CHAPTER 33

Helena’s POV

The buzzer hit and the world went white. Not literally, but the noise, the lights, the confetti cannons from the rafters all slammed into me at once.

I stood behind the bench with my clipboard still in my hand like an idiot, because for three periods I’d been timing line changes and trying not to throw up from nerves. Now the clipboard was useless. The game was over. We won.

The team poured onto the ice. Their helmets were off, they threw their gloves, grown men were screaming like kids.

Jarrett was in the middle of it, his jersey was soaked, his hair was plastered to his forehead, and that grin breaking across his face that I’d seen in practice but never like this.

A reporter shoved a mic in my face. “Ms. Helena! As team manager, how does it feel?”

I opened my mouth and nothing came out. Then I laughed. “It feels like we earned it. Every single person in that room earned it.”

They let me go. I was supposed to stay professional, stay on the sidelines. Be the executive who cleaned up the league, not the woman crying in the stands.

But the ice was calling me.

I stepped over the boards. My heels hit the rubber and then the ice. It was cold through the soles. The air smelled different down here. It smelled like sweat, tape, metal, and something clean like the first breath you take in January.

Confetti fell in slow motion. It caught in hair, on shoulders, in puddles of melted ice. Cameras were everywhere. I could feel them around me.

I wasn’t looking for Jarrett. I was looking for a quiet corner to breathe.

And then he was there.

He skated straight to me. His skates threw up spray as he stopped, and water hit my ankles. He was breathing hard. His chest heaving under the jersey. His eyes were wild.

“Helena,” he said.

I smiled until my face hurt. “You did it, Captain.”

“We did it,” he corrected.

And then he lifted me. He put one arm under my knees and one around my back, I was off the ground in a second

My clipboard clattered to the ice. I gasped and grabbed his shoulders. He was solid and smelled like exertion and lemon soap.

The cameras flashed, suddenly, someone in the stands screamed.

“Put me down, you maniac,” I said, but I was laughing. “We’re on live TV.”

“Let them watch,” Jarrett said. That arrogant smirk was back, but softer. “You stood by this team when no one else would. You stood by me so let them see it.”

He didn’t put me down. He held me there, in the middle of the ice, while the team skated around us and while the Cup was passed from hand to hand.

And then he kissed me. The noise around me faded for a second, the scent of rust and rain that used to live in my chest was gone.

There was only this. The cold air in my lungs and Jarrett’s hands under me, alongside the taste of salt on his skin.

When he set me down my legs were shaking but he didn’t let go just yet. His forehead rested against mine.

“You okay?” he murmured.

“I’m clear,” I said, and I meant it. For the first time in years, I looked out and there were no shadows. There were no ghosts in the corners, it was just ice, and people, and a future that didn’t feel like a threat.

He grabbed my hand with the tape residue and all, then dragged me toward the Cup.

The team parted. The goalie picked up my clipboard and handed it back with a bow. I rolled my eyes.

Jarrett let me touch the Cup first.

It was heavier than I expected and colder. The metal left a mark on my palm.

I ran my fingers over the engraving and thought of all the names on it. All the women who weren’t allowed to touch it fifty years ago. All the executives who tried to bury me three months ago.

“Your turn,” I said, and pushed it to him.

He lifted it over his head and the arena exploded.

Later, in the hallway, it was chaos. There was champagne, reporters and owners taking credit.

I did three interviews and for once no one asked me about Jarrett. They asked about salary cap reforms. About new mental health resources. About how we rebuilt the culture.

I answered all of them.

When I escaped, Jarrett was waiting by the tunnel, out of his gear, in a suit that didn’t fit because he’d put it on over a t-shirt. He looked exhausted and happy.

“You survived,” he said.

“Barely.” I responded.

He took my hand. “Come on. I want to show you something.”

He led me out a side door, away from the press.

We walked to the empty parking lot, the arena roaring behind us.

Jarrett stopped and turned to me.

“I was thinking about last year,” he said. “The night you told me about your parents. We were in my car and it was raining. You said you didn’t think you’d ever feel light again.”

I remembered everything and I remembered telling him.

“I was wrong,” I said quietly.

“Yeah,” he said. He tucked hair behind my ear. Confetti was still stuck in it. “You were.”

He kissed me again slowly. This time there were no cameras, just distant cheering and our breathing.

When we broke apart, I looked up to see a few stars over the city lights.

“Clear skies,” I said.

“Clear skies,” Jarrett repeated.

He slung his arm around my shoulders and we walked away.

My phone buzzed with a message from the commissioner.

"Proud of you. I am proud of this team. Take the night off, Helena. You’ve earned it.' his message read.

I showed Jarrett and he snorted. “Damn right you have.”

When we got to his car, he opened the door for me. I slid in.

He didn’t start the engine right away. He just looked at me.

“What?” I asked him.

“You’re really here,” he said. “All of you. No walls. No ‘I have to be strong.’ Just you.”

He was right. The grief was still there. It always would be. But it wasn’t driving anymore. It was in the passenger seat, quiet.

“I’m here,” I said.

He nodded and started the car.

We drove home with the windows down. The music playing was too loud. He was singing off-key. I told him he was terrible at singing, he responded and said I was beautiful when I was mad.

At a red light, he took my hand.

“The media will run that clip of me carrying you for a week,” he said.

“I know that.” I responded and rolled my eyes playfully at him.

“Are you okay with that?” he asked.

I thought of the old me. The one who’d panic about optics and professionalism.

“I’m okay,” I said. “Because it was true. You carried me. And I carried you too. Just in different ways.”

The light turned green then he moved.

When we arrived home, we skipped the team party and ordered terrible takeout and ate it on my couch with the TV on mute.

The Cup was on the news. Jarrett had his feet in my lap while I kept finding confetti in my hair hours later.

At some point I fell asleep with my head on his shoulder and dreamt of the Ice but not the cold and empty kind, the kind that held you up and was solid under your feet.

In the morning, the headlines were everywhere.

I read them with coffee and didn’t flinch because the shadows were gone and the ghosts were quiet now.

The betrayal was a story I told in therapy, not a weight in my chest. What I had now was this: a man who looked at me like I was the answer, a team that believed in something and a job that felt like purpose.