Chapter 36

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Riggs

"You the reason Ella's got a smile on her face today?" Knox asks.

I snag my water bottle, take a small sip so my stomach won't be overloaded and make me feel like shit out on the ice.

Nothing like trying to hockey with a bunch of liquid sloshing around in there.

"Would there be another reason?" I say when I drop it back into the holder, trying to get a glimpse of her across the rink, to make sure my dad isn't…

Well, that he's not being my dad.

"I can handle the old man," she told me when I checked in with her before the game, making sure she didn't want to bail on coming tonight.

I think that Ella can do anything.

But I don't want the thing she's doing to be enduring my dad being an asshole.

And he's likely to be in an even worse mood considering that I pushed back earlier.

"Riggs—"

I pull my stare away, glance to Knox.

"She can handle your dad," he says quietly.

And seriously, the fucker has far too high of an emotional IQ for his own good—pushing me to take that first step with Ella, snagging my phone and keeping me distracted when my dad is on a rampage, knowing exactly what was wrong with Ella yesterday and how to go about fixing it.

Knowing that I'm worried today .

She's here. She's smiling.

But…she still has pain buried deep inside, pain that's eating at her more and more by the day.

I need to find a way to help her set that aside.

I flick my brows up in question. "What makes you say that with such confidence?"

"She can handle assholes like the best of them." He shrugs then slides down the bench when the next line hops on the ice. "She'll smile and the bullshit they dish out will slide right down her back." A rueful laugh. "But it's the silence she can't stand. The walls she can't breach. The problems she can't fix. The failure that eats at her from the inside." He sighs. "And worst of all is standing in a room unseen by the people you love."

"You talking about her?" I ask as the whistle goes and we stand up, prepare to take our shift. "Or you?"

Riggs freezes in the open door, one foot poised above the ice.

Then he shakes his head, eyes flicking behind us, drifting down the hall that leads to the locker room like he's doing some searching of his own.

I have a feeling I know precisely who he's looking for.

And whose walls he has made absolutely no progress in breaching.

"We grew up in the same house, asshole," he says and skates away before I can ask what he means—or ask after a certain redhead who's extremely good at not seeing him.

I follow to the face-off circle, line up to the side and slightly behind the dot, ready to pass it back to our D when Lake wins the draw like he always does.

The whistle blows.

The ref drops the puck.

Lake wins it.

I go to make the drop pass, but I see the flash of white out of the corner of my eye. Not the blue and green with a touch of white jerseys we wear on home ice, but a full arm of white, the winger on the other team closing with explosive speed and ready to pick off the pass.

Yeah, our goalie won't appreciate a breakaway this late in the game, with us up a goal and the win within sight.

I halt my movement in a flash, flick the puck back to Lake, who's strong as shit, annoying as fuck to play against, and always ready to receive a pass.

He corrals the puck, wins the battle with the other center, skating to the corner to free up some space for us to make a play.

You're welcome, Willie , I think to our goalie, shoving off the defenseman guarding me and cutting hard to the net, watching Lake as he skates behind the goal, tracking Knox when he moves in and hangs close enough to split the coverage on us.

I grunt when I take a crosscheck to the back, do some shoving of my own in return, biting back a curse when the stick makes contact beneath my shoulder pads. Assholes always miss the parts that are actually protected.

But while I'm battling to keep position, to be an option, to screen the goalie—and to do all three of those things properly, I see our D cutting in.

Lake clocks him too.

I know that in our flash of eye contact as he skates out from behind the net, and then I'm moving before I even consciously think about it—breaking the hold the bastard defending me has on my stick, returning the crosscheck he gave me earlier, and then digging in and skating by the fucker, reaching my spot on this play we've practiced at least a hundred times…

Just as Lake saucers the pass to me.

I catch it out of mid-air, drag it to the far side of the ice as I deke around the defenseman who's followed me.

Not trying anything fancy, just buying time, gathering focus, leaving space to find?—

Now.

Knox open.

They expected the pass to go back to our D.

It's the obvious play.

But they forgot about the man with the dangerous hands who's nearly impossible to corral.

I whip the puck to him, knowing Knox can handle a hard pass, knowing that it'll have to be hard in order to make it to him at all.

But I don't stand there and watch like a lump when the puck flies off my stick.

I move .

Sprinting toward the net, not stopping until I'm in the mix, until I'm fighting for position, until I'm contributing to the chaos the goalie and defense has to keep track of.

Knox fires off a shot.

The goalie makes the first save, kicking it out to the corner, but Lake is there already.

He corrals it, whips back to the net.

The goalie slides hard in that direction, making a herculean fucking save in my opinion.

It pops off his pads…

And drops right out to my feet.

I kick it up to my stick, get a slash to my legs for my trouble, a shove to my back, but I fight through the pain radiating up my arms, along my spine, and hold my ground.

I'm close to the goalie.

I don't have a ton of space and he's good—he's going to be covering the ice, and he's able to maneuver, to move his pads to guard against the eighteen inches above that.

And he's fucking good with his stick.

I just…need to be better with mine.

Hockey players and their sticks.

Ella's voice rushes through my brain in a flash and I'm smiling when I flick my wrists, sending the puck up in the air.

Above those pads.

Above his glove.

Straight into the top of the net.

I'm still smiling when the red light goes and the buzzer sounds and…

The crowd roars.

I'm still smiling when my eyes flick to the side, when I see my dad in his seat, face expressionless.

But most importantly, I'm still smiling when I shift my gaze to see Ella on her feet, cheering like a fiend.

Because…

It's Ella who's become the most important person in my life.

And I'm not going to stop until she knows it.

Hell, even then I'm going to keep going.

Because she is mine .