Page 16 of What If I Hate You (Anaheim Stars Hockey #6)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

BARRETT

T here’s a particular flavor of terror that comes with a one-goal lead and ninety seconds on the clock, but tonight I welcome it.

I chase it down like it’s the last shot I’ll get for the rest of the season, because after three periods of getting pounded by Cincinnati and a hundred thousand reminders of my “Swiss cheese” nickname from every chirping mouth online, I’ll take adrenaline over shame any day.

The Scavengers have yanked their goalie and loaded the ice with six of their meanest, gnarliest forwards.

They cycle the puck around our zone like a goddamn blender set to puree, and every time they snap a hit from the point, I feel the ripple of tension in my thighs, in my chest, in my last threadbare nerve.

But here’s the thing, tonight, my body works.

I’m tracking the puck. I’m shuffling post-to-post with surgical precision, no wasted movement, no telegraphing my glide.

The puck is a living thing tonight, mean and unpredictable, but I feel every twitch of its movement in my hands before I even see it with my eyes.

They come at us in one relentless wave after another, and I stonewall every attempt, the thump of it off my pads the only music I ever need.

I can hear Griffin barking orders, August laying his body flat on the ice to block a pass, the chaos of a dozen blades biting at my crease, but it all narrows down to the cold and the puck and the next save.

With forty seconds left, their captain goes full kamikaze, barreling straight at me through a wall of blue and gold, and I get both blocker and a desperate whiff of glove on the chip shot he takes at the rebound.

It stings, but I eat it, and sprawl hard enough to send the puck spinning wide.

The noise in my head is deafening. Sometimes I wonder if the crowd is even real, or if I hallucinate it all.

But if this is delusion, let it come. Tonight, it’s the only thing keeping me alive.

When the buzzer finally hits, I stay splayed on the ice a beat too long, just sucking in air and letting the racket pour over me. August and Bodhi are the first to reach me, knocking their sticks on my helmet so hard I see stars.

“Fuck yeah, Teddy Bear! Way to fucking play!” August slaps my helmet.

The rest of the team piles in, a heap of elbows and curses and giddy, boyish laughter.

For once, nobody bitches about my style or my attitude.

They just mob me, howling my name, and sling arms across my shoulders as we shake hands with the other side.

I barely remember the handshake line, just the burn in my palms and the taste of blood in my mouth. It’s a good pain. A real pain. The kind that lets you know you’re still a goddamn hockey star and this is the game you were born to play.

The locker room feels like the inside of a drum.

Every surface echoes, sticks clatter to benches, gloves smack tile, bodies thump into cold metal stalls with the violence of pure relief.

I slump onto the bench and let my head hang, helmet still on, breath fogging the scratched visor.

Nobody talks to me right away, which is exactly how I like it.

There’s a hierarchy to postgame adrenaline.

The forwards burn it off in idiotic howls and towel snaps, the defensemen in primal grunts, and the goalies…

we go silent. We metabolize the noise, let it settle into our bones, and only speak when we’re sure nobody can hear what we’re really saying.

“Great game, fellas,” Coach Hicks’s voice rings out through the locker room. Marlee’s by his side. “You made Anaheim proud tonight.” He takes a clipboard from Marlee and reads her notes. “Magallan, Blackstone, Ollenberg, Dayne, Meers, and…”

Shit.

I know he’s going to call my name. And suddenly I’m back in middle school health class where if I just don’t make eye contact with the teacher, she won’t call my name to read the paragraph about the female reproductive system out loud.

“Cunningham.” Hicks looks up from his list. “Press room.”

Fuck.

I knew it.

Just when I thought this might be one of my better nights. Now I’ve got to finish it in the goddamn press room.

Doesn’t matter that I had a near perfect game.

Doesn’t matter that my body did all the things it needed to do.

Blakely Rivers will find my weak spot and stick her perfectly pointed heel in it until she’s ripped me to shreds all over again.

Let’s just get this over with.

The press room is already a circus by the time I get most of my uniform off and get in there.

Cincinnati’s beat writers fill every seat, while our crew is two-deep at the back, and the TV lights are so hot I can feel sweat trickle down my neck before I even sit.

I anchor the end of the row, elbows tight, hoping I still stink enough to keep the reporters from getting too close.

August fields the first volley of questions like a pro, all smiles and “team effort” cliches.

Griffin tosses in a few chirps about the Scavengers’ power play being softer than a basket of kittens.

This gets the usual snickers and sets the tone for the rest of the session.

I check out for a minute, let the drone of questions and clipped answers wash over me.

I’m already half out of my own skull, replaying every second of the last two minutes, when Blakely Rivers takes the floor.

She’s wearing a tailored blazer in Stars blue along with her typical black leggings and fuck-me heels.

Her eyes are bright with caffeine and the kind of predatory intelligence that only comes from living with a chip on your shoulder since puberty.

She doesn’t start with me—thank Christ—but instead zeroes in on Griffin, lobbing him a question so pointed it almost draws blood.

“Griffin, you had four blocks tonight, but you let play collapse behind your net late in the third. Was that a breakdown in communication, or are you just getting slow out there?”

There’s an audible snort from the back row.

Most reporters toss softballs. Rivers chucks Molotov cocktails and expects you to juggle them without catching fire.

Griffin blanches, then rallies. “Bit of both, to be honest. But I’ll defer to you on the communication.

You’re the one who always seems to have the best words, Rivers.

” He fucking winks at her and she smiles back at him.

Then she flicks a pen in acknowledgment and moves on, skewering Oliver on a question about his faceoff losses, and hammering Harrison with a stat about his penalty minutes doubling since the beginning of the season.

I can’t help watching her work. Listening to what she’s asking the guys, her voice is clear, never shrill, every question loaded with enough fact check to scare a Supreme Court nominee.

The other “reporters” in the room stick to their scripts, but Rivers changes the game. She’s ruthless, and she’s right.

She always is.

She finally turns to me and the oxygen in the whole room seems to get sucked out through a pinhole in the ceiling. Even my asshole puckers at what’s about to happen.

Fuck, she’s scarier than Coach Hicks when he found out Bodhi was fucking his daughter.

“Cunningham, that glove save in the final minute—what were you thinking, going full stretch when you had no backside coverage?”

I blink at her. The question is raw, but not cruel. She’s not out for blood, she’s out for the truth. I respect it, even when it’s aimed at my jugular.

“It’s instinct,” I say, voice raked with exhaustion. “You don’t have time to think. You just do. If you hesitate, you’re dead. I saw the play developing and figured I’d rather eat puck than regret not going for it.”

The reporters scribble, but Rivers doesn’t even flinch. “You worried about overcommitting? It looked like you left your right post wide open for the backdoor tap-in.”

No matter how much I have disliked talking to Rivers in the press room, or anyone else for that matter, one thing is for sure, Blakely Rivers knows hockey. She gets the game. Every rule, every nuance. Every decision that needs to be made, she gets it.

I fixate on her, refusing to look away. “Nah. I trust my defense. They’ve got my ass covered. If I get scored on, I’d rather it be because I went down swinging, not because I sat on my heels.”

She tilts her chin, and for one heartbeat, I swear she’s more impressed than pissed. “So, you’re saying it’s better to risk everything than play it safe?”

Her brow lifts just a pinch and I see the challenge in the way she stares me down, but also her question brings back the conversation we shared in the arena parking lot a while back.

“You want a softer question, go ask a blogger with pink hair and a ring light. I don’t play it safe.”

“You don’t play it safe? That’s your thing, huh?”

“Yeah that’s my thing.”

And now I’m not so sure her question is about hockey anymore; nevertheless, I give the only answer I can confidently give because I’m the fucking goalie of the Anaheim Stars.

“Every time.”

She nods. “Thanks, Cunningham.” She flips the page on her notepad and angles the mic back to the next guy, but I catch the smallest curve of her mouth before she does. Not a smile, exactly, more like a secret handshake if you know how to look.

Eventually the press moves on to the next topic, and I sit there, body still tingling from the adrenaline, and my mind stuck on the way she asked her question, so direct, so fucking honest. No fluff, no bullshit.

Just hockey, pure and brutal. I respect the hell out of that, which is the most dangerous thing about Rivers.

After our interviews, the boys rib me as we start to exit the press room but it’s different tonight. Lighter, almost. I know some of the guys keep tabs on my little war with Rivers, so when they catch me glancing her way as she packs up her shit, there’s a round of winks and elbow nudges.

I ignore them.