At some point Asher lands in the open seat next to Ikonen, saying something that makes Ikonen look at him with an expression I'd describe as tolerant. They talk for a while, with Asher gesturing with a fork in his hand the entire time. Ikonen doesn't gesture at all.
Midway through the main course, Marchetti pulls out his phone and leans across the table toward Thompson. "Dude." He turns the screen so Thompson can see it. "The hockey in this is SO bad. You have to read it."
Thompson grabs the phone. His eyes go wide. "No way. Is this the one you were telling me about where the guy scores from center ice?"
"IN THE PLAYOFFS," Marchetti says, louder than necessary. "A slapshot. From center ice. In the Stanley Cup Finals."
"That's not how hockey works," I say, because it isn't. That doesn’t make any sense. Not in the playoffs.
"Exactly," Marchetti says, pointing at me with his fork. "That's the whole point. We're documenting the inaccuracies."
Kowalski leans in from Marchetti's other side, completely straight-faced. "It's research. We're compiling data."
"On bad hockey in books?" I ask.
"On bad hockey in fiction. Specifically romance," Kowalski says. "There's a difference. The scope is broader than you'd think."
Thompson is scrolling through Marchetti's phone with the intensity of someone reviewing game film. "Oh, there's a sequel. March. There's a SEQUEL."
"I know," Marchetti says, a smile blooming on his face. "I already bought it."
They huddle over the phone. I turn back to my food. I don't understand why three grown men are this excited about hockey being wrong in a book, but the pasta is good and Jensen's goose story has started a second round of animal encounter stories at the other end of the table, and the restaurant is warm and full of noise. And I am here, with friends and the captains of the team and I want to remember this moment.
After dinner, we stand outside on the sidewalk in the Atlanta heat, which hasn't let up even at nine-thirty at night. Asher is making sure everyone has a ride. Jensen is still telling the goose story to Hájek, who is listening with the wide-eyed focus of someone experiencing a new dialect of English. Ikonen stands a few feet apart from the group, hands in his pockets, watching the street. Not disconnected. Just at his usual distance.
Asher drifts over to him. Ikonen nods once. They stand there for a moment, side by side, not talking.
I pull out my phone and text my mom.
Team dinner tonight. Italian place. Food was great. I think this team is going to be good.
She responds in thirty seconds, because she always responds in thirty seconds.
I'm so proud of you, Samuel. Are you eating enough vegetables?
I look at the twelve guys on the sidewalk, the ones still laughing and the ones saying goodbye and the captain and the alternate captain standing together in a pocket of quiet, and this is the first time since I got here that the team has felt like a team and not just a collection of guys who happen to share a locker room. I don't know what changed. Maybe the dinner. Maybe making friends with the other rookies. Maybe just time.
I text back.
Yes, Mom. I'm eating vegetables.
This is a lie. I had pasta and bread and more pasta. But she doesn't need to know that.
Chapter 14: Novák
Six stalls were empty this morning.
Nobody said anything. That's how cuts work. You show up and the nameplate is gone and the stall is clean and the guy who was icing his knees next to you yesterday is on a flight to somewhere else. The coaches don't announce it. The players don't discuss it. You just count the gaps and do the math and lace up your skates and try not to think about whether your nameplate is next.
Three of the six I didn't know well. Camp invites, older AHL guys who came for the tryout and didn't survive the first week. Two of them I'd spoken to a few times. Talented players. Not good enough, or not the right fit, or just on the wrong side of a numbers game that doesn't care about effort. The sixth was a defenseman from the ECHL who'd been paired with Hájek for a drill on day three. Hájek asked me at lunch where he went. I told him. Hájek nodded and ate his chicken and didn't ask anything else, but we both feel it.
We are all disposable until proven otherwise.
The four of us are still here, though. I don't say this out loud because saying it feels like tempting fate. But I check every morning. Four nameplates. Four stalls. We're still here.
The team that remains is starting to look like an actual team. Clusters formed in week one have solidified into a foundation with structure. In the far corner, the French speakers have a permanent space. Jensen and Murray and Fraser have the ease of men who've survived enough camps to know the rhythm. The goalies exist in their own universe, operating on a frequency the rest of us can't access.
And then there's the cluster I've been watching since dinner the other night.
