garrett graham ❄︎ before puck drop.
pairing – garrett graham x nursing student!reader summary – a national championship, a very badly timed love confession, and garrett graham choosing a kiss before the trophy. warnings – hockey violence, championship game stress, accidental love confession, anxiety/spiralling, injuries/hits, blood/cut mention, emotional overwhelm. notes from me – WE DID IT!!! based on this ask, thank you so so much lovely!! if i got anything about hockey wrong, no i didn’t and stfu 🤗 word count – 9.1k
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The last time Garrett tried to go down on her, he fell asleep. Not fully, he remains extremely defensive about that distinction.
According to Garrett, there’s a significant difference between falling asleep and briefly resting your eyes while your mouth is still attached to your girlfriend, even if the girlfriend in question has to tug gently at your curls and ask, “Baby?” three separate times before you lift your head with a little crease pressed into your cheek from her thigh.
“I wasn’t asleep,” he’d mumbled.
“You stopped moving.”
“Was thinking.”
“With your eyes closed?”
He nodded against her thigh. “Helps me focus.”
Then he’d yawned so widely his jaw cracked, lowered his face onto her stomach and gone completely limp across the bed.
She had stared down at the back of his head for several seconds, one hand still tangled in his hair, her underwear stranded somewhere around one ankle and the entire evening rearranged around the fact that Briar’s hockey captain had reached physical collapse halfway through eating her out.
“Okay,” she’d said, because there were moments where compassion had to take priority over personal fulfilment. “We’re going to sleep.”
Garrett had made a muffled sound of protest into her skin.
“You just lost consciousness between my legs.”
“Didn’t.”
“Your mouth was open.”
He adjusted his face more firmly into her stomach. “It was already open.”
“That is not the defence you think it is.”
He had tried to lift himself onto one elbow, managed perhaps four inches and then dropped his face back against her with the exhausted dignity of a man being asked to complete one final push-up after the end of civilisation. “Give me five minutes.”
She’d taken one look at the grey shadows beneath his eyes, the tired drag at the corners of his mouth and the fading yellow bruise along one shoulder from the regional final, then pulled the blanket over both of them instead. Garrett had been asleep before she finished getting her underwear back on.
That was nearly two weeks ago. She hasn’t been fucked properly in three, which would be a more compelling personal tragedy if Garrett hadn’t spent those same three weeks skating like Briar University’s continued existence depended on him alone
The tournament has eaten all of them alive. Two regional wins to secure the Frozen Four. The semifinal two nights ago, won in overtime after Briar spent most of the third period trapped in its own zone and Garrett blocked a shot with his ankle badly enough that he limped until the next morning but still refused to acknowledge anything had happened.
Film sessions. Practice. Recovery. Media. Team meetings. More film because Garrett had decided there might be a hidden tactic buried in the exact angle of an opposing winger’s shoulder if he watched the footage enough times.
He’s been sleeping in pieces. Forty minutes on her dorm bed before practice. Twenty in the passenger seat while Tucker drove. Once at her desk with his forehead resting on a chapter about community health, and one hand still wrapped loosely around her wrist like he had fallen asleep halfway through confirming she was there.
She has watched the tournament take him apart in small, ordinary ways nobody else would necessarily notice.
The protein bar wrappers multiplying in his gear bag because he keeps forgetting meals until she puts food directly into his hand. The way his jaw goes hard whenever somebody asks what it means to play the national championship at TD Garden, when everyone knows perfectly well what it means.
The Bruins. His future. His father’s history hanging somewhere above all of it, invisible and still somehow taking up space. Garrett has answered every question correctly. He says it’s about Briar. About the boys. About finishing what they started. He means it too.
Garrett’s spent weeks carrying everyone else’s nerves so convincingly that half the team appears to have forgotten he possesses any of his own.
By the time she reaches the Garden, she feels like she has swallowed something carbonated. It moves beneath her ribs in bright, rising bubbles as she follows Lucy and Monique through the concourse, one hand wrapped around theirs to keep from losing either of them in the river of navy, silver and white pouring toward the arena.
Everywhere she looks, somebody from Briar is there. Students she recognises from tutorials. Professors wearing team scarves over collared shirts. Alumni with old jerseys stretched across bodies that have changed significantly since graduation. Half the hockey house’s regular party population appears to have made the trip, suddenly united by school pride and the urgent need to buy beer before warm-ups begin.
The Garden itself feels too large to hold all of them. Light spills down from the high ceiling onto the ice in hard, clean sheets, making the rink look almost blue at the edges. Music pounds through the arena speakers while the scoreboard turns slowly above centre ice, cycling through team logos, player footage and the words NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP in letters large enough to make her stomach tighten every time they appear.
The air smells like cold metal, popcorn, spilled beer and the sharp synthetic chill that rises from a sheet of freshly cut ice. Even through her jeans and the long-sleeved top beneath Garrett’s jersey, she can feel the cold working its way in through her knees. She doesn’t care.
Their seats are down against the glass, close enough that she can see the scraped white line where the boards meet the ice and the little ridges the resurfacer left behind. Kendall, Paige and Sienna are already there when they arrive, occupying several seats in a loose cluster with enough bags, drinks and handmade signs to suggest they’re establishing a permanent settlement.
Kendall has silver stars beneath both eyes. Paige has somehow worked Garrett’s number into her eyeliner despite Garrett not being her boyfriend, which she claims is general captain support and not an act of targeted provocation. Sienna is holding a sign that reads DEAN, PLEASE TRY DEFENCE TODAY in thick navy letters.
“That’s so mean,” she says, accepting the silver face glitter Paige immediately begins pressing toward her cheek without permission.
“He’ll love it,” Sienna replies. “He responds well to criticism.”
“He responds loudly to criticism.”
Lucy has made a sign too, although hers simply says GO HAWKS because Lucy believes in encouragement without inviting retaliation from large men on skates.
Monique has brought no sign and is carrying emergency supplies instead: tissues, water, painkillers, two granola bars and a portable charger because, in her words, somebody in this group has to remain connected to civilisation.
“You look like you’re going to throw up,” Monique observes as Paige draws a small forty-four near the corner of her eye.
“I’m not.” She glances at the scoreboard. Five minutes, forty-eight seconds until warm-ups. “That’s basically now.”
Lucy loops an arm through hers and squeezes. “You excited?”
The question is absurdly insufficient. Excited is standing in line for concert tickets. Excited is finding out the difficult lecturer has cancelled class. This feels more like every part of her body has been tuned slightly too high, her skin warm beneath the cold arena air and her pulse sitting visibly in the base of her throat.
She looks down at the jersey instead. Garrett’s name stretches across her shoulders. Forty-four covers most of her back. It still smells faintly like his detergent even after being folded inside her overnight bag, and something stupid happens beneath her breastbone when she smooths one palm over the number on the sleeve.
“Normal amount,” she says.
Lucy looks at Monique. Monique nods gravely. “She’s going to throw up.”
She doesn’t throw up. She does, however, nearly crush Kendall’s hand when the lights shift and the first few players spill onto the ice.
The Briar section detonates. Noise surges up around them so quickly it seems to change the pressure inside her ears. People are already standing, banging hands against the glass, screaming names into the cold while the boys come through the tunnel in a loose stream of navy jerseys and silver helmets.
Tucker is one of the first out, skating directly toward centre with his head down and his stick loose in one hand, settling immediately into the quiet, economical movements he carries everywhere. Logan comes behind him faster, taking his first lap like he has something personal against the far boards.
Dean’s last only because Dean has decided entering the national championship requires choreography. He pushes onto the ice backward, both arms spread toward the Briar section like he’s rented the building for the evening. The response gets louder. Dean cups one glove to his ear, shakes his head as though disappointed and gestures for more.
Sienna slams her sign against the glass. Dean spots it. His mouth drops open beneath his cage. He points his stick at her, then at himself, then makes an offended gesture toward his chest as if he’s just been accused of a serious crime.
“TRY DEFENCE,” Sienna screams.
Dean skates past them shaking his head, one glove held over his heart.
“He’s going to bring that up for six months,” Paige says.
“He needed motivation.”
The rest of the boys circle out into warm-ups. Pucks scatter across the ice. Skates begin cutting sharp white lines through the untouched surface, the hard clack of sticks and pucks occasionally breaking through the music and crowd noise. She finds Garrett almost immediately.
Her body knows where he is before she properly registers the forty-four on his back. He’s near the blue line, taking two long strides before dropping into the familiar stretch he always does first, one knee bent deeply while the other leg extends behind him.
His helmet is tipped forward. His gloves are tucked beneath one arm. For several seconds he stays there with his head lowered, shoulders rising and falling beneath the jersey. He looks tired. She sees it in the slowness when he stands, the careful roll of his shoulders and the way he flexes one ankle before starting toward the far end.
Then a puck comes to him. Everything changes. His stick catches it cleanly, and his body settles into the ice as though it has finally entered its natural environment. One stride, two, a quick shift onto his outside edge.
He sends the puck hard into the top corner during the first shooting drill, circles behind the net and shouts something at Logan that makes Logan raise one glove without turning around.
The pressure beneath her ribs goes soft and hot. There are feelings that arrive with sensible names and manageable symptoms. Affection. Attraction. Pride. Things that can be discussed over coffee without anyone needing medical supervision.
Whatever she feels for Garrett has never behaved properly enough to qualify. It spreads through her bloodstream like she has been drinking on an empty stomach. Warm behind her face. Loose in her knees. Her brain a little slower and much happier whenever he looks at her.
Sometimes she catches him standing barefoot in the kitchen eating cereal and has the deeply unreasonable thought that this may be the best thing that has ever happened to anyone. Not her. Anyone.
It feels rare in a way she doesn’t know how to say without sounding insane. Like something a person might stumble into once every several lifetimes if the timing is right and the universe briefly stops being an asshole.
Garrett takes another shot. The puck hits the post with a sharp metallic crack. She cheers anyway. He turns at the sound of the Briar section, lifting his head toward the glass. His eyes begin moving over the crowd.
She knows what he’s doing. The knowledge lands in her stomach with enough force that her fingers tighten around Lucy’s wrist.
“He’s looking for you,” Lucy says.
“I know.”
“Wave.”
“I’m trying to look normal,” she mutters.
“You’re wearing his jersey and gripping my arm,” Lucy replies.
“Wave,” Monique orders.
She lifts both hands. Garrett sees her. His face changes so completely that the whole arena seems briefly less important.
The hard focus around his mouth breaks first. Then his eyes soften and his grin comes in bright beneath the helmet, familiar enough to reach through the glass and settle directly beneath her ribs. He points his stick toward her, says something to Tucker as he passes and turns sharply toward the boards.
“Oh my God,” Kendall says. “Incoming.”
Garrett stops in front of them with a small spray of ice, one glove braced against the top of his stick. Up close, she can see the faint tiredness beneath his eyes and the flushed line across his cheeks where the cold has already caught him. Damp curls push out beneath the back of his helmet. His gaze drops immediately to the jersey, then returns to her face.
She leans toward the glass, grin stretching before she can even try to control it. “Hey, forty-four.”
“Hi, baby.”
She barely hears him over the music and the crowd, but she knows the shape of his mouth well enough to fill in whatever sound the glass steals. Garrett shifts closer, face tipped toward her through a narrow break between the panels, and for one second everyone around them appears to become extremely interested in watching something else while also listening with every available part of their bodies.
“How’re you feeling?” she asks.
Garrett nods once. “Good.”
It comes automatically. Captain answer. Media answer. The exact response he has been giving anyone who asks for the past three weeks. She narrows her eyes.
Garrett’s mouth twitches, but the expression doesn’t hold. He looks back toward centre ice, where the other team has begun its own warm-up, then returns his gaze to her. “I just–” He exhales, the breath fogging faintly against the glass. “They’ve been killing it this tournament, baby.”
She looks at him for half a second. “And you guys haven’t?”
His eyes drop briefly.
“Garrett.”
He nods. “I know.”
She presses closer to the glass, lowering her voice even though she has to speak louder to be heard. “You don’t have to drag them through this by yourself. Tuck’s been seeing everything before it happens. Logan looks like somebody put rocket fuel in his water. Dean’s so excited he might actually attempt defence just to surprise us.”
Garrett smiles properly at that.
“You’ve won every shitty game they’ve put in front of you,” she continues. “You won the one where half your bench could barely stand. You came back Thursday when everyone had already decided you were done. You’ve been killing it too.”
His gaze stays on hers.
“Okay?”
Garrett nods.
She shakes her head once. “Words, baby.”
That gets the full grin. Bright, sudden and so deeply him that her stomach tips. “Yeah. Okay.”
“You’ve got this, Garrett.”
His throat moves when he swallows. “Yeah.”
“You feeling good?”
He looks at her for another second, shoulders sitting lower now, his grip easier around the stick. “Yeah, Coach.”
She grins. “Good.”
A whistle cuts across the ice. Garrett’s head turns toward the bench. Coach is gesturing sharply, calling the first unit back toward centre for the final drill. Logan skates past behind Garrett and hits the back of his helmet with one glove.
“Stop flirting,” he yells. “National championship.”
Garrett twists around. “I’ll bench you.”
“You can’t.”
“Watch me.” Garrett looks back at her. The whistle goes again, longer and significantly less patient. “Gotta go, baby.”
She nods, still smiling so hard her cheeks ache. “Go.”
He pushes away from the boards, then turns while skating backward. One glove lifts to his mouth. Garrett blows her a kiss.
She catches it automatically, closing her hand against her chest with the same stupid little movement she’s done from stands and car parks and the end of hallways a hundred times before. “Love you, baby.”
The words leave her mouth without consulting anybody. Garrett’s already turning.
Tucker catches the shoulder of his jersey and pulls him toward the drill as Coach shouts something from the bench. Garrett’s head shifts slightly, perhaps toward her, perhaps only because Logan has said something at his other side. Then all four of them are moving, sticks dropping toward the ice while a puck slides into the face-off circle.
Her smile stays where it is for one full second, then her brain receives the sentence. Her hand opens against her chest.
“Oh,” she says.
Lucy slowly turns toward her. Monique’s eyes widen. Kendall’s mouth drops open, silver stars stretching at the corner of one eye. Paige stops halfway through lifting her drink. Sienna lowers the sign in front of her with the solemn care of somebody putting down a weapon.
“Did you just–” Lucy begins.
She slaps both hands over her mouth. “Oh my God.”
The words come out muffled into her palms. Heat climbs from her chest to her face so quickly she can feel it beneath Paige’s little silver forty-four.
Monique catches both her elbows. “You’re okay.”
She shakes her head. “No, I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I just told him I love him.”
“You did,” Kendall says, then winces when Monique looks at her. “Supportively.”
“I told Garrett Graham I love him through plexiglass before the national championship,” she squeaks.
Lucy reaches for one of her wrists, gently pulling her hand away from her mouth before she can smother herself. “It’s okay. It was cute.”
“It was not meant to happen.”
Lucy shrugs. “Most things aren’t.”
“It just came out.” She stares at the ice, where Garrett has dropped into position for the drill like her entire internal structure hasn’t just collapsed twenty feet away. “I didn’t decide anything. My mouth went… it went freelance.”
Paige presses her lips together.
Sienna points one warning finger at her. “Do not laugh.”
Paige shakes her head. “I’m not.”
She turns desperately toward Monique. “Do you think he heard?”
The girls all look toward the ice. The Garden is still roaring. Music pounds through the speakers. Hundreds of Briar students are chanting something about Burlington’s goalie that will almost certainly lead to an email from university administration. Pucks slam against the boards, whistles splitting the cold air while the players call to one another through helmets and crowd noise.
Kendall tilts her head. “Honestly? Maybe not.”
“Oh, good.” Relief hits for less than a second before immediately becoming something else. “Wait. Is that good?”
“Yes,” Lucy says.
“No,” Paige says at the exact same time.
Lucy glares at her.
Paige lifts both hands. “I’m only saying she might eventually want him to hear it.”
“Not like that,” she says. “Not while Coach is threatening him and half of Massachusetts is watching.”
“He probably thought you said good luck,” Sienna offers.
“That doesn’t have the same number of syllables!”
“He’s often concussed,” Kendall suggests.
“Not currently!”
Monique squeezes her elbows. “Breathe.”
She takes one breath. It catches somewhere high in her chest and comes out thin.
“Again.”
She breathes again, staring helplessly through the glass. Garrett takes the next pass near centre ice, cuts around Logan and shoots. The puck goes in cleanly. He circles the net, taps Tucker’s shin pads with his stick and joins the line again without looking toward her.
That should help. It doesn’t.
“What do I do?” she whispers.
Lucy rubs one hand down her arm. “Right now? Watch the game.”
“For three periods?”
“Hopefully only three,” Monique says. “Overtime might kill you.”
She makes a noise of genuine distress.
“Not helpful,” Lucy tells her.
The warm-up clock keeps counting down above the ice. Two minutes, nineteen seconds. The boys gather near the bench for water, shoulders bumping, helmets tipping together as Garrett says something that makes Dean slap one glove against his chest.
He looks like the captain again. Focused. Certain. Every inch of him turned toward the game waiting on the other side of the clock.
She cannot tell whether he heard. There’s no visible sign that her first I love you reached him at all. No stunned look. No missed stride. No Garrett abandoning the national championship to climb over the glass and demand clarification, which is ridiculous but currently feels like the only response that would give her useful information.
Instead, he takes his place beside Tucker while Coach speaks, one glove wrapped around the top of his stick and forty-four broad across his back. The buzzer sounds to end warm-ups.
The crowd rises again as the players begin filing toward the tunnel. Garrett disappears between Logan and Dean without looking back, swallowed by navy jerseys and the dark opening beneath the stands.
She stays at the glass with both hands over her mouth, his name stretched across her shoulders and his number pressed warm against her back.
Behind her, Lucy says, “You’re fine,” with the determined confidence of somebody trying to influence an outcome medically beyond her control.
Monique pushes a water bottle into her hand. Kendall begins listing reasons the arena acoustics are unreliable. Sienna insists declarations made during warm-ups may not be legally binding, and Paige is still being prevented from mentioning that Garrett’s head had moved slightly after she said it.
Above centre ice, the scoreboard resets for puck drop. Eighteen minutes.
At least three periods before she could get him alone. Sixty minutes of hockey, plus intermissions, during which she would have to watch her boyfriend play for a national championship while wondering whether she had accidentally changed the entire shape of their relationship at full volume.
The Garden roared around her, and she stood there with Garrett’s forty-four stretched across her back, and absolutely no way to take the words back through the glass.
The first face-off happens before her body has remembered how to process oxygen normally. One second the teams are circling beneath the hard white light, officials gliding into position while the noise inside the Garden rises and breaks and rises again.
The next, the puck hits the ice, Garrett’s stick snaps forward and the national championship becomes too fast and too violent to leave much room for privately destroying her own life.
For roughly fourteen seconds, anyway. Garrett wins the draw cleanly and knocks the puck backward toward Tucker. Briar surges forward around him, all navy shoulders and cutting blades, the opening shift moving with the sharp, practiced rhythm she’s watched enough times to recognise before she could ever explain it properly.
Logan flies up the left side. Dean cuts across behind him, already throwing his weight into a defender with the subtlety of a car entering a building. Tucker sends the puck deep, Garrett follows it into the corner and the opposing defenceman drives him shoulder-first into the glass hard enough that the boards shake beneath her hands.
Her whole body contracts. She doesn’t scream or grab Lucy or begin climbing over the glass. It’s smaller and worse than that, a hard internal flinch that starts somewhere behind her sternum and pulls all the muscles down her back tight at once.
Garrett comes away from the hit still moving, knees bent, stick down, one glove briefly flexing near his shoulder before he takes the puck from beneath the other player’s skates and sends it back toward the point.
“Oh,” Lucy says beside her, eyes wide. “They’re not fucking around.”
“Nope,” Monique answers.
The game establishes its personality quickly. It’s mean. Every hit arrives half a second before it could become something officials might feel obligated to stop, all sharp hips and shoulders and bodies driven into boards with the deeply technical violence of men who have spent their lives learning precisely how hard another person can be struck while everyone calls it clean.
Tucker gets crushed behind Briar’s net three minutes in, his helmet snapping backward against the glass before he drops to one knee. She’s halfway out of her seat before he plants one glove on the ice, stands and immediately hooks his stick beneath the other player’s to strip the puck away.
“Jesus Christ,” Paige mutters.
Tucker sends the puck up the boards like nothing happened. Garrett catches it, turns through the neutral zone and gets met by two bodies at once.
He disappears. She sees one navy sleeve, the silver of his helmet, then his skates leave the ice and he lands flat on his back hard enough to slide several feet before friction finally catches him.
The Briar section loses its mind. Her hands slap against the glass. “Oh my God.”
Garrett lies there for perhaps one second. Long enough for her stomach to turn over completely. Then he rolls onto one knee, gets his stick beneath him and pushes upright while Logan barrels into the guy who hit him with enough force to send both of them into the boards.
The whistle goes. Players gather immediately, shoulders colliding, gloves pressing into chests while officials wedge themselves between bodies that clearly have no intention of politely separating. Dean arrives late and shoves someone who’s not even involved.
“Of course,” Sienna says.
Garrett skates into the edge of the gathering and catches Dean around the chest before he can convert an ordinary post-whistle disagreement into an actual incident. He says something beneath his cage. Dean replies with both gloves raised as if innocence is a position he has ever occupied. The official sends Dean toward the box.
“What did he even do?” Lucy asks.
Sienna presses both hands to the glass as Dean passes. “WORTH IT!”
Dean turns his head and blows her a kiss. The penalty kill lasts less than a minute before Tucker takes a puck off the ankle, limps through one stride and sends it down the ice anyway. She watches him reach the bench with his face drawn tight, one trainer bending immediately toward the skate while Tucker waves him off and points toward the play as though the trainer has accidentally started discussing something irrelevant.
The boys have been exhausted for weeks. She knew that. She has watched Garrett fall asleep with food in his mouth, watched Logan lie facedown on the living-room rug because walking upstairs felt unreasonable, watched Tucker stretch one hamstring against the kitchen counter while stirring pasta and watched Dean voluntarily turn down a party because his entire skeleton had a headache.
Knowing it in kitchens and bedrooms is different from seeing it here. Every hit looks like it should empty them. Every collision seems large enough to knock the last little reserve of energy loose and scatter it across the ice. Instead, they keep getting up, and they give it back.
Dean comes out of the penalty box like he’s been insulted by the concept of confinement. His first shift ends with an opposing winger folded into the boards and Dean skating away while the man’s teammates shout after him.
Tucker catches another player cleanly near centre and sends him onto his ass with such quiet efficiency that the crowd makes one collective, delighted sound.
Logan scores first. The play starts with Garrett trapped along the boards beneath two bodies, one stick pressed across his hips while another player tries to dig the puck out from between four pairs of skates. Garrett somehow gets it loose. She doesn’t see how. One second it’s beneath him, the next it slides backward to Tucker, who sends it across the width of the ice to Dean.
Dean takes one stride, pulls the defence toward him and passes to Logan at the back door. Logan buries it.
The red light comes on. The Briar section erupts so hard the sound seems to push against her skin from every direction. She screams with everyone else, both arms thrown upward as Logan crashes into the glass near the corner and gets swallowed by navy jerseys.
Garrett’s first to grab him. Tucker follows, then Dean launches himself into the group with enough enthusiasm that Logan nearly goes down beneath all three of them. The scoreboard changes.
BRIAR 1.
The number glows above the ice for forty-one seconds before the other team answers. A turnover near the blue line. A breakaway. Briar’s goalie makes the first save, but the rebound kicks loose and an opposing forward gets there before Tucker can tie up his stick.
1-1.
Then 2-1 to them after Dean gets caught too high in the zone and Briar gives up an odd-man rush.
Sienna lowers her sign. “He’s actively refusing to take constructive feedback.”
Briar ties it again before the end of the period. Garrett scores this one.
Tucker wins the puck behind their own net and sends it to Logan, who carries it through centre with two defenders closing. Garrett’s moving beside him, a little behind, his stride long and controlled even though she can see the heaviness beginning in his legs.
Logan waits until the last possible second and slides the puck across. Garrett receives it without looking down. One touch. Then another. He shoots through the defenceman’s legs. The puck hits the back of the net before the goalie has fully dropped.
For half a second, Garrett stays where he is, chest rising beneath the jersey, eyes fixed on the goal like he needs visual confirmation that it really happened. Then he turns. He points directly at her.
There are thousands of people in the building. Hundreds wearing Briar colours. His entire team is skating toward him, Logan already reaching for the top of his helmet while Dean screams something close enough to distort Garrett’s grin.
Still, Garrett finds her. His glove lifts. Two fingers extend toward the glass. Her heart punches once against her ribs.
She points back before she can think better of it, forty-four stretched across her back while the girls around her scream. Garrett’s grin widens, and then Tucker catches him around the shoulders and drags him into the celebration.
“Oh my God,” Lucy says, gripping her upper arm. “That was for you!”
“No way,” she says automatically, voice already ruined from yelling.
“He pointed at your face.”
“He could’ve been pointing at, like, the general student population.”
Kendall looks around them. “Anyone else wearing his jersey and blushing?”
She puts both hands over her cheeks. They are burning.
The goal helps. It should make the earlier problem worse. Garrett pointing at her after scoring in the national championship shouldn’t reduce the pressure of having accidentally told him she loves him. It should drive the sentence deeper, sharpen it, make every thought inside her skull louder.
Instead, something settles. The question is still there, pacing badly inside her. Did he hear? Did he understand? Is he waiting until after the game to say something? Has she just handed him an emotional grenade and then sat down behind plexiglass while he tries to win a championship?
But the game keeps demanding her attention, and Garrett keeps finding her. Every time he comes near their side of the rink, her body locks onto him. The bend of his knees. The tilt of his shoulders. The little shake of one glove after a slash the officials pretend not to see. When he scores, he points. When he assists on Dean’s second-period goal, he glances toward her before the boys have finished celebrating.
It’s not an answer. It feels enough like one to stop her throwing up.
The second period becomes uglier. Nobody has enough energy left for finesse without violence beneath it. The hits get heavier, tempers shorter, every whistle followed by little scrums where gloves climb higher and sticks become objects with plausible deniability.
Dean gets driven face-first into the boards behind the net. His cage strikes the glass with a sound that makes half their row gasp. He pushes backward at once, turns and swings both hands into the chest of the guy behind him.
Tucker gets between them first. This is, perhaps, the least sensible possible person to use as a calming influence, because Tucker’s version of de-escalation involves shoving the other player away hard enough that his skates leave the ice.
The officials grab both Briar players. Dean is yelling. Tucker is quieter, which looks significantly more dangerous.
“Oh, Tuck’s mad,” Paige says.
“How can you tell?” Lucy asks.
“He’s not blinking.”
Across the ice, Garrett circles in, one hand gripping Dean’s shoulder while he talks into the side of his helmet. Whatever he says works. Dean’s posture drops by an inch. Tucker releases the front of the other player’s jersey with the slow reluctance of a man being asked to return stolen property.
The officials send one from each team to the box. Dean skates away mouthing, “Bullshit,” so clearly that the Briar students nearest the glass begin chanting it for him.
The game stays tied until six minutes remain in the second. Then Briar goes ahead. Then gives up the equaliser less than ninety seconds later.
3-3.
The scoreboard becomes a threat hanging over centre ice. The other team scores again after a scramble in front of the net.
4-3.
For the first time all night, the Briar section goes briefly quiet. The sound changes, falling inward around thousands of held breaths while the opposing players celebrate near their bench and Garrett stands several feet away with both hands braced on the top of his stick.
She can see the pressure arrive in him. It’s in the angle of his neck. The way his chin drops. The stillness that overtakes his body while everyone else moves around him.
The old instinct. Mine. My fault. Fix it.
Garrett lifts his head toward the bench. He skates over and leans toward Coach, listening. Tucker joins him. Logan. Dean leaves the penalty box and takes his place at the edge of the group, chest still heaving.
Whatever is said lasts only seconds. Garrett nods once. Then the boys go back out. The next shift is brutal.
Logan takes a hit near centre that spins him completely around. Tucker loses his stick and still manages to kick the puck forward with one skate. Dean blocks a shot off his thigh and nearly folds, gets up anyway and drives into the corner.
Garrett gets the puck beneath the goal line and tries to cut toward the net. The defenceman catches him directly in front of her.
The impact drives Garrett into the boards with enough force that the glass shudders beneath both her hands. His shoulder hits first. Then the side of his helmet. The other player keeps him pinned there, forearm across Garrett’s back, stick trapped between their skates.
She sees Garrett’s face turn against the glass. Sees the flash of his teeth beneath the cage. The fury moving into his eyes. The defenceman gives him one additional shove after the puck is gone.
Garrett explodes backward. He twists free, throws both gloves into the man’s chest and shoves him hard enough that the other player stumbles two strides. The crowd roars immediately, half excitement and half invitation.
The defenceman comes forward again.
“Garrett!” she shouts, slamming one hand against the glass. “Focus!”
He doesn’t look at her. For one horrible second, she thinks he hasn’t heard. Then Garrett’s head tilts slowly to one side. His neck cracks. Even through the glass and the crowd and the scrape of skates, she can practically hear it. He turns away from the defenceman and skates back into the play.
Beside her, Lucy says, very quietly, “Oh, that’s so hot.”
She smacks Lucy’s arm without looking away from the ice. “Hey. My boyfriend.”
“Ow.” Lucy rubs the spot, entirely unrepentant. “Sorry, but I have eyes.”
“Close them.”
“No,” Lucy smirks.
Kendall leans toward them. “In her defence, that was objectively hot.”
“None of you are being supportive.”
“We are incredibly supportive,” Paige says. “We support you having that.”
She looks at all of them with genuine betrayal. “He’s exhausted and being assaulted.”
“And listening when you yell at him through reinforced glass,” Sienna replies. “Very sexy.”
Monique places one steady hand on her shoulder. “You can be concerned and recognise that the neck thing was unfortunately effective.”
“Thank you,” Lucy says.
She stares at Monique. “You too?”
Monique’s mouth tightens. “I’m not dead.”
The period ends 4-3.
The teams disappear into their tunnels, the Garden filling immediately with music and conversation and thousands of people attempting to breathe through the same collective stress. She drops into her seat for the first time in several minutes and realises her legs are shaking.
Lucy gives her water. Monique opens a granola bar and places half of it in her hand without asking. Kendall starts analysing the opposing goalie’s rebound control as if she has been retained by Briar’s coaching staff. She eats because Garrett would somehow sense if she didn’t.
The I love you returns during intermission. Without hockey moving in front of her, the sentence comes back and sits directly on her chest. She stares at the tunnel where Garrett disappeared and replays his face when he scored. The point. The grin. The way he looked toward her after Dean’s goal.
“He heard,” Paige says.
She turns. “What?”
Paige has the good grace to look slightly guilty. “I’m not saying definitely.”
Lucy points at Paige. “We agreed not to bring this up until after.”
“You agreed. I was drinking.”
Monique rubs a hand between her shoulder blades. “It doesn’t matter right now.”
“It matters a lot,” she mumbles.
“Not in a way you can do anything about during intermission.”
That’s so painfully sensible she briefly considers ending the friendship. The lights shift before she can. The teams return, and Briar comes onto the ice differently. She sees it before the puck drops. All the boys look like someone has reached into the locker room and replaced whatever exhaustion was left in them with something sharper.
Dean’s practically bouncing on his skates, jaw moving as he talks continuously at Logan. Tucker rolls one shoulder, then the other, gaze fixed down the ice. Logan taps his stick three times against Garrett’s shin pads. Garrett stands over the face-off dot with his body low and still.
She doesn’t know what Coach said in that room. Maybe he reminded them they had twenty minutes left together. Maybe Garrett spoke. Dean. One of the seniors. Maybe they sat in silence and listened to their own breathing, every one of them understanding there was no sensible reason they should have anything left.
Whatever happened, Briar comes out violent in a completely new direction.
Garrett wins the opening draw. Tucker gets the puck and sends it forward before the opposing centre has finished turning. Logan carries it over the line. Dean drives the net and pulls both defencemen with him.
Garrett trails the play. Logan drops the puck backward. Garrett shoots. Goal. Nine seconds.
The Garden detonates. She’s on her feet, screaming before the red light comes on fully. Garrett circles away from the net and drops onto one knee, fist punching once toward the ice while Logan crashes into him from behind.
4-4.
Garrett stands beneath the weight of all three boys and looks directly toward her, and points. Her throat closes around the noise. She puts both hands to her mouth and blows him a kiss this time. Garrett catches it against his chest with one glove before Dean nearly tackles him into the boards.
“That man so heard you,” Paige says.
“Shut up.”
Briar scores again two minutes later. Tucker this time, a shot from the point that changes direction through traffic and slips beneath the goalie’s arm. Tucker doesn’t even appear certain it went in until Dean grabs both sides of his helmet and screams into his face.
5-4.
Then Logan scores.
6-4.
The opposing coach calls timeout. His players gather around the bench while Briar circles near centre, shoulders bumping and gloves tapping helmets. The entire arena feels tilted now. Briar’s section is on its feet and stays there. Nobody sits again. Every touch of the puck earns a scream. Every clear is celebrated like a goal. Every blocked shot feels personal.
The other team starts taking chances because they have to. That makes them dangerous, it also leaves space.
Dean scores on a breakaway with eight minutes remaining. He comes over the blue line alone, one defenceman chasing. She can feel the entire Briar section inhale. Dean shoots high. The puck hits the crossbar, drops behind the goalie and bounces into the net.
7-4.
Dean skates directly toward their corner with both arms spread, mouth open in a yell. Sienna slams her sign against the glass so hard one corner bends.
“DEFENCE,” she screams.
Dean points at the scoreboard and mouths something that looks very much like, “Don’t need it.”
Garrett reaches him first and shoves him affectionately in the head.
The other team pulls the goalie with three minutes left. The extra attacker floods Briar’s zone. Pucks hit skates, shin pads, sticks. Their goalie makes one save, then another. Tucker dives to knock the rebound away and gets landed on by two bodies.
Garrett clears it down the ice. The puck misses the empty net by inches. The crowd groans.
One minute, twelve seconds.
Her hands are numb from gripping the rail.
Forty-eight seconds.
The puck comes out toward centre. Logan reaches it first, pokes it past one defender and sends it sideways. Garrett has open ice, he takes the puck, crosses the red line and shoots from distance. The puck slides over the ice toward the empty net, turning slightly on its edge. It crosses the line.
8-4.
Garrett doesn’t celebrate immediately, he looks toward her. Even from the other end of the rink, even through the bodies and glass and thousands of people between them, she knows he’s smiling.
He points one final time. Her chest feels too small to contain anything currently inside it. The final seconds come off the clock beneath a wall of sound.
Ten.
Nine.
The boys stop pretending to play normally.
Eight.
Dean’s already grinning.
Seven.
Tucker turns toward the bench.
Six.
Logan lifts one glove.
Five.
The entire Briar section begins counting.
“FOUR!”
Garrett looks toward the scoreboard.
“THREE!”
She grabs Lucy with one hand and Monique with the other.
“TWO!”
The Briar bench empties before the clock reaches one. The buzzer sounds. For a second, she hears nothing.
The noise is too big. It strikes her all at once and wipes itself out, becoming pressure rather than sound, something physical moving through the arena floor and up her legs while the boys throw themselves over the boards.
Briar’s fucking won.
The girls collapse into one another. Lucy screams directly into her ear. Monique, usually the least likely person in any room to lose control of her limbs, grabs her around the neck and jumps hard enough that all three of them stumble into Kendall.
Everyone is crying or laughing or doing both without making a meaningful distinction. Paige spills half her drink over the floor and doesn’t notice. Sienna’s sign bends completely in the middle when she hugs it to her chest.
On the ice, the team becomes one enormous pile of navy jerseys and raised sticks. Garrett disappears beneath it. Dean launches himself on top of Logan. Tucker is somewhere near the bottom, one glove reaching upward as if requesting rescue. Their goalie skates the length of the ice and dives into the mass, sending three players sliding.
Helmets and gloves scatter across the surface. The Briar bench is empty. Coaches stand near the boards with their arms around one another, several of them looking as though they’re trying very hard not to cry on television.
She finds Garrett when the pile begins to break apart. He’s on his knees, helmet gone, curls damp and flattened strangely on one side. Logan has both hands on Garrett’s face. Dean grabs him from behind. Tucker reaches them and folds all three into another hug.
Garrett throws his head back and yells. The sight of it breaks something open inside her. It’s too large and warm and sharp at once, rising behind her ribs until she cannot breathe around it.
Three weeks of watching him drag himself through every practice. Every night he fell asleep before she finished speaking. Every meal she had pushed toward him. Every time he said the team was killing it and left himself out of the sentence.
On the ice, officials and event staff begin organising the presentation. A carpet is carried toward centre. Someone wheels the championship trophy through the open gate, silver catching beneath the arena lights.
The boys see it and lose their minds again. Dean points with both hands like nobody else has noticed the enormous trophy entering the rink. Logan shoves Garrett toward it. Tucker is laughing so hard he bends forward, hands braced on his knees.
Garrett takes two steps with them, then he stops. He turns away from the trophy, his head comes up, eyes moving over the crowd. She knows immediately.
“Oh,” Monique says behind her.
Garrett scans the front rows once, fast and frantic, until he finds her, and the expression on his face changes. She’s already moving.
There’s an opening near the bench where staff have begun letting family and selected guests closer to the ice. She doesn’t ask whether she’s selected. She slips past the end of the row, nearly trips over a folded sign and pushes through the bodies clustered near the gate.
Someone says her name. Maybe Lucy. Maybe a security worker attempting to protect the national championship from overly emotional nursing students.
Garrett’s skating toward her. He reaches the open bench gate just as she does, one hand catching the boards while the other reaches for her.
She throws herself at him. Her sneakers leave the rubber flooring. One knee knocks lightly against the boards and Garrett catches her beneath the thighs with a startled laugh, skates shifting backward on the ice before he steadies.
His arms tighten. He spins her once, the Garden lights sweep through her vision and her stomach lifts while she grabs both sides of his face.
Garrett kisses her before she can speak. It lands crooked at first, half her mouth and half the corner, both of them laughing too hard for accuracy. Then he adjusts his hold and kisses her again. Properly. Hard and warm and breathless, tasting like sweat, cold air and the mint gum he must have been chewing before warm-ups.
She pulls back because there are things she needs to say. “You–” Garrett kisses her. “Baby, you–” Another kiss. Shorter, but still enough to knock the sentence loose. “You won,” she manages when his mouth moves briefly to her cheek. “Garrett, you fucking won.”
“I know.”
His voice cracks on the words. She barely gets to hear it before he kisses her again, one hand leaving beneath her thigh to catch the back of her neck.
Behind him, somebody screams, “GRAHAM, TROPHY!”
Garrett raises one hand over her shoulder without looking and gives the entire team the finger. She laughs into his mouth. “Baby, the trophy.”
He shakes his head once and kisses her again. It’s ridiculous. The championship trophy is thirty feet away. His entire team is shouting his name. Cameras are absolutely capturing the captain of Briar University ignoring the formal presentation to make out with his girlfriend through an open bench gate.
She cannot make herself care. Garrett’s forehead presses against hers. His breathing is rough, chest rising hard beneath her arms, damp curls brushing her fingers where they hold the sides of his face.
His eyes are bright. Something wet catches along his lower lashes before he blinks and laughs like his body has become too full to choose one reaction. “I fucking love you,” he says.
The words strike her in the centre of the chest. For half a second, she can only look at him. Then the laugh comes out of her, thin and startled and so relieved it nearly turns into a sob. Her forehead presses harder against his. “You heard me?”
Garrett lets out one disbelieving breath. “Baby, I heard you.”
“Oh my God.”
“I nearly threw up.”
She laughs harder, both hands sliding into his hair now, holding him close enough that their noses bump. “You nearly threw up?”
“I was about to play for a national championship and my girlfriend just yelled that she loved me through the glass.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
His brows lift.
“No, I mean– I meant it.” Her mouth cannot keep up with her brain. Everything comes out tangled, warm and too fast. “Obviously I meant it. I just didn’t mean to say it then. It slipped out and then you skated away, and I didn’t know if you heard, and Paige said your head moved, but heads move all the time–”
Garrett kisses her once, laughing against her mouth. “You’re spiralling.”
“I’ve been spiralling for three periods,” she groans.
“I know.”
“I was watching you get hit by men the size of refrigerators.”
“And thinking about whether I heard you.”
“Yes.”
His smile goes soft. Tired and overwhelmed and so openly happy that the sight of it makes her throat tighten. “I heard you,” he says again, quieter now. “Every word.”
She touches the little cut near his cheekbone, thumb brushing beneath it without pressing. “I love you so much.”
Garrett closes his eyes for one second. When they open again, there’s no joke waiting there, no grin to make the sentence easier. Only him, holding her against his chest while the Garden roars around them and his team shouts increasingly creative threats from centre ice.
“I love you,” he says. “Fuck, I love you.”
She kisses him because there’s no possible response her mouth could make that would improve on that. Garrett kisses her back immediately, deep enough that another wave of yelling rises from the boys.
“CAPTAIN!”
“WE HAVE A FUCKING TROPHY!”
“GRAHAM, WE’RE ON TV!”
“That one was Tucker,” she whispers against Garrett’s mouth.
Garrett laughs, forehead returning to hers. She looks past him at the boys clustered near centre. Dean has both hands on his hips. Logan is pointing urgently at the trophy. Tucker is shaking his head, but he’s smiling so hard it ruins any attempt at disappointment.
“Okay,” she murmurs. “Okay, go get your trophy.”
Garrett tightens his arms around her. “In a second.”
“Baby.”
“One second.”
“You’re the captain,” she argues.
“I know.”
“They need you.”
He grins. “They’ve needed me all month. They can wait ten more seconds.”
Warmth pushes hard behind her eyes. She swallows it, kisses the corner of his mouth and presses both palms to his cheeks. “I’m so proud of you.”
Garrett’s face shifts. His lips part slightly and his eyes drop for half a second like those words have reached somewhere the championship couldn’t.
She strokes one thumb over his skin. “You did it.”
His throat moves, then he kisses her again, one firm press of his mouth to hers that feels less like interruption now and more like an answer.
“Love you,” he murmurs.
“I love you too.” She gives his shoulders a small push. “Now put me down before Dean starts crying.”
“He’s already crying.”
She looks past Garrett again. Dean’s wiping both eyes with the collar of his jersey while aggressively denying something Logan has said. “Oh.”
“Told you.”
Garrett lowers her carefully. Her sneakers land on the rubber mat beyond the ice, knees wobbling after being held above skates and adrenaline for longer than sensible workplace guidelines would recommend. His hands stay at her waist until he’s sure she is balanced.
“I’ll see you soon,” he says.
“You better.”
His grin returns. Bright, golden and exhausted, split at one corner by the small cut on his lip. “Bossy.”
“National champion or not, you still need to listen.”
“Yes, Coach.”
She leans through the gate and kisses him one last time, quick enough not to trigger another team revolt. “Go.”
Garrett pushes backward onto the ice. She catches his wrist before he gets too far. He turns. Her chest is still heaving. Her face hurts from smiling. His jersey hangs heavy and warm over her body, number stretching across her back while the Briar crowd shakes the building around them.
“Love you, Captain.”
Garrett’s whole face lights. He brings one glove to his mouth and blows her a kiss. She catches it.
“Love you,” he calls.
Then he turns and skates toward the boys. Dean meets him halfway and jumps onto his back, nearly taking both of them down. Logan slams into Garrett’s side. Tucker catches his other shoulder and drags the group toward centre, where the trophy waits beneath the arena lights.
She stands at the open gate watching them go, one hand still closed around Garrett’s imaginary kiss. Then Lucy crashes into her from behind.
“You said it twice,” she screams directly into her hair.
Monique wraps both arms around them. Kendall and Paige arrive next, Sienna pushing in with the damaged sign still trapped beneath one elbow until all six of them are pressed together in a laughing, crying mess beside the bench.
“He heard me,” she says, although no one asked.
Lucy squeezes harder. “We noticed.”
“He loves me.”
“No shit,” Paige replies, voice thick with tears. “He abandoned the national championship trophy to kiss you for five minutes.”
Out on the ice, Garrett reaches centre. The boys crowd around him as officials begin saying things nobody in the building has any intention of hearing. Coach hands him the trophy.
Garrett takes it with both hands. For one brief second, he looks down at the silver beneath his gloves. His mouth presses together. Tucker’s hand lands on the back of his neck. Logan grips one shoulder. Dean has both arms raised already, visibly incapable of waiting.
Then Garrett lifts the trophy over his head. The Garden erupts all over again. She screams with everyone else, hands thrown upward, tears warm on her face and Garrett’s forty-four stretched across her back while the boys jump around him.
The trophy shines above them. Dean’s yelling. Logan’s trying to touch it before Garrett has finished lifting it. Tucker’s head is tipped back in laughter.
And Garrett, standing in the middle of everything he has spent his whole life being pushed toward, looks past the cameras and the confetti beginning to fall and the men crowding around him, and he finds her again.
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Gosh this was so beautiful. It literally had my heart in my mouth. 🥰
