She rose up on an elbow and studied me. My gaze dropped to her breasts as the sheet slipped downward.

“Up here, puck boy.” She pulled the sheet back up, and I made a pouty face. Geneva laughed, a sound that relieved some of the pressure I was feeling. I could battle any and all adversity with her by my side. She gave me hope. She gave me strength. She gave me things I wasn’t able to put in words.

She squinted at me as if to see something more clearly. “What is it? What has you so serious this morning?”

“Hockey.” There was more to it than that, but I wasn’t going to spring any serious relationship talk on her just yet. I didn’t want to send her into hiding. Hell, I didn’t want to send myself into hiding. I had to figure out what I wanted before I approached her. Anything less would be unfair.

“Of course, hockey. You’ll give it all you have tonight, Axel. I know that about you. No matter what the outcome, you’ll be proud that you battled with everything you have.”

“You been listening to Coop lately? You sound like him.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” She gave me a deep kiss. When I made a move to take it further, she evaded me and slid out of bed. I watched her naked body appreciatively as she moved across the room to pick up a robe from the floor and pull it on. She kept some clothes in my closet, as she lived here more lately than at her brother’s.

“I’ll make my world-famous pancakes for breakfast.”

“I didn’t know you even cooked, let alone had anything world-famous.”

A shoe whizzed by my head, and I ducked just before the heel had a chance to take out one of my eyes.

“Get your ass up. My breakfasts wait for no man.” She laughed as she walked out of the bedroom.

I scrambled out of bed. A guy didn’t stand a chance against her, and I wasn’t missing this breakfast for the world.

As I walked into the kitchen, my body felt ten times lighter than it had a few minutes before.

Chapter 27—The Clock Runs Down

~~Axel~~

I stood up from my seat on the bench and gaped at the clock overhead, certain it was wrong. There was still time left. This wasn’t how a good story ended.

Out on the ice, the first line skated slow circles heads down while the Sidewinders celebrated on our ice.

Our season was over.

We’d fought our asses off, left everything out on the ice, and we’d come up one fucking lousy goal short of living to play another night. We’d known it’d be a tough hole to dig ourselves out of, but we’d believed. We’d never lost hope, even while making the second round slipped slowly from our fingers with every ticking second.

We’d become a team. We’d battled through adversity dealt by the crippling blow of losing three key team members and our star goalie. We’d finally gelled as a team, but it’d been too little, too late. We’d needed one more week together, but we didn’t have a week left.