Nobody else notices. The table is loud enough to cover the silence and I’m looking around thinking someone else should be seeing this and nobody is.
After breakfast, I catch him in the hallway outside the elevator. The team scatters, moving toward rooms to pack. Berger is walking with purpose, his bag over one shoulder, his phone in his hand, the posture of a man who does not want to be interrupted.
“Hey.” I fall into step beside him. Keep it easy. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine.” He doesn’t slow down and doesn’t look at me.
“Last night was pretty rough, man.”
“I had too much to drink. It happens.” He presses the elevator button. His voice is level. The voice of a man who considers this conversation settled.
“Berger.”
He turns. Looks at me full on. “You are blowing this out of proportion.” Each word he speaks carries the same measuredcertainty he uses to announce that a Cuban sandwich has been rated a six-point-one. The same cadence, same volume. Like he rehearsed it in the mirror this morning. “I drank too much. It happens.”
The elevator opens. He steps in.
“Call it a four-point-three on the evening scale. Regrettable but within acceptable parameters.” He presses his floor. The door starts to close. “I appreciate the concern.”
The door shuts.
I stand in the hallway looking at brushed metal. Berger’s voice is still in my ears and I’m trying to reconcile what I heard in that elevator last night and what I just heard and I can’t make the two versions fit.
That night’s game is tight, a 3-2 win that comes down to a Hájek redirect in the third. The locker room is loud after and Berger is not in it. Already showered and dressed by the time I get back from media, his stall clean, his bag packed.
On the bus to the airport, I sit down beside him before he can claim a row alone. His headphones are around his neck but not on. The highway hums under us.
“Listen, I’m not trying to make it a thing. I just want to make sure you’re good.”
He looks at me. The same clear eyes. The same settled certainty. “Marchetti. I am good. You are very kind and I appreciate you, man. But I had a bad night. It was one night.” A pause, the smallest recalibration. “And I need you to let it be one bad night.”
His headphones go on. The conversation is over. I move to my usual seat and look out the window at whatever highway we’re on and try to figure out why my chest feels tight when the man just told me, clearly and directly, that he’s fine. My phone buzzes.
He okay?
I stare at the screen and type and delete and type again.
I honestly don’t know. He says it was just a bad night.
Maybe it was.
Three rows ahead, Berger is asleep with his neck pillow positioned at the angle he’s explained is optimal for cervical support during transit. My gut says it wasn’t just a bad night. But I don’t have anything concrete except a feeling.
My gut says it wasn’t.
Zay’s response comes after a long pause.
Mine too. But all you can do is be there for him.
I read it twice. He’s right. And it sits wrong anyway
The second day, Berger is at breakfast. On time. Shirt pressed. Coffee poured without commentary. He answers direct questions and initiates nothing. Mueller asks about updating the wing sauce spreadsheet and Berger says “I’ll get to it” without the prosecutorial energy he usually brings to matters of ranking methodology. Nobody pushes and I want to pull my hair out.
The third morning, Berger walks into breakfast and rates the coffee.
“Five-point-nine. An improvement over yesterday’s offering, which I declined to rate.” He pulls out his phone. “I’m adjusting the hotel coffee index. This chain has been on probation and this is a step toward rehabilitation.”
Mueller looks up. “You can’t put a hotel chain on probation.”
