Kieran's document sat in the top drawer of my dresser at home. Seven pages. I'd read it twice the night he gave it to me, once at his kitchen table, and once alone with a beer going warmon the counter. Without him watching, I didn't have to manage my face, and some of his sentences hit me hard. I wasn't ready for him to see that.
Rook dressed two stalls down. Socks, shin guards, pants. Same order, same pace. He'd been here before.
Pratt stretched in the center of the floor, forehead near his knee, eyes closed. His pregame routine evolved from flexibility work to something that looked like prayer. Goalies lived in their own world.
"—and I'm telling you, first-round matchups are cosmically designed to punish anyone who sleeps well the night before. Every metric favors us, which means we'll lose Game 1 because the universe has a subscription to our analytics package and is specifically betting against it—"
"Varga." Rook didn't look up.
"I'm rehearsing my coping mechanisms!"
"You're too caffeinated at nine in the morning."
"Indistinguishable."
Coach Markel entered with a brief statement. "Same game you've been playing. Play it tonight in front of more people. That's the only difference."
He scanned the room once.
"Be ready."
He left.
Team stretch on the floor. I ended up on Kieran's left, close enough that my elbow passed within six inches of his knee when I reached for my ankle.
His shirt rode up when he stretched his arm overhead. An inch of skin above his waistband. I knew the taste of that skin and the feel, the give, beneath my lips. His breathing changed when I kissed the line where his hip started.
I looked at the floor. Held the stretch until my hamstring burned enough to crowd other thoughts out.
When I stood, the heat was still there, sitting low in my stomach like a second pulse. I let it stay. Channeled it into lacing and tension checks.
I grabbed my stick and stood.
The arena was already full when we took the ice. Nineteen thousand people who'd paid playoff prices and expected playoff product. The noise had layers, rising and falling with the play instead of reacting to it. Playoff crowds read the ice.
The first pass was off.
A half-inch of blade angle, the puck arriving at Kieran's tape with a wobble instead of a clean delivery. He collected it without adjustment and moved the play forward. Nobody noticed.
I noticed.
Three months ago, a missed connection would have sent me into an anxiety spiral. Now it landed as information. Adjust. Continue.
Second shift. I drove the net.
Their defenseman picked me up at the hashmarks. Six-three, two-twenty-five, playoff beard filling in like topsoil after rain. He threw a forearm across my chest.
I planted. Blade flat. Stick active.
Kieran carried through the high slot. Drew coverage. Cross cycled low.
Rook's wrister from the point, heavy and low through traffic. Bodies converged. A stick slashed across my shins. The goalie shuffled, trying to track through the screen I was holding with my entire body.
A deflection off a shin pad changed the puck's direction. I got my stick on it. It was a correction, not a shot. My blade was in the only place it could be because I refused to move.
Goal.
The pile-on was immediate. Cross grabbed my shoulders. The defenseman who'd been leaning on me peeled off, disgusted expression on his face.
