Page 21
LIAM
“Let’s do this, ” Liam charged, pumping up the team for this last battle, this last round.
It had been a long road for all of them.
Six months of wins, losses, and battles on the ice, challenges in their friendships, their relationships, a new arrival in Coeur’s family, several more expectant mothers, and he wouldn’t change a thing.
“We’ve been after this for six months,” Liam reminded them, but it really didn’t need to be said aloud as he met each man’s face and saw their eyes. “Eighty-two games, all over the country, plus sixteen games this playoff season… and it comes down to this one…”
He let his words hang in the silence.
“This is the one where I need you to give your all ,” Liam whispered, knowing they would hear them. “This isn’t about showing up on the ice. This is about tearing it up…”
And saw the impact the word had on them as he spoke.
“We’ve worked so hard, we’ve given so much, and I’m asking you to pull up that energy, that passion, all of those feelings – and put them into what is about to happen on the ice. ”
He saw them watching him, saw their looks, felt their trust, and got emotional as his eyes stung with the understanding that this was their moment. It was their time, but they had to see it, to feel it, too.
“We’ve all got our pasts, our scars, our insecurities,” Liam whispered openly, not holding back. “They’ve shaped us. They’ve pushed us, but now I want you to grab those moments and let them fester inside of you – because we cannot let ourselves rest on our laurels.”
He saw Boucher nod as the man gave him a silent thumbs-up. This was the man who Liam thought should have been captain, yet here he was acknowledging that he’d done a good job this season – that he was giving the speech they needed to hear… and Liam nodded back in appreciation.
“The Yukon Kodiaks are vicious on the ice,” he began softly, knowing they were listening, that they heard him deep within their souls.
“And they are hoping to get their trophy back – but we can’t let them take it.
And make no mistake, they are just like us, but not as desperate.
We each have an ax to grind, but those men won last year – which means they think it’s going to be easy to bring home the trophy again, but they don’t know us ! ”
“Yeaaaah!” Acton crowed, pumping his fist, and his eyes were practically glowing with excitement. Good. That would be infectious and spread within the team.
“We’ve got something to prove – and because they don’t know us, they have no clue how much we are willing to give to take that trophy home,” Liam continued, seeing each of their faces.
“Coeur, can you imagine how Stephen would idolize you? Lafreniére, no more toilet-shaped coffee cup… ”
“I like my cup,” Lafreniére retorted, rolling his eyes, but that smirk was there.
“Upgrade it, brother. Get Kendall to make a misshapen Stanley Cup for your morning brew,” Liam chuckled, making the other man smile as he nodded.
He then turned to Boucher – the almost captain and a man he was proud to call ‘ teammate ’ and ‘ friend .’ “Boucher, your daughter will be watching – and she’s awfully bloodthirsty. Don’t let her down…”
“I won’t,” the quiet man smirked. “She would never let me live it down if I did.”
“Acton…”
“You ain’t gotta pep talk me, bro. I want my baby’s butt photographed sticking outta that silver-lookin’ monster because those baby-butt-cheeks are gonna be epic,” Acton said enthusiastically. “I’m talking dimples, bro… dimples !”
“Okay,” Liam laughed with the rest of the team, smiling at each of them. “We each have our reasons, our motivations, and for me – I want to show my queen…”
And he drew in a shaky breath, unable to share his deepest insecurity that drove him, that pushed him so hard on a daily basis.
He wanted to feel worthy of Ashley’s love.
I want my queen to see me as her king, he thought silently, swallowing back the insecurity that clung to him even in these moments.
He pushed it down and saw their knowing gazes.
They all had their own personal fights and their reasons.
His team rose slowly to their feet, hockey sticks in hand like knights about to go into battle.
“For Captain Pimples,” Jett screamed suddenly, both fists curled as he threw back his head – and the rest of the team thrust their helmets and sticks and mimicked the rambunctious man, hollering the chant that still made Liam cringe.
He cursed under his breath at the nickname that someho w stuck, met their smiles, and joined in as they all yelled it again, shouting it to the heavens in a battle cry.
“For Captain Pimples!”
T his was probably the toughest hockey game Liam had ever played. There were so many calls for icing, hooking, charging , and cross-checking . He had been called for roughing when one of the players tripped him, sending him sprawling on the ice.
Salas had immediately blocked him from going to take his ‘pound of flesh’ out of the Kodiak player as he glided away from him, kissed two fingers, and then spat blood onto the ice, making a face of disgust.
Jerk.
“He’s not worth it,” Salas said firmly, patting him on the cheek. “Head in the game, remember?”
“Yup,” Liam nodded, moving to the side to have someone else go in for a moment, needing a quick break.
They were all getting tired and needed desperately to tie the game so they could go into overtime.
As they lined up once more, for the last time, he watched the team visibly tensing in anticipation, hearing Acton and Coeur chirping the other guys wildly, using everything they had to make the opposing team off-balance.
“Where’d you get that stick, brother… Hasbro?”
“How tall are you anyhow? Three feet? Four? That looks like one of those little plastic golf clubs that I saw at my son’s daycare…”
“Oh yeah, I saw those! Wrap those bad boys with some tape, and they almost look like a miniature version of a real man’s hockey stick…”
“Speaking of miniature things…”
“Dude, don’t ask him or bring it up,” Coeur said mockingly, putting his fingertips over his mouth which was shaped like an ‘O’ – and Liam smiled. The man was theatrical and almost as quirky as Acton was. “No – I changed my mind. Ask! Ask! I’ve really gotta know…”
“Some guys are sensitive about the size of their… you know ,” and Acton held up his thumb. “About yay big, Bruh?”
“Heaven help me,” the coach groaned and then slapped Liam on the shoulder. “His mouth better not get him removed from the ice. I need that man to score a shot – not end up getting shot!”
“Acton!” Liam hollered, intending to pull him from the game, but the man had other plans. The players were all bent over, waiting for the puck to drop, as a hush descended – and Acton’s words carried across the ice for everyone to hear, especially since they had him mic’d up for the game.
“Which one of you boys is ol’ Jefferies ‘thumb’ sucker? Ashwood? Is it you? With those succulent pouty lips, you look like…”
“Awww crap,” Liam muttered in unison with the coach as a fight exploded on the ice the second the puck was dropped. Oh, this was soooo going to be in a blooper reel, censored, or on SportsCenter this evening.
“OH PUCK!” Acton screamed, “PUCK! PUCK! PUCK!” – skating away from the line of Kodiak players that were determined to beat him into a bloody pulp.
It was almost laughable, but that single word blurted out repeatedly had the crowd laughing at his antic - and was the glaring alert that the Wolverines needed to focus on scoring another point .
Or work on Acton’s obituary?
Admittedly, Liam was distracted.
The puck was in motion – but so was Acton.
The man was swiftly circling the ice, dancing, practically doing figure-eights, and singing at the top of his lungs to further incite the players, ‘Where is Thumbkin?’ – and wiggling both thumbs at the men, deliberately, to keep the irate players distracted.
They desperately needed that distraction.
Acton was knocking on death’s door for the team, and it was working.
“For Captain Pimples, ya’ thumbsuckers!” Coeur cried out, pushing forward and leaping over another player that he checked – hard.
Liam didn’t even mind the shoutout anymore, not when it brought the team together.
Salas was right there, defending him and pushing away anyone trying to block the shot, giving Coeur his moment, and he took it.
The puck glided swiftly into the goal.
“YESSSS!” they screamed in unison as the buzzer sounded, signaling the end of the game that was tied.
“Go save Acton,” Coach Starnes ordered, shoving at him. “That poor kid is gonna get annihilated by those Kodiaks if we don’t get him outta there!”
O vertime was brutal – and quick.
If the Yukon Kodiaks weren’t ‘hungry’ for the win before – they were ravenous now.
Nothing was fazing them from their goal, driven by a desperation that was dangerous.
Each man was in the mode, chewing on their mouthg uards, spitting, and talking so much trash, but it was nothing compared to Acton’s mouth, especially when he got under your skin.
In fact, Liam’s teammate had the other team so pissed off, that Acton didn’t have to say a thing or utter one single syllable. Nope – Jett Acton stood there on the side, behind the plexiglass for his own safety, with his helmet off so you could see his face - and was sucking his thumb.
The playful man’s eyes were dancing in sheer delight.
Yep – the Kodiaks were enraged.
I’m gonna get my rear-end handed to me in about two seconds, Liam thought numbly as he hunkered down, ready to try for the puck the moment it hit the ice.
I’ve been hit before…
I’ve taken a puck to the head before…
I’ve lost a tooth before…
You’ve got this…
Be their leader, show them how it’s done – Savagely.
Screw that. Do it the Captain Pimples way!
The puck struck the ice with a sharp crack.
Liam launched forward like a bullet out of a gun, instincts flaring to life.
Everything else faded—the roaring crowd, the clamor of sticks, even the burning in his lungs.
All he could feel was the pull of the puck against his stick, the weight of every sacrifice that had brought him here, and the thunderous beat of his heart pounding like a war drum in his chest.
He didn’t need to look to know he was being hunted—he could hear the razor-edge of skates cutting into ice, too close, too fast. But he couldn’t spare a glance.
His vision tunneled in and narrowed on the net ahead.
A flicker of movement to his left caught his attention—Boucher.
His teammate, his shield, skated fiercely at his side, fending off the de fenders threatening to close in.
He was buying Liam the moment he needed, the sliver of space to breathe—to strike.
And then he heard it—Boucher’s voice, fierce and desperate, ringing out like a battle cry behind him.
“Take it! TAKE THE SHOT!”
Liam didn’t hesitate.
With every ounce of strength he had, he flung the puck toward the goal, a whip-crack of motion as his whole body twisted into the release.
For a second—an eternal, harrowing second—the world around him slowed to a crawl.
His breath locked in his chest, the cold bit into his exposed skin, and the noise of the arena dulled to a thick, suspended silence.
The goalie, Tate Cassidy, who had a reputation on the ice, was already reacting, hurling himself to the ice like a man possessed, reading the desperation in Liam’s movement.
Liam watched, his entire soul clenched tight, as the netminder dropped into a butterfly, his knees crashing down, his upper body diving forward in a blur of pads and reflex.
But Liam had seen it—just enough clearance. Just enough space.
The puck skimmed the ice like a whisper of fate, gliding in a perfect line. Three inches. That’s all it needed.
And that’s all it had.
With a soft swoosh , a sound that Liam could swear echoed inside his own head, the puck slipped right beneath the goalie’s outstretched form—just before the pads slammed down.
It hit the back of the net.
The red light flared.
They scored .
The Wolverines won.
Liam froze. A rush of disbelief, then joy, and then overwhelming emotion crashed into him like a tidal wave. His knees buckled, giving out beneath him, and he dropped to the ice in a breathless, stunned heap. The cold didn’t register. The noise didn’t matter. All he could see was her.
Ashley.
His anchor in the chaos. His home in a storm.
She was in the stands, hands over her mouth, eyes wide and shining.
She was everything. He lifted a trembling hand and pointed at her across the sea of celebration, the noise, the chaos.
You’re my everything , he thought, a vow stitched into the very fabric of his heart.
And then the world tackled him—his teammates crashing into him in a dogpile of elation and victory.