12. Sammy

Sammy

“ That’s it !” Grey calls, his voice ringing through the rink. “ That’s what I wanted to see!”

Brett hollers when Morrison steals the puck and the two of them bring it down the ice. Brett has that look in his eye—the one that says he’s going to go all Devon and try something fancy.

“Come on, Braun!” Brett taunts, his voice just barely louder than his skates hitting the ice. “Let’s see what that other coach has been teaching you.”

Brett knows Finn isn’t an actual hockey coach, but taunting is part of his playing style. It’s a huge reason other players target him so much.

He’s been making comments all morning, trying to get under my skin. Prepping me for our next game. I keep my focus on the puck, his stick movement, how his weight shifts as he makes his way toward me.

A second later, he fires. Quick and precise, aimed for the top corner of the net.

I catch it in my glove, feeling the impact of the puck rock through my hand and reverberate all the way down to my elbow. It’s one of the most satisfying feelings in the world.

“There you go!” Grey calls, weirdly happy.

It’s ironic when it comes to these scrimmages—either way, there’s something to be disappointed about. Either I allow a shot, or Brett fails to make one, but Grey seems to be in pretty good spirits today.

He skates over to us, clapping both of us on the shoulder pads. “I’m loving this new energy, guys. This is the kind of energy that gets a team to the championship!”

He glides away, calling for us to line up and scrimmage again, and Brett hands near me for a moment.

“Seriously,” he says, voice low, “how is it going with that coach?”

“Good,” I say, ignoring the way my face gets hot. Brett can’t see it. “I think—well, we’ll see how it helps.”

Brett stares at me for a long moment, then nods, turning and skating back to the center of the rink.

On the next play, Morrison slips past our defense and comes in on a breakaway. My heart flips when I see it’s just him and me. For some reason, even two-on-one scenarios feel better than this.

Morrison fakes right, and I bite on it. By the time I recover, the puck is already sliding past me into the net.

“Reset!” Grey calls. His voice echoes through the arena, and I try not to think about his conversation outside the locker room. The possibility of bringing in another goalie to take my place.

It feels like I can never afford to fuck up. Especially not in front of Grey.

Brett skates past, tapping my shin with his stick lightly. “You got this,” he urges, but there’s something hidden under his tone—something like concern—that makes me feel worse.

We continue scrimmaging, and I make a few good saves, but it does nothing to calm the tension mounting in my chest. The Vipers are my team. Burlington has become my home.

I’ve never wanted to move around, team to team, like some athletes chasing the highest salary. I want to stay here, make a name for myself. The last thing I want is for Grey to trade me away.

Each time Grey frowns or writes something on his clipboard, it’s like my entire focus moves to him, evaluating it. Wondering what it is, and if it’s about me.

“Last play!” he shouts, and I realize I’m sweating, heaving with effort. We’ve been at this for an hour.

Brett wins the face-off at the center of the ice, then immediately loses the puck to Walker, who breaks toward my net immediately. It’s like every forward on the team wants a chance to show they can score against me.

And then I do the worst thing I could possibly do—I take my eyes off Walker, and off the puck.

And when I glance to the side of the rink, I see Finn sitting in the stands. Tablet in front of her. Eyes on me.

When I look back to Walker, he’s already drawing his stick back for the slap shot. The defense is out of position. I’m the only thing that stands between him and the net.

Time slows. My eyes track the puck, and before I can think or analyze, I know exactly where it’s headed. My body moves, adjusting, predicting, and I push hard to my right.

The puck deflects off my shoulder, hitting high and missing the net.

Grey blows the whistle.

“Nice save!” he shouts, the moment dissolving as he moves right into plans for our next film review session. I close my eyes for a second, and when I open them, the guys are dispersing, skating off the ice.

Grey is standing near the wall, talking to Harper.

“Sammy!” someone calls.

I turn and see Finn hurrying toward Grey and Harper, and my stomach flips. For some reason, it feels like the collision of two worlds, and I suddenly desperately do not want that to happen.

But by the time I reach the wall, Finn already has her hand out, extended toward Harper, who is shaking it warmly.

“Sammy,” Finn says again, turning to me, her tablet tucked under her arm. “I wanted to catch you. We have a lot to talk about.”

“Oh!” Harper says, backing up, phone already in her hand. “Mind if I get a shot of this?”

“Not at all,” Finn says, her eyes never leaving mine. There’s a challenge there, a knowledge that my “emotional blockage” is standing to our right, taking our photo.

I stare into her eyes, expression pleading, Please don’t say anything to Harper.

She stares back, and it feels like her expression says, I won’t right now, but you need to take action soon, Braun.

***

“Because I am freaking the fuck out , man!” I’m standing in the hallway just outside the practice rink, breathing hard, covers barely on my skates.

My hand shakes as it holds the phone to my ear.

“Okay, okay,” Brett says, and I can hear laughing and talking in the background—he must be with Fallon and her friends. It quiets down, and I imagine him moving to another room, closing the door. “Say it again.”

“Matthew Bennett is standing in front of my goal,” I say, the words feeling unreal as I say them. “Matthew. Bennett.”

“Oh,” Brett says, and I can basically see the smile curling over his face. “Just Matthew Bennett—all-time greatest goalie in the NHL, and your personal childhood hero?”

“Yea.”

“So, what’s the problem?”

“Fuck you, man.”

I’m still breathing hard, my palms in a cold sweat. How the hell can I go out there and face Matthew Bennett when I know my own performance this season has been mediocre at best? Does he feel sorry for me? Does he pity me?

I have no idea, because the moment I skated out onto the ice and realized exactly who it was that Finn “brought around for some extra help” I turned on my heel, skated away, and gave a lame excuse about needing to use the bathroom.

“You ran away?” Brett chuckles.

“Well, I wouldn’t call it—”

“You’re hiding in the hallway?”

“What else am I supposed to do? I had his poster on my wall, dude. I wrote a report about him in the fifth grade.”

“Breathe, man. This is a good thing!”

“I’m fucking lost.”

“Think about it: You’re the best of the best. Top of the line. Greatest of all time, and you come to help some random goalie? Why would you do that?”

“…For money?”

“Bennett has all the money in the fucking world,” Brett laughs. “Think about all those endorsements. No—he’s here because he believes in you. Because he thinks being here is worth his time.”

I blink, the realization sinking into my brain like warm oil. Matthew Bennett would not waste his time if he thought I didn’t have potential.

Right?

“Now, stop wasting his time and get out on the ice, dude,” Brett says, “First, because Fal is gonna kill me if I make her wait to finish this movie, and second, because your fifth-grade self would be pissed if you didn’t take this opportunity.”

“You’re right.”

“I don’t get to hear that often—”

I hang up, turning and clomping back out to the rink. By the time I’ve taken my covers off and made it to the center of the ice, I see Bennett hanging by the boards, laughing with Isaac and Finn. I notice she’s not on skates, but push the thought from my head as I glide toward the goal and Matthew Bennett.

A man with a camera is hanging out behind Finn, and as I approach, she nudges him a bit, gesturing to me.

She was serious about documenting the process, then.

“Hey, man!” Bennett says, extending a glove to me when I make it over to them. “You doing alright? You split pretty fast, there.”

Bennett is a huge guy, with a massive gray beard and a thicket of dark gray hair on his head. When I bump my glove against his, I swear it reverberates through the past and to myself as a kid…where I promptly shit myself.

But Adult Sammy is composed. Put together. Taking advantage of this amazing opportunity.

“Yeah, you know how it is,” I laugh, rolling my eyes, a picture of the casual man who wasn’t just having a melt down five minutes ago. “Had to go. But I’m here now—are you—?”

“Matthew is here to coach you!” Finn says jovially from her place off the ice. “You always said you wanted to emulate his style, so I thought we could bring him on and see if he can guide you in the right direction.”

From the tone in her voice, and the sparkle in her eye, I can tell that’s not actually what she’s thinking, but I don’t have time to wheedle it out of her. Matthew Bennett is standing here, and there’s no time to waste.

“And Isaac is here to help you drill,” Isaac says, eyebrows raised.

I snap my gaze from Finn to him, then back to Bennett, clearing my throat to shake away those pervasive thoughts of Finn Asher.

“Alright,” I say, pulling on my helmet and hitting my pads together. “Let’s get to work.”

“That’s what I like to hear!” Bennett says, and for the next hour, we drill. And drill. And drill.

He coaches me on everything—how I watch the puck, how I stand, the slightest changes in posture and mindset. And through it all, it feels like he thinks I’ll make good use of the knowledge. Like I’ll take his advice and increase its value.

And then we start on breakaways. Isaac comes at me again and again, and each time I feel that familiar itch at the bottom of my throat. The anxiety that refuses to leave.

“Hey, let’s take five,” Bennett says, and when Isaac and I start to skate away, he reaches out and catches my arm, saying quietly, “Hang back a sec.”

When he takes a knee, I take one too, grateful for the chance to rest a moment.

“You know what my save percentage was on breakaways my first three seasons?”

“Something incredible, probably.”

He laughs. “Thirty-eight percent.”

I stare at him. I thought I knew everything about Bennett that there was to know. Surely, I wouldn’t have missed a piss-poor stat so early in his career.

When I say nothing, he laughs and goes on. “Yep. Couldn't stop them to save my life. Used to get so worked up about them that I'd psych myself out before the player even crossed the blue line.”

“But...you're Matthew Bennett.”

“Wasn't always.” He taps his stick against the ice thoughtfully. “Look, everyone remembers the records, the shutouts, the wins. Nobody remembers the struggles. But they were there. Had to be—that's how you get better.”

I think about all the hours I've spent watching footage of him, studying his technique. Watching him grinning, hoisting the trophy above his head, confetti falling around him and his teammates. I’ve had that—won the Stanley Cup with my team. But I want more. I want people to remember me the way they remember him.

“So what changed?” I ask.

“One day, I just decided not to care. Stopped thinking about it so much.”

“ What ?” The word snaps out of me before I can stop it. “You…decided not to care?”

“Yeah,” he says, shrugging. “I stopped thinking so much. On breakaways, you've got maybe two seconds to make a decision. That's not enough time to analyze everything. You've got to trust your instincts.”

I chew on my lip and stare at the ice, thinking about what it felt like to face my fear on the top of that mountain. About what it felt like to have Finn against my side, my arm around her shoulders.

“You know what I see when I watch you play?” Bennett asks, voice low.

I shake my head.

“I see a goalie who knows exactly what to do, but second-guesses himself at the last moment. You've got the skill—your positioning is solid, your reflexes are there. But you're in your head too much.”

“So, how do I stop that?” I ask.

“You practice until your body knows what to do without asking your brain's permission.” He stands, offering me a hand up. “And you accept that sometimes, they're going to score. That's hockey. The trick is not letting those goals shake your confidence.”

I get to my feet, feeling somehow lighter. “Even you let goals in.”

Bennett grins. “Even me. Now, let's try something different. Instead of thinking about stopping the puck, I want you to focus on how your body feels. The ice under your skates, the weight of your pads. Everything else—the puck, me, the pressure—that's all background noise. Ready?”

I nod, settling back into my stance. This time, when he comes down the ice, I try to stay present in my body. Feel the edge of my skate bite into the ice as I move. The stretch of my muscles as I react.

When he shoots, my glove comes up automatically. The puck hits the leather with a satisfying thwack.

“I saw it!” Bennett calls out, skating to a stop. “That's what I'm talking about!”

Through the glass, I see Finn has stopped pacing. She's watching us, a small smile on her face. When our eyes meet, she gives me a quick nod.

“Again?” I ask Bennett, already resetting my position.

He grins, collecting another puck and passing it to Isaac, who is just joining us, glancing between Bennett and I with curiosity in his gaze.

“Now you're getting it, kid,” Bennett says. “Again.”