He reached across the table and took my hand. His thumb traced the tape residue still stuck between my knuckles.
"I think about two," he said. "Then two more."
His extension and my contract both had one more year to go. He'd deferred grad school, not abandoned it. Scripps was still there. The ocean wasn't going anywhere.
"Two works," I said.
"Two's a start."
Pratt walked in halfway through our second beer. Wearing a hoodie with the hood up. He ordered something dark on draft without consulting the menu.
Then he spotted us.
"Celebrating without your goalie?" He slid into the edge of the booth uninvited and set his glass down at the precise edge of the table. Within reach, but out of the way.
"You made forty saves," I said. "You're fine."
"Forty-two. And Garrison's breakaway should've been forty-three, but the post did the work."
"The post is part of the team," Kieran said.
"I'll put it in for a bonus."
He sat with his shoulders angled slightly away from the room. Tracked the door every time it opened.
"Media's fishing," he said. "Beat guys asking leading questions tonight. Building a story around the two of you. Ready for that?"
Kieran nodded. "Yeah."
Pratt studied him. Then me.
"Good," he said. "I'm not answering for you."
"Nobody asked you to," Kieran said.
"They will. When they can't crack you two, they'll go to the room. And the room's gonna have to decide what it says."
"The room's fine," I said.
"The room's fine for now." He rolled the glass between his palms, long fingers taped at the knuckles. Blocker blisters. Stick-hand strain. "What happens when someone outside it applies pressure?"
"Are you warning us or worrying?"
Something behind his expression shut like a door. Quick and deliberate.
"Both," he said.
His phone buzzed on the table. He glanced at the screen. His jaw shifted, barely, and he flipped it face down.
"My agent," he said before anyone asked. "Wants to talk about next year."
He stood. Pulled his hood up. Dropped a twenty on the table for a beer that cost eight.
At the edge of the booth, he paused. Looked at our hands, still linked between our glasses.
"Don't disappear," he said.
I watched him move through the bar and out into the wet street.
