Unbreakable(67)

Five minutes later, the refs blow the whistle, and Violet lets out a string of curse words.

“He barely even touched him,” Violet complains. “What a total bullshit call!”

I can’t help but snicker. Despite Violet’s mild-mannered personality, all bets are off when it comes to sports. She’s got a competitive streak a few kilometers wide.

The referee makes a motion with his hands, and Peyton gives me a blank stare. “Okay, what’s that whistle for?”

“It’s a hooking penalty,” I tell her. “The ref says that John Breaker, the Wolverines captain, hooked the Ottawa player with his stick.”

“Because the ref needs effing glasses!” Violet hollers.

I shoot her an amused look. “Little kids around, remember?”

“Effing is an acceptable word,” she mutters.

“So what happens now?” Peyton asks me.

“Breaker has to go sit in the penalty box for two minutes, so that leaves the team shorthanded. It will be five-on-four hockey until he comes back out.”

Ottawa is all over the Wolverine’s zone during their power play. It almost feels like they have seven of their guys out there and not five. They circle like sharks, trying to set up a play. One of Ottawa’s defensemen takes a blistering shot from the blue line, and their forward, who’s standing right in the slot, deflects the puck past the goaltender and into the Wolverines net.

The red light comes on, and the crowd lets out a collective groan of defeat.

“Motherf*cker!” Peyton yells. “No!”

We might just turn her into a sports fan yet.

Violet sinks back into her seat. “Well, that totally sucks.”

“Power play goal,” I grumble. “Motherf*cker is right.”

The crowd remains silent during the last minute of the period until the buzzer sounds.

“There’s only one period left, right?” Peyton asks.

“Yeah,” I reply. I wonder what kind of talk the Coach will give the Wolverines back in the locker room to fire them up. I’d hate for Will’s first call up to end in a loss, but that’s the nature of the game. You can’t win them all.

My phone buzzes with a text. I pull it from my pocket and see Sully’s name on the screen.

Sully: You guys up for Grano’s Steakhouse after this? Want to take Will out to celebrate.

Me: Yeah, we’re up for it. You paying?

Sully: Yeah, I am. I f*cking owe him big time. And I guess I owe you, too. So my treat. We’ll meet you at your section after the game. Just stay there.

I smile down at the phone. When Sully came over to talk to me yesterday, he apologized and said he was going to apologize to Will, too. We talked for a long time, and he even admitted how ashamed he was for what he did to Will.

He used every connection he had to get us seats close to the glass for this game. It was important to him that Will knew we were here. When he came over with the tickets in hand on game day, I’d cried. He’d paid so much money but didn’t even blink an eye. He told me that’s what family does—you’re there for each other no matter what. So I got to work making my sign, went out and bought the cigars, and got my custom jersey made.

I still have no idea what got into Sully, but he told me he’d back off if Will and I wanted to be together. Even though according to him it was still “really f*cking weird,” but he wanted the two most important people in his life to be happy, and he wasn’t going to stand in our way. I told him what happened at Glyka and said I wasn’t sure anything would happen, because I wasn’t sure how Will felt about me. He’d gotten an odd expression on his face, but repeated that if we ended up together, he wouldn’t stand in our way.

Judging by the look on Will’s face earlier, I think he’ll be up for accepting Sully’s apology. At least I hope so, because having two of my favorite people at war has been utter hell on all of us.

Me: Thanks, brother. Now they just gotta win this game.

Sully: They’ll come back. They’re getting chances.

He’s right, but will they be able to capitalize on those chances?

We got our answer with five minutes remaining in the third period.

There’ve been so many times during the past fifteen minutes where the Wolverines came within a hair’s breadth of scoring, but Ottawa’s goalie is practically standing on his head, making save after impossible save.

On one shot, a Wolverines forward hit the crossbar, and the loud clink reverberated through the entire arena along with the frustrated groans of the crowd.

Two minutes later, another one of our forwards fired a shot and hit the post. Another loud clink echoed off the metal, and the crowd let out a collective gasp of disappointment.

“Jesus Christ,” I mutter. “Someone’s got to score. I’m going to have an anxiety attack any second.”

“I’m already there,” Peyton says, shooting me a dejected look. “I can’t stand it.”

“They’re gonna score, I can feel it,” Violet says, leaning forward. “I just know it.”

The crowd begins chanting “Wol-ver-ines! Wol-ver-ines!” so loudly that a woman nearby covers her toddler’s ears with her hands.

Will’s line hits the ice flying, and even I can sense their desperation to get a puck into the back of the net.