Five Years Later...
Craig
The arena must still be cold despite the heaters suspended from the ceilings, judging by the way Meg and Ellis keep rubbing their mittens together and huddling in close to each other. But the sight of them, so close—it warms me more than I can put into words.
I can see them from my vantage point on the bench between Grayson and Lukas, and my heart is still beating wildly from the goal I just scored. The goal that made the crowds scream and cheer.
The goal that made my little family proud of me.
It’s been a long road to get here, a winding one that I wasn’t sure was going to l
ead me here at all, but tonight is my first game played on home ice for the NHL. I’d given it all up in order to be a good father to Ellis, in order to do what I thought was right for him. For us.
What I didn’t bargain for was the force to be reckoned with that I married. Yep, Megan agreed to be my wife two years ago. When I hear someone call her by her full name now, Megan Connelly, a bloom of pride erupts inside me. Every time. I still can’t believe she chose me. Chose us.
Meg is the best mother to Ellis that I could have ever dreamed of. She may not have expected to meet me, or him, five years ago, but you’d never know she had reservations or second thoughts about whether she could handle that kind of responsibility now. Ellis adores her.
So do I.
Even more so since she’s the one who convinced me to go back to university, finish up what I’d started. Get back in the game. Or the hockey game, that is. And I did. I fought tooth and nail to get back on the college hockey team after almost a year and a half of being away from school. Thank God my track record had been spotless on paper. After that, my efforts and determination paid off.
Each game, each goal, each night away from home...Megan has been my rock throughout all of it. And when I was finally drafted to the NHL at the ripe old age of twenty-seven, I knew that Megan had been right—I’d been holding myself back.
Probably the most shocking move we made was to move out of Cardon Springs. We say it’s only temporary, and for that reason I made the choice not to sell the repair shop, instead choosing to hire two licensed mechanics to run the place in my absence.
Will we eventually go back? Perhaps. But I couldn’t let Megan hold herself back, either. Especially not for me. So, we bought a place three hours away, close enough to visit my parents and Aunt Nancy when we can, but closer to the bigger city to allow Meg more lucrative job opportunities. She was snatched up by Dallas Daily the moment she sent in an application—I like to say it’s because she’s just that fucking good—and she hasn’t looked back.
Thirty seconds left on the clock. The opposing team has just been given a penalty for high-sticking. Shit’s about to hit the fan. The goal I just scored tied the game. The tension in the arena is palpable.
People are screaming as there’s a breakaway. Johnny, who plays defense, has the puck. In a flash, a red-uniformed player from the opposing team cuts him off. A second later, he’s smashed into the boards and the puck is lost in the shuffle.
“Get in there!” our coach bellows across the ice.
I lurch forward, my large hands gripping the edge of the boards so damn tight that I know my knuckles must be white inside my gloves. “C’mon!” I mutter under my breath.
Jacob gets past the other team’s defense and skates hard, skating around the skirmish and managing to scoop the puck from within it. Every glide he takes pushes him closer to the net.
He’s going for it.
The goalie is watching him, readying himself, positioning his stick, bending as he awaits him.
Jacob ducks around one of the other team’s players, members of our own team pushing them out of the way, giving him every chance to make the shot. He pulls his stick back, eyes locked, and fires the puck toward the net.
Other than the rush of my pounding blood in my ears, I can hear nothing, see nothing. Everything stops except for the trajectory of that puck.
The goalie’s glove comes up, and the puck sails just above it, landing against the threaded net, followed by the loud buzzer of the clock running out.
The entire arena erupts into cheers, every person in that room hitting their feet and pounding incessantly on the boards in excitement.
As Jacob is bombarded by the other players on the ice in victory, I steal a glance across the ice to the two people standing in the front row of benches. Ellis is jumping up and down, his eyes wide and his hands in the air, and Megan is still clapping, wearing the biggest grin I’ve ever seen on her pretty face. She reaches down and high-fives my son.
Our son.
This is what life is supposed to be about. Not about hiding from the things that we fear in hopes that we won’t make mistakes, but about making mistakes and learning from them in hopes of living the fullest life we can in the amount of time we’ve got.
This is what really living feels like, and I love it, thanks to Megan and Ellis.
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