“Don’t worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will worry for itself,” my dad’s always told me. But then again, he has the life he wants—a wife he loves, the brood of kids he dreamed of, a family of his own. Easy for him to say. What’s there to worry about when everything’s going your way?
When the team coordinators round us up and send us through the tunnel, my body’s loose and warm, my shoulder wrapped for stability underneath my pads. It barely twinges with pain when I rotate my arm fully, and I haven’t had a headache in seventy-two hours. Last game, I was finally cleared to play, but Coach only let me out for half the number of shifts he normally would.
I grumbled about it, and he told me to talk to Amy. Amy told me I was lucky I’d been allowed on the ice at all. So, I shut my mouth, then nearly pulled a muscle grinning so wide when Coach told me today that I’d been cleared for full-time play.
On Minnesota ice, the energy’s palpable, intense with the hunger to prove ourselves in enemy territory. We scraped by with a 3-2 win two nights ago, but it was messy and scrappy. We didn’t play our game, and tonight’s the night to reclaim our style of play, not to sink to theirs.
The guys are quiet as we skate around, doing warm-ups, everyone getting into their mindset for the game. When I steal a glance at her again, Frankie’s still nose deep in her phone, muttering to herself. Her hair drops in a sheet of near black down her shoulder and I squeeze my hand inside my glove, feeling the reflexive need to smooth it back.
It’s a cruel irony that my two most important personal interests are at odds with each other: winning the Stanley Cup and winning Frankie’s heart. The longer the playoffs run, the longer I have to wait to pursue her. Normally I find irony amusing.
Not this time.
Someone yells about an incoming puck, jarring me from my thoughts.
Focus, Ren. Deal with the here and now.
I catch it and pick up my speed as I skate around, flicking the puck up on my stick, spinning, faking, losing myself to muscle memory.
The din of voices echoes in the rink, but my hearing narrows to the soothing sounds of smooth, wet ice, the scrape of my skates as I spin and travel backward, my mind quieting, my body centering. Breathing deeply, I soak up that frosty bite in the air, a bursting cool that fills my lungs.
Pure tranquility.
Until I look up and lock eyes with Frankie. Her face is tight, strained in a way I haven’t seen before. She looks worried and nervous. Skating her way, I stop near the bench. One hand’s worth of fingers are tangled in her necklace, the other holding her phone, white knuckled by her side.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
She swallows as her eyes dance between mine. “Nothing.”
“Obviously it’s not nothing. You look anxious.”
Her hand drops from her necklace. “I’d like to formally request you not get beaned in the head tonight. That’s all.”
I frown, turning only long enough to slap the puck away, returning it to Kris across the ice. Then I spin back around. “I always try not to, Frankie.”
“Didn’t stop you from getting pancaked to the plexi last time we were here,” she grumbles.
A small grin pulls at my mouth. “Francesca.” I lean in. “Are you worrying about me?”
“No.” She wrinkles her nose and flicks her hair behind her shoulder. “And scoot back. You stink like a sweaty hockey player.”
“I am a sweaty hockey player, Francesca. I’d think you’d be used to the smell by now.”
She closes her eyes like she’s searching for serenity and coming up short. “I’m just reminding you, it’s in everyone’s interest here that you play it safe.”
My stomach tightens with a surge of nervous happiness. Frankie cares enough about me to be worried I’m going to get hurt. Enough to scowl at me from across the ice and offhandedly warn me to take it easy.
Kris sends the puck back my way. I flick it up onto my stick and juggle it. “Don’t worry, älskade. I’ll be careful.”
Her frown deepens. “Of course you speak one of the few European languages I have no familiarity with. That word at yoga. Now this. I don’t like this recent development of second-language use, Søren.”
“Hm.” Smacking the puck toward François who was not remotely anticipating my shot on him, I earn one of his colorful French oaths. “This coming from the woman who was talking smack in Italian behind my back during yoga with Fabi. Pretty hypocritical.”
“That—” She huffs. “Fine. Fair. But just so you know, I can still look up what you said.”
I grin and start to skate away. “Good luck. Swedish is not phonetic.”
Before she can give me further hell about it, I circle the net, power across the ice, and let my mind settle. But my heart won’t stop galloping at breakneck speed.
Third period, tied 1-1. Thanks to a few games off, my legs are still fresh, my lungs easily pulling air. I crouch low for face-off and win the puck, passing it to Rob and soaring up the ice into the attacking zone. I’ve had my eye on Number 27, the one who hit me late and dirty into the boards last time we were here. When I played the other night, he and I only had one shift that overlapped because I played so little, but tonight’s another matter.
He’s up my ass. Constantly.
So far, I’ve been able to stay clear of his dirtiest attempts, which seems to infuriate him. He’s not the first defender to be perturbed by my agility on ice, given my size. He’s also not the first defender to target me like his sole mission is brutalizing my body. Every team we play, I’m a target. I’m our leading scorer, and I’m good at avoiding scrapes, winning the puck, catalyzing offense. I defy physics, and it shocks and then quickly pisses off my opponents.
To be fair, it shocked me at first, too. But now I understand it’s my strength, this intuition I have, the way I sense incoming hits and slip away, my body’s ability to hold peripheral awareness of so much, then sneak myself and the puck right where we need to go. I couldn’t explain how I do it if I wanted to—it’s just something my brain-body connection implicitly knows.
That said, while I’m adept at dodging disasters, evading and putting up with Number 27 is getting old. Countless hooks, pokes, and slashes, slapping his stick into my skates, hoping to trip me. He’s tried and missed smashing me into the boards more times than I can count. And unlike past times when I’ve weathered his and other defenders’ abuse with stoic detachment, simmering frustration has been building to an angry boil inside me. I don’t know why what I typically ignored and let roll off my back is irking me so relentlessly tonight. Why my hands itch to do damage, my fists twitch to draw blood. All I know is, they do.
Maybe you’re hitting your limit, Bergman. We all have them.
Fair point, subconscious. I’ve spent three years in this league being squeaky clean. Backing away from fights, playing a fair game, never taking the bait. I do every PR stunt they ask of me, show up for every magazine cover and interview the league wants. And the whole time I’ve smiled, kept myself out of trouble, and not asked for a damn thing except a beautiful game to play and my peaceful home to rest in when I’m not.
But most of all I’ve waited. And waited. And waited for Frankie. And now I’ve had to survive living with her, seeing shower water dripping down her chest, watching her eat my omelets with sleepy eyes and gorgeous bedhead, sharing sunsets on the beach with her and her fluffy dog that I miss already. And I still can’t have her. I can’t tell Frankie what she means to me or touch her how I’m dying to.