Page 18 of Gap Control (Lewiston Forge #3)

Chapter fifteen

TJ

C oach MacPherson clapped his hands once. Loud, sharp. Like a starter pistol going off in a library.

He stood at the whiteboard like he was about to recite a eulogy or start a bar fight. "Gentlemen, we are officially in spitting distance of a playoff berth. I don't say that lightly, because spitting is a penalty. Keep your fluids to yourselves."

The room stayed quiet. Not respectful quiet—more like braced-for-impact quiet. Coach Mac was holding a marker like it might explode, and his eyes had that wild sparkle they got when he was either inspired or sleep deprived.

He drew a bracket. Rough, angular, just names and lines, no flair. Then he slapped a big red circle around the Forge logo with a satisfying squeak of marker on dry-erase.

"You know what that is? That's your goddamn destiny. Circled. In red. Which symbolizes blood, obviously. Passion. Guts. Possibly cherry Gatorade."

Lambert cleared his throat, clearly trying not to smile. Monroe leaned back and mouthed, "Here we go."

Coach pointed the marker at us like a weapon. "You've been skating like you want it. You've been grinding like you want it. Even you, TJ—though let's talk later about your definition of defensive zone responsibility."

I saluted from the bench. He ignored me.

"You give me four more weeks like that? You stay hungry, stay gritty, stay out of jail—we're not just a team with heart. We're a team with teeth. You hear me? TEETH."

One of the rookies muttered, "Do we bite now?"

Coach snapped toward him. "Only metaphorically. Unless someone asks nicely and you've both signed a waiver. Do not have sex with your teammates unless it's post-season and consensual. And no choking unless it's—actually, never mind, we're not doing this right now."

Mercier raised his hand. "Coach, are we talking about actual dental hygiene here, or—"

"Mercier, you're married. Has your wife ever told you that you bite your tongue when you concentrate?"

"...No?"

"That's because you don't concentrate hard enough. Find your goddamn bite, gentlemen."

There was a beat of stunned silence followed by laughter. The whole room cracked open like a shaken soda can.

Coach Mac raised a hand, settling us down. "Bottom line: You want it? Take it. No one's gonna hand us a damn thing. We're not the pretty team. We're the problem team, and that's good. Problems are remembered."

He dropped the marker dramatically into the tray and walked out like he'd delivered the Gettysburg Address on Red Bull.

No one moved for a second. Then Monroe leaned forward. "What the hell does a team with teeth mean?"

I didn't know, but my chest was tight, and my palms were buzzing. Whatever it meant, I wanted it. Bad.

I looked across the room. Mason was watching me.

And for once, I didn't crack a joke. I just looked back.

Coach had clearly mainlined espresso, and we hit the ice like we were on a mission from the hockey gods.

First drill—three-on-two breakouts—I drove the zone entry so hard my shoulder pads scraped paint off the boards. I kept my head up, spotted Lambert breaking late, and threaded a pass between two defenders' skates. Clean tape-to-tape.

Lambert didn't chirp me about showboating—just tapped his stick twice on the ice. In Lambert-speak, that was practically a standing ovation.

We weren't perfect, but we were relentless. We chased every loose puck and followed up every missed shot like we had something to prove.

I started calling out shifts. Encouraging rookies. Baiting veterans just enough to keep things sharp. Somewhere between Coach Mac's unhinged locker room monologue and the playoff bracket seared into my brain, I'd found a gear I didn't know I had.

Monroe pulled up next to me during the water break, steam rising off his shoulders. "Fuck, TJ. You out-hustled our entire fourth line on a conditioning drill. What'd you eat for breakfast? Rocket fuel?"

"Nothing wild. Just a full sleeve of Fig Newtons."

He shook his head, but I caught him watching when I skated back to the drill. Not mocking. Measuring. Like maybe he was seeing something new in me.

Coach blew the whistle again, called out a defensive adjustment, then gave me a nod. Barely a chin-tilt. It was practically a LinkedIn endorsement.

And then there was Mason.

He wasn't just going through the motions. He was dialed in—crisp footwork, sharp passes, laser-focused. Every so often, I caught him looking at me. Not like I was being weird. More like he was committing my performance to memory.

During the final water break, Mason drifted close, towel around his neck, sweat darkening the collar of his jersey. Up close, I saw a faint red mark on his jaw where someone's stick had caught him during board battle drills.

"Strong shift," he said, voice low enough that only I could hear.

"You sound surprised."

"I'm not." He paused, watching Coach diagram something on his tablet. "I'm just not used to seeing you yell things that aren't trash talk. Or physics-defying promises about what you're going to do to someone's mother."

"Growth." I took a swig from my water bottle. The cold hit the back of my throat, sharp and clean. "I'm in my leadership era."

Mason's mouth twitched—not quite a smile, but close enough. "Suits you."

Practice wrapped with Coach barking something about "teeth" again, and I skated off with my legs burning in that almost-too-much way.

It wasn't too much. It felt like maybe I was becoming the guy people looked to when it mattered.

And maybe Mason saw that, too.

I tossed my gear into my stall, towel-scrubbed the sweat off my face, and reached for my hoodie when I noticed something in my bag that didn't belong.

Folded paper. Sketchbook page. Tucked right between my gloves and elbow pads, like it had always been there.

I frowned and pulled it out.

It was a sketch. Pencil. Quick strokes, but confident. Me, still in partial gear—shoulders squared, chin tilted up, jersey clinging to the sweat on my chest. Hair messy. Expression intense. Focused.

Me, but like… the version of me I sometimes imagined I could be, if I got my shit together and stopped tripping over my own ego.

Below the sketch, in neat handwriting:

Heart of the Forge.

My stomach did something weird. Not bad. Not butterflies, exactly. More like a drop. Like standing too close to the edge of a cliff and realizing you kind of want to jump.

I looked around to make sure no one was watching. Lambert was deep in conversation with Monroe about skate sharpeners. Mercier had his headphones on. Mason was across the room, talking to Coach.

I folded the sketch gently—like it might smudge if I breathed too hard—and slid it into the inside pocket of my hoodie.

I didn't know what to say. So obviously, I decided I needed to say something .

Something dumb.

Something very me.

I caught up with Mason in the parking lot just as he tossed his duffel into the backseat of his beat-up car. The cold bit at my neck where my hoodie didn't quite reach, but I barely felt it.

He straightened up when he saw me. His expression flickered—surprise first, then suspicion, then something warmer he tried to hide.

"So. I find this tucked into my gear like a secret admirer note, and I gotta ask—am I your muse now?"

Mason groaned. "I knew I should've put it in an envelope."

"Are you kidding? This is way better than an envelope. This is like finding out your teammate's running surveillance on your good angles."

"I don't do surveillance."

"You drew my stick tape pattern, Mason. You drew the tear in my practice jersey. That's either surveillance or you're weirdly obsessed with my equipment maintenance."

I could've kept going. I could've teased him about catching my "good side," or asked what kind of charcoal makes someone look that intense mid-shift, but none of that mattered.

I could've kept going, but he looked at me like he meant it. All of it.

The sketch. The words beneath it. The whole damn thing.

So, I kissed him.

Right there in the cold, with his breath curling into mine and the car's engine ticking behind him. Not rushed. Not for show.

I did it because I wanted to, and because he was there, and I was there.

He kissed me back.

When we finally pulled apart, his voice was low. "You're keeping it?"

I patted my pocket. "Locker shrine. Right next to the chipped mouthguard I've been carrying since October and the puck from that goal I scored where I technically tripped."

He laughed, full and real. "You're impossible."

"Don't I know it?" I said, already walking backward toward the exit. "See you tomorrow, sketchboy."

He flipped me off, but he was smiling when he did it.

Back home, after a long shower and the kind of dinner you eat standing up over the sink—cold pasta and leftover rotisserie chicken—I started digging through the drawer in my nightstand.

The sketch had been sitting on the coffee table all evening. Out in the open, not hidden. Quiet. Like it was waiting to see what I'd do with it.

I picked it up again. Unfolded it. The lines were rough, quick, but somehow still got everything right. The set of my shoulders. The curl of my mouth. The parts of me that only come out in motion, in the noise and blur of the game.

Heart of the Forge.

Mason had seen something I didn't always see in myself. And he'd put it on paper like it deserved to be remembered.

I didn't have a trophy shelf. I wasn't that guy. I did have a little box in the nightstand drawer—old wristbands, a puck from my first junior league goal, and a matchbook from a dive bar in New Hampshire with a weird jukebox and the best grilled cheese I'd ever eaten.

I pulled the box out and opened it.

There it was: a napkin from the Thai place Brady dragged us to for a fake PR date. It still had a faded ring from Mason's iced tea and a grease mark from egg rolls. I'd meant to toss it, but I hadn't.

I wrapped the sketch in it. Folded them together, careful as hell, and placed the bundle inside.

No ceremony. No deep breath. Just a quiet click as I closed the drawer.

I didn't put it there because I was hiding it. I put it there because I needed to keep it.