“Stop looking at it,” he teases.
“I’m not.”
He smiles. “You are.”
“It’s purple.”
“Yeah.” He squeezes my hand and keeps talking. Percy made some glove save in the third period. Stanley’s celly on his second-period goal was, in Coach’s words, the worst celly Coach has seen in fifteen years of college hockey, and Coach pulled Stan aside on the bench after the next shift to tell him to never do thatagain. I laugh into the collar of my jacket. I can picture Coach’s face.
“What did Stan say?”
“Stan said he didn’t know what he was apologizing for.”
“Of course.”
“Then he scored again Saturday and did the same celly.”
I laugh harder.
He gets to Saturday — the goal that ticked the post on the way in, the second of his college career to do that, he says, and then he glances at me sideways and adds, “the empty-netter was for you,” and my face gets hot, not really understanding what he means, but he’s sweet when he says it. He says Coach mentioned the scouts in passing pre-game and refused to elaborate, so he knew he had to play a good game. He tells me how Stanley spent dinner Saturday night reenacting the brawl with a Camdendstick, Rowan toasted Percy for being a wall, and that Blue grinned at him across the locker room for the first time all weekend after the second goal went in.
By the time he gets to Stanley and the Camdendstick, I’m laughing on the sidewalk. He’s grinning at me while he tells it. I haven’t looked at my phone in two blocks. The cold has stopped registering. He’s holding my hand like he isn’t going to let go of it for the rest of the afternoon.
“Have you eaten?”
I nod. “Yeah, I had a small Camdenkfast.”
“Do you want to walk in the park with me?”
I smile. “Yeah.”
The park is two blocks past his house. It’s a small city park with a creek that runs through the middle and a paved path that loops the perimeter. There are three benches. There is a small playground at the south end. The grass is a pale yellow. The trees that line the path are bare. There’s a man in a green coatthat’s throwing a tennis ball for a black lab, and a woman with a stroller. Otherwise, it’s us. We walk the path.
“My agent called this morning.”
I look over at him as my heart sinks. “Sam?”
He nods. “Yeah. You remembered his name?”
I nod.
“He wants me in Vancouver in January. For a visit.” He’s looking down the path while he says it.
“Like a — formal visit?” I ask.
“Sit down with the front office. Skate with the development guys. The whole thing.”
“Benson.” I tighten my grip on his hand. “That’s great.”
I want to say something else, but I don’t know what it is yet, so I let the gravel be loud under our shoes for a beat and watch a piece of his Camdenth come out of him on the cold air. He’s not Camdenthing the same way he was two minutes ago, when he was telling me about Stanley and the Camdendstick.
“You’re going, right?” I ask, starting to feel nervous.
“I don’t know yet.”
“What?” I thought this was his dream.
“That’s the whole answer. I don’t know.”
