Page 60 of Faking the Goal

After a few seconds, he speaks anyway.

"My mom's cooking."

I look over at him.

He keeps his attention ahead. "You asked what makes me happy. That's another one."

Something about him offering it without being asked makes me keep my mouth shut.

"My sister too," he adds. "When she's not annoying the shit out of me."

I smile.

There it is.

Not hockey. Not winning. Not scouts or records or whatever comes next for him.

Manga. His mother's food. His sister.

Normal things.

For someone who walks around campus looking like he's permanently two seconds away from telling the entire human race to fuck off, Kentaro apparently has a surprisingly ordinary list of things that make him happy.

And somehow, I like that answer more than either of the ones I can actually use for the feature.

CHAPTER 9

KENTARO

The horn tears through the arena like a victory scream. Four-zero. Shutout. My shutout. The puck's still sitting in the corner where Zach cleared it with three seconds left, but nobody gives a shit about the puck. The boys are already swarming the crease, gloves and sticks dropping, a wave of navy and white jerseys coming at me like I'm the last man standing in some messed-up battle royale.

"Attaboy, Kentaro!" Coach Hopper's voice booms from somewhere behind the bench, but it's swallowed by the chaos of my teammates. Someone's hand—Elijah's, I think—slaps the top of my helmet. Then another. Then it's just a barrage of padded gloves tapping my cage, the dull thwacks blending into one sustained percussion of pride.

"That's my fucking goalie!" Zach shouts, his face flushed and grinning like he's the one who stopped thirty-seven shots. "Thirty-seven! You see that? Dude was a wall tonight!"

I'm still on my knees in the crease, catching my breath. The ice beneath me is chewed up and wet, a battlefield of slashes and divots. My legs burn. My shoulders ache. But the scoreboard hanging above center ice tells the only story that matters.

We skate off together, a mess of equipment and exhaustion and the kind of high that only comes from a shutout. The tunnel swallows us—dim, concrete, smelling like sweat and old rubber. I pull my helmet off and my hair falls in damp strands across my forehead. The cold air hits my skin and it feels like waking up.

"Dude, that glove save in the second," Cody says, already rewinding the highlights in his head. "Their captain looked like he was gonna cry."

"Should've seen Murray's face after that one," Zach adds, bumping my shoulder pad with his fist. "Man was taking notes."

The name drops into the conversation like a stone in still water. Clint Murray. The top sports agent in the country, the kind of guy who could change the entire trajectory of a career with one phone call. The one Coach Hopper pulled me aside about three days ago and said "He's coming to watch you this Saturday. Be ready to impress him."

I'd been ready. I'd been more than ready. I'd stayed after practice every night this week, working on my lateral movement until my hips felt like they were filled with gravel. I'd watched film until my eyes burned. I'd made sure that when Clint Fucking Murray sat in those stands, he'd see something worth signing.

And he had. I'd spotted him during the second period—dark suit, silver hair, sitting next to the athletic director with that cool, appraising look that agents wear like a second skin. Watching me. Taking notes on a leather-bound pad he always carry.

"Think he'll call?" Cody asks, peeling tape off his socks.

"He'd be stupid not to," Zach says, and the guys all nod like it's settled.

I pull off my helmet as we reach the tunnel, sweat cooling against my skin, and the grin is still there when a camera flashes somewhere to my left.

I turn toward it and find Taylor standing a few feet away, camera still raised to her face and a smug little smirk already curling her red-painted mouth.

Of course it's her.