The rest of the game is crazy with the shots on the net being sixty shots on me and twenty-seven on the other goalie, but we end up winning two to nothing, with me having my second shutout of the month.

I am named first star and do the turn on the ice, tossing the puck, and I’m almost dreading the room now knowing the reporters will be all up in my face. “Good game, Mark,” Matthew says to me when I finally get off the ice. “Heads up, the reporters are already in there.”

“Don’t we have a grace period?” I ask, annoyed that I won’t even have a chance to take off some of my equipment.

“When you steal the show by blocking sixty shots on the net, you don’t get a break,” he says, slapping my shoulder, and I wonder if this is going to go longer than I thought. When I walk into the room, I make my way to my seat, grabbing the Gatorade waiting for me with my post-workout mix. I put my mask on the top shelf and hand the glove and blocker to the equipment guy waiting for me, and I sit to take off the pads. The minute the pads are off, the press come over.

“Mark, you were on point tonight,” one of them says. “How did you feel about all the turnovers in the neutral zone?”

It’s a shitty question, and if I was a rookie, I would throw my team under the bus with my answer because they sucked tonight, and the turnovers were sloppy. “I mean, in the end, I did the job they pay me to do. Kept the pucks out of the net.”

“There were half the shots on net to the other team. Is it safe to say you were the best one on the ice tonight?”

“I didn’t put the two goals in the net, so I guess it’s a group effort, wouldn’t you think?” I tell him and take a gulp of my drink.

The questions last ten minutes more until I nod at them and walk away to go to the shower. I rest my head under the hot water for a minute and then rush to get to the restaurant.

I pull open the door, and the bell over the door makes noise. I look around, and I spot her sitting in the middle of the restaurant at the lone table with no one else there. Her eyes fly up from her phone when she hears the bell, and she smiles. “Well, there he is, the first star of the game,” she says, and I smile at her and walk over to her. She stands up to greet me, and this time, I kiss her just near her lips, closer than ever before.