hands feel disconnected from my body, and everything I do is a split-second too slow.

I’m late to every puck. Sloppy on every line change. And Gio, who’s locked in at goalie like his life depends on it, is clearly two seconds away from launching one of his pads at my head.

I don’t blame him.

“Babineaux!” Coach bellows from the bench, clipboard thrashing as his face turns beet red.

I flinch.

“Get it together!” Gio shouts from his crease.

Focus.

Focus.

Focus .

Easier said than done.

I walked out of Nova’s apartment three days ago, and it hasn’t stopped eating away at me since.

She didn’t say she loved me. She didn’t stop me from walking away. Stood there, arms crossed, mouth parted and let me leave like I hadn’t laid my whole damn heart at her feet.

For a second time.

Whatever.

I don’t need a woman like that.

But what I really did was leave her standing in a room full of unspoken nothings—the things she was about to say before Gio barged in. Yes, we had it planned but I hadn’t gotten to hear what she was about to say and now I never will.

Every play is muffled.

Every bruised rib I gain from being slammed into the boards—they’re all punishment for what I already know deep down:

Nova Montagalo doesn’t love me back and it’s been destroying me.

Eating me up inside.

Parker slaps a pass my way. I fumble it. Again. I can feel Coach’s rage like a heatwave against my back. Gio actually swears from the goal.

“Jesus Christ, Luca!” he barks. “Get your shit together!”

I want to. God, I want to.

The buzzer blares and we head off the ice for intermission.

The locker room is tense.

Coach is red in the face. Skaggs throws a water bottle at the wall and it ricochets like one of my passes, not quite making it to the trash.

No one looks at me, but I feel the weight of their judgement.

Gio’s the last to come in, yanking off his helmet and wiping sweat from his face with the hem of his jersey. He walks right past the bench, right past the whiteboard, and drops onto the seat beside me like a boulder falling from a cliff.

"Hey," he says, low enough that no one else can hear. “You alright? ”

I don’t answer.

No, I’m not fucking okay . I’m a wreck pretending to be a guy pretending to be fine but not hiding it well.

Gio sighs. “She call you yet?”

I shake my head.

"You think she will?"

I shrug. “Don’t know.”

He studies me. Bumps his shoulder against mine like he’s my big brother, too. One who doesn’t know how to say the right thing, but will give you shit regardless of how you feel.

“You’re playing like total garbage,” he says.

“Thanks.”

“Just saying. If this is what heartbreak looks like, I’m gonna need you to fall out of love in the next ten minutes.”

I snort. Barely.

Then I stand, roll my shoulders back; pull my helmet on like I’m suiting up for war. Because at this point, I kind of am. Ha! I’m not battling the other team out there—I’m fighting the version of myself that used to know how to play this damn game in my sleep.

We hit the ice.

Immediately, I feel the heat—the crowd hates me, the lights are too bright, my thoughts spiraling. The more I think about it, the worse I play.

Every scrape of my blades is too loud.

Every breath feels like it’s being sucked through a straw.

My gloves are soaked.

My heartbeat is a goddamn drumline, eyes shooting to the seats Nova typically occupies.

They’ve been empty the whole first half of the game and now…

Still empty.

I miss my mark again.

“Fuck!”

It costs us .

Again.

The puck turns over, the other team breaking away, and their fans roar as their winger snaps a clean shot past Gio’s blocker side.

Goal.

Tie game.

Shit, shit, FUCK.

The horn blares and I barely make it back to the bench before Coach tears me a new asshole for the third time tonight. I don’t register his words.

“Pull it together.” Damien Stark glares at me with gritted teeth.

I nod.

Yup. Got it.

Thumbs-up!

I take the ice again with a chip the size of the goddamn Zamboni on my shoulder.

The guy across from me—number 13—has been chirping at me this entire miserable game. Big talker. Mouth like a woodchipper. He’s the kind of player who exists solely to piss you off into making a mistake.

I usually don’t rise to it.

Tonight?

I see red when his big mouth starts yapping.

“Babineaux,” he taunts, grinning through his mouthguard. “Heard you were seeing Montagalo’s sister and she dumped your limp dick.”

I don’t even think.

I just drop my gloves.

His eyes widen for a half-second. Then he drops his, too.

The crowd erupts before the first punch is even thrown.

We collide mid-ice like a car crash, fists flying. My knuckles find his jaw, his glove clips my cheekbone. It’s sloppy and brutal and pointless—but it’s exactly what I need.

Because for thirty seconds, I’m not thinking .

It feels too fucking good.

Every punch is an unsaid word. Every hit is a kiss I won’t get back. Every grapple is me trying to hold onto something that’s already slipped away.

The refs pull us apart.

I’m breathing hard, blood gushing from my nose, heart hammering like a war drum in my chest.

The crowd’s on its feet—they live for this shit.

I skate to the penalty box, ignoring the cameras.

The dull roar.

I catch Gio’s eye from across the ice; he’s shaking his head slowly behind his cage as if he can’t believe I actually lost my cool.

So unlike me.

I drop onto the bench in the box, droplets dripping onto the front of my blue jersey, chest still heaving. I lean forward, elbows on my knees, trying to breathe through it—through everything.

The sting in my knuckles.

The dull pulse in my cheek.

The aching hollow in my chest that no helmet, no gloves, no full-body check will ever fix.

And then?—

Knock. Knock.

I glance up.

There’s a blur through the scratched plexiglass. Long hair down. Ballcap with an HB on it. A frown that matches my own. Eyes sharp with frustration and something that looks a whole hell-of-a-lot-like worry.

Nova.

She’s standing right outside the box, knocking.

“Let me in.”

My eyes drop to the metal security latch on the inside of the box. Back up at her.

She knocks again, harder this time. “Hey!”

The crowd noise fades into static .

Everything narrows to the sound of her knuckles against the glass and the heat rushing back into my chest as she stands there, beseeching me in a jersey that’s about three sizes too big—with my number on it.

Leaning over, I push the heavy latch up so she can shove her way inside, mindful that security has probably already clocked her and now we’re on borrowed time.

The second it clicks, she blows through with a gust of cold air and chaotic determination, nearly tripping in her sneakers.

“Nova—”

“No,” she says, breathless, wide-eyed. Flushed. “You don’t get to talk yet. I talk now.”

I blink. “Okay.”

She points a finger at me—shaky, furious, but undeniably in love. “You left. You walked out. And I get it. I didn’t say what you needed me to say, and you probably thought that meant I didn’t feel it, but you were wrong. ”

The entire stadium is buzzing. Cameras have turned. A slow, creeping awareness is spreading from section to section. Phones are recording. Whispers are growing louder.

My name flashes on the jumbotron, music beginning to blare as attention goes from the game, to us and the scene she’s creating.

Then to my shock, Nova cups her hands around her mouth and clear as day—projecting like she’s auditioning for the lead in a stadium-sized Broadway musical—she screams:

“ I LOVE LUCA BABINEAUX! ”

I watch as the cameramen swing their massive cameras to us and flash our faces on the jumbotron, front and center. The shot cuts to me, dumbfounded and still bloodied from my fight, as she declares her love for me.

The crowd loses it.

Gasps. Cheers. Screams of delight. Somewhere behind the bench, a blow horn blares.

“I LOVE HIM!” she shrieks again .

It echoes.

Hits the rafters.

“I love Luca Babineaux!” she screams. “I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS MAN!”

A chorus of awwwwwwwws. The crowd goes absolutely wild.

Followed by a tsunami of clapping. Screaming. One dude is standing on his seat, sobbing into a bucket of nachos.

And of course—right on cue—security rushes over, one of the guards shouting into his walkie. “We’ve got a Code Swoon—repeat, Code Swoon—section 102.”

Jesus Christ. What the fuck is a Code Swoon and why have I never heard of this before? It’s illegal for anyone but players to be in the penalty box and because of that, there are consequences.

“She’s with me!” I try again, voice louder this time. “She’s literally my?—”

“Sir, step back,” one of the guards tells me with authority, holding up a hand. “This is standard procedure.”

They grab her by both arms—not aggressively, but firmly enough to indicate that love confessions mid-period are, in fact, against policy.

“She’s in violation of Regulation 12.4a,” the other guard replies coolly, like this is all very normal and not unfolding on a jumbotron for twenty-thousand fans—not to mention, a nationwide broadcast.

Nova doesn’t fight them.

Not physically, at least.

I feel helpless as they begin to drag her off.

“This is not what I meant when I said I wanted to go public?—”

“Too late!” she sings, blowing me a kiss when they start pulling her back through the gate.

“I LOVE LUCA BABINEAUX!” she shouts, twisting dramatically between the two guards like a pageant queen being dragged offstage. She cannot be derailed from her goal. “I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS MAN AND I DON’T CARE WHO KNOWS IT!”

Nova—red-cheeked, windswept, my jersey hanging off her like armor—keeps shouting as they pull her up the tunnel toward whatever makeshift holding cell awaits.

“I REGRET NOTHING,” Nova yells, voice echoing through the arena like a battle cry. “I’D DO IT AGAIN!”

One last desperate shout over her shoulder: “I LOVE YOU EVEN WHEN YOU WEAR CROCS!”

Crocs? How dare she—I’ve never worn crocs in my entire goddamn life.

Then.

She’s gone.

Dragged into the tunnel like the beautiful, feral creature she is.

The crowd is absolutely eating. It. Up.

People are chanting her name. And mine.

I just stand there in the box, helmet off, blood still crusted under my nose, and laugh—because what else can I do?

A grin spreads over my face.

That’s my girl.

A complete maniac.

Mine all mine.