When I passed his stall, he tapped my skate with the edge of his blocker. The gesture was casual. The timing wasn't. He'd waited until the cameras were pointed elsewhere.
"About time you started aiming," he said.
I grinned. "Luck."
"Sure." Then, quieter: "Hell of a redirect. You stayed with it."
"Had a good feed."
"You had good feet. Don't sell it short."
Pratt handed out information, not compliments. Cold, precise, and stripped of sentiment. The addendum meant something. I just wasn't sure what.
Reporters had been circling recently. Vezina Trophy dark-horse talk. Questions about whether he felt underappreciated.
He shrugged it off. Said the right things.
Markel stepped into the center of the room.
The volume dropped without him raising his voice. It always did. He stood there, no clipboard and no notes. He waited until the room came to him.
"You earned it," he said.
His eyes moved across the room. Landed on Rook. On Cross.
Then on me. On Kieran.
"Don't leave early."
Later that night, Kieran and I visited the Northbound.
Same booth we'd been coming to since January, when the bar was just a bar and not the place where we'd reconstructed ourselves across a scarred table.
It was louder than usual. Half the neighborhood had drifted in after the game, and someone convinced the bartender to put the replay on both TVs. Ironhawks jerseys outnumbered civilian clothes three to one.
Melvin drifted in his usual lazy circles, supremely unbothered by the increased foot traffic. He'd outlasted two bartenders and one renovation. Playoff hockey didn't register.
On the screen above the bar: our goal. Foreheads touching. The broadcast graphic underneath:Donnelly-Mathers connection, 18 goals this season.
Partnership. Best line in the Central.
Kieran watched it once. Then looked back at me, and whatever he'd been studying in the replay dissolved.
"Mom wants you for the Fourth of July," I said.
"Rhinelander?"
"Maggie's threatening to interrogate you."
"Your sister doesn't threaten. She schedules."
"Same thing in our house."
He smiled. A genuine one, slightly lopsided.
I picked at the label on my beer. "You ever think about what this looks like in a few years?"
A year ago that question would have shut us both down.
