He lifted his head. "We should eat. Our bodies need protein."
"My body is horizontal and committed to staying this way."
"My apartment. My rules. There are eggs."
Heath pulled on boxers and a faded Rhinelander Hockey t-shirt. He walked barefoot into his kitchen. Methodically turned on the stove and placed a pan on the burner.
I heard the refrigerator open. "There are eggs," he called. "Four. One is suspicious."
"Suspicious how?"
"It's giving off energy."
"Eggs don't give off energy."
"This one does. I'm making an executive decision."
I found my boxers. Walked to the kitchen doorway.
He stood at the stove, cracking eggs one-handed. He didn't know I was watching. Or he did, and it changed nothing.
"Scrambled or fried?" he asked without turning.
"Scrambled."
"Good. The pan's too small for frying."
I crossed the kitchen. Put my hand on his lower back. Felt his weight settle toward me. I leaned my head on his shoulder and let Heath take care of us.
Chapter twenty-three
Heath
The line was quiet. No music. No theatrics. Just the scrape of skates and the dull thud of gloves meeting gloves.
Helmets off. Eye contact. A quick, "Good series," or nothing at all.
Boston in six. Their arena was loud enough to feel in my teeth.
By the time I stepped off the ice, sweat had already cooled under my pads. The rink air slid into the gap at my collar and stayed there, sharp and clean. My hands smelled like tape and iron. My mouth tasted like blood I hadn't earned.
We made it to the conference final. Our season ended there.
In the locker room, nobody talked about next year. Cross said you don't. You sit, and you let the straps fall open one at a time.
I leaned forward and pressed my forehead briefly to the top of my stick before I peeled the tape off the blade. Habit, not superstition. A way to mark the end of something that mattered.
Across the room, Kieran stripped tape from his own stick with precise fingers, one long pull, no hesitation. He didn't look at me at first. When he did, he held it. Three seconds, maybe four.Long enough that Varga, mid-sentence about something, trailed off and looked between us before picking his thread back up.
No one was yelling. No one was throwing gear. It hadn't been that kind of loss. They outplayed us. Outlasted.
Rook walked past me with a duffel over his shoulder and clapped my helmet once before I could take it off. "Hell of a run, kid."
I nodded. "Yeah."
He didn't say more. He'd cleared space for me all year, net-front and in meetings. He did it again now by not delivering a speech.
Varga sat three stalls down, one shin pad off, one still strapped, staring at the Ironhawks crest on the wall. "I had a whole speech prepared," he said to no one in particular. "Eloquent. Moving. Historically significant."
