Chapter 66: The Series Win

The final buzzer did not sound so much as explode.

I was already halfway off the bench before the horn finished echoing through the arena, my heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat. Six games, and one series done.

We had won in six.

The noise hit like a storm.

The crowd rose in one violent wave, and for a second the ice itself seemed to shake under my skates. Gloves flew into the air, sticks hit the boards, someone on our bench shouted so loud it cut through everything else. Raffi threw both arms up, Danton slammed a hand against the glass with a look on his face that almost counted as a smile.

I looked up at the scoreboard.

The numbers did not change.

They did not have to.

We had done it.

I turned and caught Cassian already skating toward me from the far side of the ice, his face flushed, mouth open with the force of his breathing, eyes locked on mine with that same sharp heat he always carried when the game tipped into something bigger than hockey.

He looked wrecked and beautiful.

He looked exactly like the man I had wanted to kiss since the first period.

The moment he reached me, I grabbed the front of his jersey and pulled him in.

Cassian did not hesitate.

His hands hit my shoulders, his skates slid under him for balance, and then I kissed him.

The arena blew up.

I felt the roar before I heard it. The crowd rose again, louder this time, and the team behind us erupted into yells and pounding sticks and whooping so wild it sounded unreal. A camera flashed somewhere to my left, then another. Someone shouted my name, someone shouted Cassian’s, I did not care.

Cassian kissed me back like he did not care either.

There was no caution in it. Just the raw, stupid, electric relief of winning and the even more dangerous relief of finally letting everybody see exactly what had been sitting between us all season.

His hand slid up the back of my neck and held me there.

I kissed him again.

The crowd got even louder.

When we broke apart, Cassian was breathing hard, eyes bright, mouth parted, and I could see the grin trying to pull free from the same place mine was living.

A camera kept flashing. Probably several.

Neither of us moved away.

“Seriously?” Cassian said, breathless.

I laughed once and kept my hand on his waist. “You looked at me like that and expected restraint?”

His mouth twitched, then he shook his head once like he had no idea whether to kiss me again or argue.

He did both.

He leaned in and pressed his forehead briefly to mine, just long enough for the noise of the arena to feel far away for half a second. “You are insane.”

I smiled against his mouth. “You kissed me back.”

“Obviously.”

That nearly made me laugh again, but the moment was already spinning out in every direction at once. Our teammates were skating toward us. The crowd was still on its feet. The broadcast cameras were definitely on us. It did not matter.

I finally let him go, just enough for us both to skate back toward the bench with the rest of the team crashing in around us.

Raffi was the first one to hit us.

He grabbed Cassian by the shoulders and shouted, “About damn time!”

Cassian laughed and shoved him off, still grinning so hard it looked like it might crack his face. “You were waiting for that?”

Raffi looked offended. “Waiting? I was rooting for it.”

Danton skated up behind him and gave us both the look of a man who had accepted the emotional collapse of his team years ago and was now simply along for the ride.

“Congratulations,” he said, voice rough. “You earned it.”

I nodded. “Thank you, Coach.”

He pointed at me. “Now stop making out on my ice unless you plan to win the next round too.”

Cassian looked at Danton and said, still breathless, “No promises.”

That got a few laughs.

We skated the line, we tapped gloves. We did the whole thing while the building kept shaking around us. The series was ours now, no more ifs, no more theory. We had survived six games and came out the other side with our names still on the board.

By the time we got to the tunnel, I could still feel the adrenaline hitting like a second heartbeat.

Cassian hit the boards once with his glove as we passed and said, “That was ugly.”

I looked at him. “You are still smiling.”

“I know.”

“You are smiling like it was not ugly.”

He gave me a look out of the corner of his eye. “We won.”

That was all he needed to say.

The locker room was chaos the second we got through the door.

Raffi was in the middle of the room with a towel over his shoulder, making sure everyone knew exactly how much of this win he intended to take credit for.

“Line of the night,” he announced to nobody and everybody at once. “Ice Breakers in six. You are welcome.”

Somebody tossed a towel at his head.

He ducked and laughed.

I stood there for one second just taking it all in, the room half-undressed, half-shouted into, full of sweat and joy and the kind of noise that only came after a hard series win. The air smelled like champagne, spray, and victory. It should have felt overwhelming.

It did.

It also felt perfect.

The team around us was still shouting. Someone had popped another bottle. The locker room door had opened and shut twice already as people came and went. None of that mattered in the second Cassian looked at me.

I kept one hand on his waist.

His eyes dropped briefly to my mouth.

Then back up.

I smiled at him.

He shook his head once, then let out a breath that might have been a laugh if he had not been looking at me like that. “We are not done yet.”

The words landed with the exact force they were supposed to.

I tightened my hold on him just enough for him to feel it. “I know.”

His gaze held mine, dark and bright all at once. “Do you?”

“Yes.”

“You are sure?”

I smiled. “Cassian, we just won in six games.”

His mouth tilted. “That is not what I meant.”

I leaned in and touched my forehead to his for one brief second, just enough to hear him inhale.

Then I said, “I know.”

The words were quieter this time. For him. Only for him.

His shoulders eased by a fraction.

He looked at me, and I could see it in the line of his mouth, the way his eyes were still too alive with the game and the win and the moment we had just thrown in front of everybody.

We were not done.

Not with the series, not with the season, not with each other.

I let the room keep celebrating around us and held his gaze until the noise started to blur at the edges.

Then I grinned at him, real and rare and probably a little feral from the win, and said, “Let’s go win the whole thing.”

Cassian’s face changed immediately.

Not because he was surprised.

Because he had been waiting to hear me say it.

His smile spread slowly and dangerously and beautifully. “That,” he said, “is the only answer I wanted.”

Behind us, the locker room kept roaring. Ahead of us, the next round waited.

Cassian caught my hand before I could step away and gave it one hard squeeze.

I squeezed back.

Then we turned towards the celebration, towards the music and the chaos and the team and the cameras and everything else that came with winning six and earning more.

We were not finished.

We were just getting started.