Legend (Arizona Vengeance 3)

With forty minutes left until the game starts, I go from workout clothes to my game gear: socks, pants, skates, leg pads, shoulder pads, chest pads, elbow pads, blocker, trapper, sweater, and mask. I once read an article that said today’s goalie equipment costs roughly six thousand dollars. I don’t know for sure since the team ownership pays for that stuff, but I wonder sometimes how my parents afforded for me to play growing up.

Thirty minutes until the puck drops and I’m on the ice with the rest of the team doing warm-ups. The music is cranked loud and the Vengeance fans are ferociously loud which helps to amp me up. I’ve never played for a team with fans that were this vocal during warm-ups. It gets so loud during game play that sometimes I imagine the ice is vibrating with their cheers.

When warm-ups are done, the team returns to the locker room and I open myself up to the coach for a few minutes while he gives us a last-minute pep talk. Coach Perron is fucking phenomenal. He needs to be a motivational speaker if he retires from doing this, because he has the words along with the delivery that always gets the entire team fired up.

By the time we hit the ice for the start of the game, I am as prepared as I will ever be.

Tonight all of my preparation—both mentally and physically—pays off. I’m sharp as a tack and my reflexes are firing on intuition bolstered by skill. It’s deep into the third period and we’re up 1–0. I never bother to look at my stats during a game, so I have no clue if I faced forty, fifty, or sixty shots.

But I’ve stopped them all.

Three minutes left and I’ll have a shutout.

I carefully watch play that’s happening in the Blazers’ territory. Toronto has been surprisingly strong this year, so however many shots I’ve faced, they’ve been legitimately tough to stop.

Tacker takes a hard slap shot that clangs off the post, ricocheting back to almost the blue line. He’s fresh off his ten-game suspension for beating the shit out of another player during a game and he’s playing better than ever. Bishop moves to pick it up, but one of the Blazers hooks his skate and he goes crashing to the ice. Fucking numbnuts referee standing there doesn’t even call a penalty, and worse yet…another Blazer picks up the free puck and has an early jump on all the other guys.

He shoots down ice straight for me.

Justin Meisner, a second-year player who is one of the best stick handlers in the league.

I spread my legs, crouch to protect the goal, and watch the center of Meisner’s chest as he speeds toward me. At center ice, I block out the rest of the arena and everything goes silent in my mind. My gaze drops lower until Justin’s chest is more in my peripheral vision and I can laser onto the puck which he taps back and forth with his stick.

I’m focused.

I’m ready.

I’m going to stop him.

Then…Charlie’s little cherub face enters my mind in Technicolor and I feel intense euphoria sweep through me. My vision dims just a moment, but then it clears and once again I see Meisner bearing down on me.

Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, I chant in my mind.

I’m doing this for Charlie.

Everything I do is for Charlie.

I don’t take the time to figure out why I’m thinking about my daughter when the next few seconds are perilous to me, but she’s all I can think about right now.

Meisner does a quick juke but I don’t fall for it, keeping my body rooted but nimble.

Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.

He knows I’m not going to succumb to a fake, so he makes his move. A quick flick of the wrist as he tries to flip the puck in over my left shoulder.

I’m too fast.

Charlie.

My glove hand shoots like lightning across my body and I make a backhanded catch.

The crowd goes crazy and all I see in my mind is my daughter.

We did it, Charlie. Everything I do, I do for you.

My teammates swarm me and I get multiple head pats while someone—probably Bishop—slaps my ass.

And then I wonder…is Pepper watching the game? Did she see that brilliant save? Is she thinking about me the way I’m thinking about her right now?

During a fucking game.

I give a hard shake of my head.

It’s one thing to think about my daughter but it’s quite a breach of focus to think about a woman, even one as amazing as Pepper. I can’t let that happen again.* * *—

It turns out, Pepper was indeed watching the game, because she told me how great I looked while she was riding my cock. When I came home, I first went to the nursery and checked on Charlie. She was sleeping peacefully, but as I’ve recently become accustomed to, she’ll be waking up a few times during the night to be fed.