I pulled the lace through the fifth eyelet. Sixth. Seventh.
The trade was real. Not a rumor Varga had inflated for dramatic effect. Pratt's agent. Somebody in the network. Three teams calling.
I was in a package.
Cap space thing.
Mathers's extension fixed it.
Kieran knew.
The conclusion landed cleanly. Kieran signed the extension on deadline morning. The trade package dissolved. I stayed.
He knew they were moving me. He signed to stop it.
All of my recent goals flashed through the back of my mind. I'd believed the ground underneath them was mine.
I finished lacing the right skate. Checked the tension. Checked it again.
Did I stay because I earned it, or because Kieran changed the numbers?
The question pressed against the inside of my ribs like the moment before a hit you can see coming and can't avoid.
Across the room, Varga had moved on to ranking the best airport Cinnabons by region.
Nobody looked at me.
I stood. Grabbed my stick.
Markel ran a neutral-zone drill. Three-on-three, tight rotations, and puck support through the middle of the ice. Standard structure. The kind of rep I'd run two hundred times since October.
Kieran lined up on my right.
His stick sat flat on the ice. Weight distributed. Shoulders level.
I planted on the left half-wall. Blade down.
Cross won the draw back to the point. Rook collected and surveyed. The lane through the slot was clogged. He cycled low to the corner. I drove the net.
Kieran carried wide. Drew their weak-side coverage with a head fake I'd seen a hundred times. The passing lane cracked open between his defender and the net-front traffic.
He released the puck.
Tape to tape. Same timing. Same trajectory. The pass arrived at the exact spot my blade was supposed to be, because Kieran Mathers had spent five months learning where I'd be before I got there.
I hesitated.
Half a beat. Less than a second. The puck hit my blade and sat there for one extra fraction of a second before I moved it.
A month ago, I would have redirected without thought. See the opening, commit, and deal with the aftermath. That was how I played. How I scored, and how I did everything that mattered.
Now I stood in the lane Kieran had built for me and wondered who had paid for the space where I stood.
I shot. Holloway kicked it out. Routine save on what should have been a routine goal.
I circled back through the high slot. Reset my edges. Found the wall and planted like nothing had shifted. My stick went flat on the ice. Weight redistributed.
Markel's whistle. Line change.
