There’s a knock on the door and I hope like hell it’s Jana, because I need some help calming these nerves.
“Come in,” I say.
Jana peeks her head in, and relief coats my body. But then her dad is right behind her.
“Oh hi.” I should sound more enthusiastic to see the man who put me in this once-in-a-lifetime position.
“Kane, how exciting is this! You know we’re a shoo-in,” Mr. Gerhardt says.
“It’s not over until it’s over.”
Mr. Gerhardt waves off my concern. “You just keep doing what you’ve been doing, and it will be fine.”
Jana sits back, leaning against the wall with her hands behind her back. She’s unreadable, but I’m sure she’s as nervous as me. Then again, the closer we get to the Cup, the quieter she’s been, as if maybe the pressure is getting to her.
“You’ve got to give them one helluva speech before they go out on the ice though,” Mr. Gerhardt continues.
I really wish he’d leave and give me five minutes alone with his daughter. I don’t even want to have sex or make out or cop a feel; I just want her to hold me. Climb into my lap and wrap her arms around me, whispering that we’ve got this. Although I’d never admit that to anyone.
“I’ve got it.” I hold up the piece of paper I’ve been jotting notes on. I’m not a veteran coach. I don’t have years of practice giving inspirational speeches, but I do have years of sitting on that bench as a player and knowing what got me excited and what didn’t.
“Great. Great. Okay, well, I’m going up to the suite. Jana, I’ll see you up there?”
“Yep.” She nods.
Mr. Gerhardt goes to leave my office, but turns around. I inwardly groan. We’re on the clock here.
“I just want to say, I knew you could do it. And I’m proud of you,” he says, looking at Jana but then turning in my direction. “Both of you.”
He locks eyes with me, and damn, it feels better than anticipated to hear someone say that. Especially the man who put me here. Maybe it’s because I never got to hear that from my own parents.
“Thank you. I appreciate you giving me the opportunity.”
He nods and walks out the door. I hear the boys already razzing each other to get going and win this thing.
“Come here,” I say to Jana.
She pushes off the wall, and I sit back down in my office chair. She sits on my lap just like I wanted and wraps her arms around my neck.
She places a quick kiss on my lips. “No matter what happens tonight, we got this far. I’m not saying I don’t want that Cup, I do, but there was a time during the season when I thought we’d never be here. But you are by far and wide the best coach in this league, and you need to go out there with the confidence and arrogance that drew me to you in the first place.”
“My arrogance?”
“Come on. You’re Kane Burrows. I might’ve been slightly intimidated at first.”
I chuckle and tighten my arms around her, the smell of her perfume lingering around us and taking my thoughts in the direction of what I want to do with her after this game. “And you were all lady boss, wanting me only for sex.”
We laugh, and she kisses my scruffy jaw. “You’ve got this. I believe in you.”
I take her belief and instill it inside me.
The pounding on the door says it’s time to give this speech and get out on that ice.
“I gotta go.” I give her another quick kiss.
Her hands come up to my cheeks. “Go out there and kick some ass.”
“Okay.”
“Tell me you will?”
“I will.”
“Otherwise, no blow jobs for a year,” she says.
“A year, huh? That’s quite a commitment for a girl who didn’t even want to go on a date after we hooked up.”
Her joking smile fades slightly, but she recovers. “I was going to say I was kidding, but maybe now I should say I’m serious.”
She smacks a kiss on me before pushing me back. I slide my hand to the back of her head, bringing her lips to mine and giving her a kiss to hold her over until after we win.
“Now you go.” She climbs off my lap and offers me her hand, then pulls me up from the chair.
We walk out of my office to where the guys are all dressed and huddled in a circle, waiting.
“Let’s go, boys! You’ve got this!” Jana raises her fist. “Go Fury!”
“Go Fury!” they all shout.
She winks at me and leaves the locker room.
“All right, guys, you know I’m not exactly Shakespeare with my words, so I want a little slack.”
I wait for the light chuckling to die down before I start.
“We’ve been favored to win a lot of this season. We had some ups and downs, but we’ve persevered every time and come out stronger. This is our moment, boys, time for us to shine as a team. The one thing I love about us is that every player in this room checks his ego at the door because none of you can go out there and win alone. You need everyone else in this room. For some of you, this is your first time being so close to the Cup. Some of you have been here before and lost out. Some of you will never be in this position again. But take all those feelings and throw them away because all that matters is right now and what you do during those three periods out on the ice. The time is now. This game is yours to dominate, to score, to win! So let’s go, boys, get out there and kick some ass!”
They all bang their sticks on the floor, shouting, and each of them leaves the locker room with a fist bump from me. I follow with my throat in my stomach, hoping like hell I help them all achieve their dream.
The first thing I do when I get behind the bench is look up at the suite. Jana is up there with the majority of the wives. Because it’s such a big game, they all wanted to be together and have a little privacy, rather than sit in the usual wives and girlfriends’ section. In Jana’s arms is Jalen with his little headphones over his ears. Imogen blows Warner a kiss, but my gaze goes back to Jana rocking Jalen, not even paying attention to the fact that we’ve come out.
Ever since we babysat for them… I don’t know… she’s been quiet about her perimenopause diagnosis. I’ve noticed her making comments about how cute the kids are in the movies we watch, or when we go on walks on the beach, if there’s a family, she’s always smiling and telling me how adorable they are. I fear something is changing with her, but she’s yet to tell me anything, so I’ve tried to push away my fears until I know I have something to actually worry about.
The lights go down, and I push Jana and kids and what our future holds to the back of my mind for right now.
The announcers introduce our starters, and they take their turns skating on the ice. From there, it’s all a blur.
Warner scores immediately on a play with Aiden and Ford, who circles around the back of the net, shooting it to Warner on the other side, who flips it into the top corner of the net. The three of them are phenomenal together and have definitely found their groove the last half of this season.
Maksim helps Matt McIntosh in the net soon after, blocking Los Angeles from scoring, and gets the puck back to Ford, who skates up the left side but gets hammered into the wall. Ford gets up and pushes the other player, and they both end up in the sin bin.