Chapter 153 Five Games

Chapter 153 Five Games
Colorado stole game two on their own ice, fast and relentless in a way that reminded Tyler why speed teams gave veteran squads trouble late in long playoff runs, legs finally starting to feel the accumulated weight of two full months of postseason hockey. Roanoke answered in game three, a tight, grinding win that owed more to structure than flash, Carter orchestrating the third period like a man conducting an orchestra that already knew the piece by heart.

Sofia and Emma had started a ritual for the road games, watching from the apartment instead of the family section, Emma's notebook propped against a bowl of popcorn as she tracked every shift with the seriousness of a league official. Tyler got a photo after game three of the two of them asleep on the couch together, the television still glowing, Emma's pencil fallen from her hand mid-sentence. He kept the photo open on his phone through most of the flight home.

Game four went their way too, 5-2, comfortable by the third period in a way playoff games rarely allowed, and Tyler found himself doing the math again on the drive to the rink for game five, three wins needed and Colorado's back against a wall now, a small window opening up ahead of the fourteenth.

Harriet called that week, her voice arriving through the car speaker with the particular warmth she'd carried since the wedding, part business, part something closer to family now that she'd built the arch for Emma's parliamentary building and hosted the whole ceremony on her land.

"Sofia says you might be arriving late if the series runs long," Harriet said. "Wanted you to know the villa in Cape Town holds the reservation regardless of the date. I know the owner. Told her what this trip means to you both, and she said take whatever time the hockey needs."

"Appreciate that. I know Sofia already told you that."

"She told me. I wanted to tell you myself, so you'd stop doing whatever math you're clearly doing every time this series shifts a game either direction." Harriet's laugh carried down the line, easy, knowing. "You've got the rest of your life for anniversaries, Tyler. This one doesn't need to be perfect. It just needs to happen."

"I know. Doesn't stop me wanting it perfect anyway."

"That's the part of you that makes you good at hockey and occasionally exhausting to plan a wedding around. I say that with love." Harriet paused. "How's Carter doing? I saw the announcement."

"Better than I expected. Lighter, he keeps saying. I believe him."

"Good. Tell him the ranch has an open invitation, whenever retirement gets quiet enough that he needs somewhere to be loud again."

Game five that night felt different from the moment warmups ended, the building carrying the specific charge of a crowd that sensed an ending within reach. Colorado came out desperate, their captain throwing his body into every battle along the boards, and Tyler matched it without losing the control he'd spent three years building, absorbing the physical edge of the game instead of escalating it.

Carter scored twice in the second period, the crowd rising both times with a sound that had less to do with the score and more to do with what everyone in the building understood they were watching: a man closing out his career exactly the way he'd played it the whole time, generous, precise, sure of himself.

Tyler added the fourth goal in the third, a breakaway off a Colorado turnover, as he crossed the blue line alone with nothing but ice and the goaltender ahead of him, he thought, briefly and clearly, of Diego at the paddock fence, of every quiet Thursday with Avery that had built the version of him capable of scoring this goal without needing to prove anything to anyone watching except himself. He beat the goaltender clean, five-hole, and didn't celebrate hard, just skated back to the bench with his stick raised low, steady, complete.

Final score 5-1. Series 4-1, Roanoke one win away.

In the tunnel, Carter found him, breathing hard, grinning wide in a way Tyler had rarely seen from him even in the good years. "One more."

"One more."

"You do the math on the flight yet?"

"Every day this week."

"And?"

"If we close it out in game six, I make the flight with two days to spare." Tyler shook his head, half laughing at himself. "Never thought I'd be tracking a championship series against an anniversary trip like they were equally important."

"They are equally important," Carter said, serious now underneath the grin. "That's the whole trick of it: learning both things can matter completely at the same time without one having to lose. Took me most of my career to believe that. Glad you're getting there faster than I did."

Tyler drove home past midnight, city quiet around him, one win away from everything, and thought that Carter was right in a way that went beyond hockey entirely. He didn't need to choose between the two things he wanted most anymore. He'd built a life wide enough to hold both, and driving home now through empty streets toward a woman and a daughter waiting up for him, he let himself feel, plainly, how good that actually was.

He found Sofia awake when he got in, curled on the couch with a single lamp on, Emma long asleep down the hall. She didn't ask about the game. She'd clearly already watched it, already knew the score, already understood everything the fifth win meant without needing him to narrate it.

"One more," she said, echoing Carter's exact words without knowing it, and made room for him on the couch, lifting the blanket so he could slide in beside her.

"One more," he agreed, and pulled her in against his chest instead of just sitting beside her, her hair still damp from a shower, smelling faintly of the same shampoo she'd worn the night of their wedding. She tipped her face up, and he kissed her slowly, unhurried, tasting faintly of the wine she'd been drinking alone in front of the television, and for a while neither of them talked about hockey or flights or anything at all, just traded slow kisses on the couch like two people with absolutely nowhere else to be at one in the morning.

"You smell like the rink," she murmured eventually, laughing against his mouth.

"You could have said something before I kissed you."

"I didn't mind." She pulled him closer by the collar of his shirt, unwilling to actually let the moment end. "Shower first, though. Then come find me."

He did exactly that, and found her waiting in bed with the lamp still on, the rest of the night unspooled slow and warm and entirely theirs, no schedule, no whiteboard, nothing between them but the particular closeness of two people who had learned, the hard way, not to waste a single night either of them got to spend together.