Chapter 139: The first goal

​The twins had apparently brought custom, glowing banners with my jersey number on them. The second they caught me looking, Chleo jumped up from her seat, cupping her hands around her mouth to scream my name at the absolute top of her lungs, completely unbothered by the thousands of fans surrounding them.

Chloe was right behind her, laughing loudly and pointing a giant foam finger directly at our bench.

​"KAAAIIINNN! DESTROY THEM!" Chleo’s voice faintly carried over the roar of the crowd, making a few nearby fans turn around and grin.

Haha, they came to watch. I thought, a sudden, tight flush crawled right up the back of my neck. They usually just watched from home, these big sisters of mine, but they decided to show up. I bet they have a lot of jab to rant out about the pictures circulating.

And then, Jennifer, who seemed to be very excited about the game, also yelled,

"DON’T LET THE WHIMPS WIN!"

Ah! I quickly pulled my gaze away, staring fixedly down at the black rubber tape on my hockey stick, desperately wishing the ice would open up and swallow me whole.

They were being too much. Completely shameless. But I didn’t hate it.

​Beside me, the heavy tension in Reid’s shoulders finally broke, a low, genuinely amused chuckle vibrating in his broad chest. "Looks like your fan club arrived in full force, Cap. They’re loud."

​"They’re a public hazard," I muttered under my breath, my jaw locked as I aggressively re-checked the velcro strap on my glove. "Don’t look at them. You’ll only encourage them."

​"Too late," Reid murmured, a lazy, wicked smirk returning to his lips as he leaned back against the bench.

He deliberately caught Chleo’s eye across the glass and gave the twins a brief, casual nod of acknowledgment.

​The stands completely erupted. Chleo practically started hyperventilating, grabbing Chloe’s arm and shaking it violently while pointing at Reid. "Did you see that?! He looked over!" I could practically read her lips from across the rink.

​"McCoy, I swear to God," I hissed, my eyes flashing with absolute warning as I glared up at him.

​Before he could fire back with another smug comment, the referee’s whistle blew twice, loud and piercing.

The starting line was being called to the ice. The easy banter vanished from Reid’s face in an instant, his grey eyes narrowing to steel as he looked back toward the center circle where Edward Stein was skating into position.

​"Time to work, Cap," Reid growled, dropping his visor down with a sharp snap.

The first line climbed over the boards, the sharp metal of our blades biting into the ice with a familiar, crisp crunch. The atmosphere changed instantly. The warm, embarrassing hum of my family’s cheering faded into the background, replaced by the electric, high-stakes static of the game.

​I skated into my position at center ice, taking a deep breath to settle the remaining butterflies in my stomach. The referee approached the circle, the black rubber puck gripped tightly in his hand.

​Edward Stein glided up to the opposite side of the dot. He caught my eye, his posture perfectly balanced, giving me a final, brief nod of respect before he bent low over his stick.

​Right on my left wing, the sheer presence of Reid was suffocating. He didn’t drop into his standard stance immediately. Instead, he slowly drifted an inch closer to the circle than usual, his massive frame hovering just behind my shoulder.

The thick, icy scent of frozen pine spiked so sharply off his jersey it completely cut through the generic smell of the arena’s cooling system. He was staking his claim before the puck even touched the ice.

​Edward’s eyes flicked to Reid for a split second, a look of quiet, intelligent realization passing over the Avalanche captain’s face. He noticed the positioning. He noticed the heavy, territorial aura radiating off the Serpents’ star rookie. But instead of getting rattled, Edward just tightened his grip on his stick, his expression smoothing into pure, competitive focus.

​The referee blew the whistle, his hand dropping.

​The puck hit the ice.

​My reflexes exploded and I slammed my stick down, beating Edward to the draw by a fraction of a second, sending the puck sliding cleanly back toward our defensemen.

​"Go!" I barked, digging my edges into the ice and tearing forward into the Avalanche’s zone.

The pace of the first period was blistering. The Avalanche weren’t just fast; they were playing with a clinical, synchronized fluidity that kept our defensive lines constantly shifting.

​Up on the bench, Coach Devin was leaning over the rail, his face flushed red as he roared instructions over the noise of the crowd.

"Watch the rotation! Don’t let them establish the cycle!" he barked, his clipboard smacking against the boards.

Marcus stood just a few paces behind him, his arms tightly crossed over his chest, his eyes narrowed as he kept a calculated track of the shifting momentum from a managerial distance.

​On the ice, I was centering the first line, trying desperately to anchor our transition game. But something was off.

​Every time Edward Stein took the ice, the Avalanche shifted their standard patterns. Throughout all the video footage Reid and I had reviewed on my tablet the night before, the Avalanche had always relied on a traditional, textbook breakout— Stein would bait the forecheck and dump the puck down the boards.

​But right now, they completely threw out the script.

​It was a tactical trap we had never seen them employ before. Instead of Stein carrying the puck deep into our zone, he deliberately hung back near the neutral zone, acting as a passive decoy. It pulled our third-pair defensemen entirely out of position, lured by the temptation to shut down the rival captain.

​"Cap, watch the weak side!" Reid’s voice cut through the static of grinding skates as he tore down the left wing, his frozen pine scent spiking with a sudden, chaotic urgency.

​But it was too late. The moment our defenseman bit on the bait, Edward didn’t cut inside like he usually did. Instead, he executed a blind, backward drop-pass to a trailing winger who had slipped completely unnoticed into the vacant space.

​The puck zipped across the blue line with terrifying velocity.

​Before our goaltender could even adjust his depth in the crease, the Avalanche winger blasted a one-timer straight into the top right corner of the net. The red light behind the glass flared to life, accompanied by the high-pitched, mocking horn of the opposing team’s successful execution.

​0-1. The Avalanche had struck first.