Taylor's already crying laughing. "What was she insuring? Her feelings?"
"Tank, you coming Saturday?" Phil asks. "Fair warning, the coffee is terrible and the rink smells like a locker room had a baby with a wet dog."
"Wouldn't miss it."
Phil pauses mid-drink. "Really?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"Because last time we invited you somewhere, you showed up for thirty-seven minutes and then claimed you had 'a thing.'"
"I did have a thing."
"You had 'being around humans makes me uncomfortable' thing," Taylor cuts in. "But sure, 'a thing.'"
Webb nods. "My kid's birthday. You arrived, ate exactly one slice of pizza, and then vanished like a vampire at sunrise."
"I stayed appropriate amount of time."
"You missed the cake," Phil says. "Who leaves before cake?"
"Someone who hates fun," Taylor adds helpfully.
I take a long drink instead of responding.
Phil's still watching me though. "So what's changed?"
"Nothing's changed."
"Something's changed." Taylor leans forward. "You smiled at practice yesterday. Unsettling."
"I smile."
All three of them look at me.
"You really don't," Webb says.
"You do this thing—" Taylor makes a face like a constipated robot "—that's technically a smile but mostly terrifying."
"Anyway," Phil cuts back in, "whatever's going on with you, keep it up. Less corpse energy is good for team morale."
The wings arrive. Taylor immediately burns his mouth, swears, drinks beer too fast, swears again. Webb shakes his head. Phil's already telling a story about some guy from his Boston days.
"Hendricks started hooking up with someone in PR. Went bad, messy breakup, she still had to coordinate all his media stuff. Kid requested a trade within a month."
"Miller in Tampa married the GM's daughter," Webb adds. "Divorced a year later, couldn't get ice time. Coincidence, sure."
"Front office stuff gets messy," Taylor says through a mouthful of wings. "That's why I keep it simple. Tinder, bad decisions, no workplace entanglements."
"That's not a strategy, that's chaos," Phil says.
"It'ssustainablechaos."
I'm only half-listening. Across the bar, Mitchell's waving down the waitress for another round, already slurring. I catch Daniels' eye, give him a look. The kid immediately intervenes, smooth enough that Mitchell doesn't notice his beer getting swapped for water.
"You just did it again," Phil says.
"Did what?"
