Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 83927 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83927 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
The first and second period continues in a similar way, with me and Tank, the Dream Team, doing our thing. Though I must admit, it’s fucking nice to have Jaxon keeping up with us again tonight. We might have to come up with a new name to include him. Hmm, Triple Threat? No. That sounds weak. I’ll have to keep thinking about it. Right now, I have shit to handle.
The game is close, with us just slightly ahead, and I know we have to keep up our momentum. The opposition has been focusing on me, Tank, and Jaxon, realizing that we’re the best players, but they play fucking dirty. They have had three skaters thrown in the sin bin so far, but I know my boys can win this and keep it clean in the process.
I grab a quick drink, take a deep breath, and head back out for our third and final period. When the whistle blows, I dive straight in. I shoot the puck over to Bobby, who forces his way up the ice. When two guys come at him, he shoots it to Tank. The puck is intercepted by the opposition and stolen to the other end of the ice.
Tank charges at the guy with me right on his heels. He does a little fancy footwork that has the guy fucking up his moves, leaving the puck wide open for the taking. I get the puck out from under him and take it back up the other end. I look the goalie dead in the eyes, just so he knows I’m coming for him, and shoot it hard into the back of the net. I loop around the back of the goal to avoid slamming into it when Trent springs out of nowhere. With his gloves already on the ice, he grabs me by the back of my jersey and throws me hard up against the barriers, causing my head to bounce back.
“This is my fucking game,” he snaps, getting right up in my face as the crowd goes nuts with the anticipation of a fight.
I give him a hard shove to get the fucker off me as my head spins. “Your game was over before it fucking began,” I taunt, knowing exactly what he’s about to do, but I let it happen anyway. He rears back and throws a punch, but with my helmet and padding, it really has no effect apart from sending me flying onto my ass. Yeah, it pisses me off and is humiliating as fuck, but I smile at him instead as the referee throws him into the sin bin for the third time tonight. Sometimes, you have to take one for the team.
I get to my feet and search out Dani to find her looking down at me with wide eyes. I give her a slight nod, letting her know I’m fine, before skating over to Coach, who demands to check me over. “I’m good,” I tell him as I pull off my helmet.
“I don’t give a shit. I’m taking a look whether you like it or not. He got you pretty hard there,” he tells me, taking a moment to feel over my head. “Looks like you’ll have a nasty bump back here, but you’ll be right.”
“Good,” I say. “Let’s get this done.”
The last fifteen minutes are excruciating, and I probably should have sat down for a while for my own good, but there’s no way I’m sitting out the last minutes of the championship game.
Tank notices I’m lacking and does what he can to be right on my defense, but luckily, my slightly lacking is still better than these fuckers at their best.
Together, Tank and I own the ice, giving it our absolute all for our last college game. For Dani and Sophie, for our boys, and most of all, for Mia.
The other team gets another goal, which we immediately make up for with one of our own, refusing to give up our lead.
The final few seconds count down, and by now, we’re just playing with them. We can tell the other team gave up two minutes ago when we scored yet another goal, and they realized it wasn’t physically possible to beat us.
The buzzer sounds, and we throw our sticks down.
We fucking did it.
I look up to Dani, who blows me a kiss with a huge grin on her face, and I skate over to Tank. He pulls me in, slapping me hard on the back. The rest of our boys join us, throwing us both down to the ice in the process and jumping on top. The crowd cheers and chants as we are announced as the National Fucking Champions.
The red carpet is laid out and a ceremony is held on ice as we’re presented with our trophy. We celebrate, cheer, and go fucking nuts while the photographers and media try to do their thing.