We drank in silence. It should have been uncomfortable, but it wasn't—not exactly. Varis didn't try to fill the quiet, and neither did I. Most people couldn't stand silence for more than twenty seconds. They'd start talking just to hear themselves. Varis sat at the counter and held his mug with both hands, watching the pale October light spread across the floor, and waited until I said it was time to go.
The Storm facility was a fifteen-minute drive, and Varis spent every second of it looking out the passenger window. He didn't ask about the neighborhood, the route, or where anything was. He absorbed information the way a goalie does—by watching, not asking. His reflection in the glass was a study in controlled stillness. Hands in his lap, shoulders squared, jaw set. Only his eyes moved, tracking street signs, intersections, and the distance between turns. Mapping the route the way he'd mapped the apartment. Exit strategies for a man who expected to need them.
I parked in the players' lot. Varis had his bag on his shoulder before I'd pulled the keys from the ignition. We walked through the facility entrance, security badges, the hallway past the administrative offices, and the corridor that smelled like every rink I'd ever known. The smell of home, if your version of home was a place you went to work instead of rest.
Varis's stride didn't change as we turned toward the locker room, but I caught the slight hitch in his breathing. Theimperceptible squaring of his shoulders, the micro-adjustment of his bag strap. A man bracing for impact.
The locker room fell quiet when we walked in.
Not silent, there was still the background noise of a professional team preparing for practice. Skate blades against rubber mats, the rip of tape, someone's phone playing music softly. But the conversation stopped. Every pair of eyes turned toward the door, tracked Varis for a beat, then looked away with deliberate casualness.
Varis didn't break stride. Shoulders back, chin level, expression blank. But I'd spent eleven years reading the body language of men trying to hide what they felt, and I could see the tension locked into his jaw, the rigidity in his neck, the way his hands tightened on his bag straps.
"Morning," I said to the room.
A few voices returned the greeting. Most didn't.
Luca stood near the center of the room, theCstark on his practice jersey. His dark eyes tracked Varis, professional and measured. Not hostile, but not welcoming either. The look of a captain assessing a variable he hadn't chosen and couldn't control.
"Varis." A statement, not a greeting.
"Moretti." Varis nodded once. "Captain."
"Welcome to Chicago. Your locker's there." Luca gestured to a corner spot. Isolated from the main cluster, away from the captain's row and the veteran stalls. I recognized the placement—it was the spot they'd given the last waiver pickup, the one who'd lasted six games before getting sent down.
Varis moved to the locker without comment. His nameplate was taped on, temporary, the kind of label that peeled off clean when you were done with it. His gear bag sat waiting, shipped from Minnesota. He started unpacking like he'd done this enough times to strip it of ceremony.
Around him, conversations resumed. Pitched low enough to suggest privacy, loud enough to carry.
"I heard he fixed three games in Minnesota."
"It was five. The league's still investigating."
"Can't believe management brought him here. We don't need that kind of—"
"Hey." Theo Callahan materialized beside Varis's stall, dimples on full display, hand extended. "You're Varis, right?"
Varis looked up. Something flickered across his face. Surprise, quickly suppressed. "Yeah."
"Theo Callahan. Winger." His grip was firm and unambiguous. "Don't listen to the gossip. Half these guys couldn't fix their own breakfasts, let alone a hockey game."
I watched from across the room, pretending to adjust my pads. Something loosened in Varis's posture. Not much, it was barely visible, but I'd been looking for it.
"Callahan." Bishop's voice cut across the room like a slap shot. The enforcer stood near Luca, arms folded across his chest. His expression was aimed at Theo but intended for everyone. "Coach wants you for PP1 planning."
Translation:stay away from the new guy.
Theo's smile tightened at the corners. He held it anyway. "Catch you on the ice, Varis."
He walked away. Varis sat in the corner stall and finished lacing his skates in the silence of a man who'd been told, very clearly, where he stood.
On the ice, I settled into my crease and watched Varis try to outskate his own reputation.
He threw himself into warm-up laps with an intensity that bordered on desperate, legs churning, lungs screaming, corners taken tight enough to spray ice across the boards. Every pass he made was crisp. Every positioning choice was textbook. Heanticipated plays before they developed, reading the flow of the drills.
But he was too much. Too aggressive, too sharp. During a three-on-two drill, he stripped the puck from Jamie Hayes, alternate captain, twelve-year veteran, with a move that was technically clean but landed like a challenge. Hayes pulled up and glared.
"Easy, Varis. It's just drills."
