Chapter 1

Stanley Cup Final. Ten Years Later.

CAL

I've been hitting Ethan Locke for ten years.

Not always legally, not always cleanly. Sometimes only with my eyes, sometimes with words, mostly with the full, undeniable weight of my massive body driving him into the boards. Ten years of crossing ice, a decade of wanting – needing – to leave a mark that he can’t just get up and skate away from. Ten years ago, I wanted to hit him because he mocked me, now I hit him because it’s the only language loud enough to fucking reach him.

The Stanley Cup Final does nothing to blunt those instincts. If anything, it sharpens them.

From the opening shift, I play the game the only way I ever have: loud, violent, absolute. I finish checks that echo, I chase hits that bring the crowd to its feet, I feel the familiar burn in my shoulders and legs and welcome it. Pain means I’m doing my job. Pain means I still matter.

Locke is everywhere that I am not.

He moves with that infuriating calm he’s perfected over the years, his grey eyes unreadable behind the visor. He wears the C now – of course he does – and it sits on his chest like he's always been the Denver Rockies Captain, like it was stitched for him alone. When he glides past my wing, when he directs players with a subtle tilt of his stick, I feel the old resentment rise, hot and immediate.

I skate harder because of him. I hit harder too.

The first period is a collision of styles: my weight slamming bodies into boards, my fists drawing roars from the crowd, my presence rewriting the ice into something devastating and immediate. Every one of my checks earns cheers, every one of my penalties is spun as necessary violence. Half the crowd loves this brutal, brutish version of me, the other half loves to hate it. 

When I get my first penalty, the crowd explodes, again half fury, half delight. I skate to the box with my pulse roaring, sweat slicking my spine. As the door slams shut behind me, I look over at the man that I hate more than anyone on earth.

Ethan is already on the ice, and he takes control of the power play like it’s second nature, his voice cutting through the noise, directing traffic with a lift of his stick, a shift of his shoulders. His team responds instantly, every man falling into place around him.

God, I hate how easy he makes it look. I watch him dominate not with force but with command, his body precise, beautiful in motion, power expressed through restraint instead of explosion. The contrast between us should make me furious, and it fucking does.

By the second period, I’m bleeding time for impact. Two minutes for interference, two more for roughing. The refs know my number, they always do, and I don’t argue with them. I just sit in the box and glare through the glass, chest heaving, sweat stinging my eyes, watching Ethan take over the ice like it’s been waiting for him.

He slows the game down; that’s his real skill. Not his hands, not his vision – though the fucker has both in spades – but the way he dictates tempo, the way he makes everyone else look clumsy and hurried by comparison. He never raises his voice, never slams his stick. He points once, adjusts a formation, waits.

And the game listens.

When I’m released, I come out of the box like a storm. I hit anything wearing the wrong color, I chase contact like it owes me something. I feel myself slipping – my timing off, my stride too aggressive – but I refuse to slow down. Slowing down means surrendering to the rules of Ethan's game, playing the way that he wants me to... and no way I'm caving to him. Not ever.

Late in the third, with the score tied and the building vibrating with anticipation, I make my worst mistake.

I go for him straight-on.

I see Ethan near the blue line, puck on his stick, head up, reading the ice. I step up hard, commit fully, convinced that this – this moment, this hit – will finally be enough to disrupt him. For him to take me seriously, to respect me. See me.

He moves the puck and sidesteps less than a second before I reach him, using all his infuriating grace and strength, and I crash through empty space, momentum carrying me just far enough out of position to matter. The ice opens behind me, and his slap shot follows.

The goal feels inevitable before it even happens.

I slam my stick against the ice once, then again, the blade splintering under the force. The sound is ugly and it's final. The crowd explodes, and I know – before the horn, before the replay – that this is the end. The ref sends me back to the box for five minutes for unsportsmanlike conduct, and I don’t resist.

I sit there, chest burning, hands shaking, watching Ethan Locke dominate the final four minutes of the game with surgical calm. He doesn’t rush, he doesn’t gloat, he doesn't lose focus for one goddamn second. He simply closes the door.

Ten years since I first laid eyes on this asshole, and I'm still here where I started – caged, furious, reduced to spectacle – while he controls the outcome.

I stare at the ice until it scars itself into my vision and I wonder, not for the first time, when brute force stopped being enough, and when I started caring.