I thought about the question I'd asked, the question underneath it, and the door in the back of my mind that I'd been so careful to keep closed.
"Abbott."
"Yeah."
"Whatever's going on with your contract—you'd tell me, right? If it was something real?"
This silence was the longest yet. I'd asked the question that mattered in a room where there was nowhere to hide.
"I'd tell you," he said.
I knew he was lying. Not maliciously, though. The way you lie to someone you're protecting when you haven't figured something out yet. Or the way you lie to someone because the truth would require you to look at something you've both decided to keep in the dark.
"Okay," I said quietly. "Good."
We lay in the quiet. My body was tired from travel but my mind was running. Something was off with Abbott. It had been off before the road trip. I couldn't figure out if it was about his contract or about the two of us. Maybe they were the same thing.
Abbott's breathing slowed into sleep. I lay awake beside him in the dark, listening to the sound of the man I'd organized my entire life around.
He'd asked whether I was really talking about ice time, and I hadn't really answered.
This was how it worked. This was how it had always worked with us—two people lying side by side, saying everything without saying it. Changing it was the one risk that I couldn't make myself take.
I fell asleep eventually. When I woke up at 3 AM to use the bathroom, Abbott had turned toward my side in his sleep, one hand resting on the mattress between us, palm up, fingers loosely curled.
I didn't reach for him. I stood there in the dark, looking at his hand.
This wasn't new. It was older than this road trip, older than this season—older than the car conversation and the mug on my shelf. I'd decided this was enough. I'd made my peace with it. But standing in the bathroom doorway at 3 AM looking at Clay Abbott's hand reaching for me, I realized that making peace and living truth were not the same thing.
I crawled back into bed and lay on my side, watching him.
7
Abbott
Game night. City two.
I sat on the bench in full gear, pads heavy on my legs, blocker and glove resting on the boards, and watched the Storm play hockey from the only angle a backup goalie ever sees it—close enough to read the play, far enough to be irrelevant.
The arena was loud. Columbus was having a good season. Their fans showed up with an energy that pressed against the glass. The boards shook with every hit. The ice was choppy by the second period, the surface punishing lazy skating and rewarding players who read the angles.
Hayes was having a game.
He was on Luca's wing, running the cycle so beautifully it made the media say things likethe Moretti-Hayes connection is becoming one of the premier partnerships in the conference.They were. Luca's vision and Jamie's instinct created lanes that didn't exist until the puck was already in them. I tracked eachshift from the bench, reading the ice and processing the pattern, seeing the game unfold two moves ahead.
Except with Jamie, I was watching something else too. The way his legs drove through a turn. The breadth of his shoulders inside the jersey. The controlled explosion of his skating stride, all power, confident without being flashy. He was effective without demanding attention.
Second period. We were up 2–1. Hayes won a board battle in the corner. I could describe to you exactly how he did it, using his lower body to seal off the defenseman, and the exact moment he shifted his weight to win the leverage battle. I had been watching Jamie Hayes play hockey for years with an attention that bordered on devotional. He stripped the puck with a move that was pure skill and fed Theo for the secondary assist on what became a 3–1 lead. He came off the ice grinning, his helmet loose, sweat darkening the collar of his jersey. He tapped the boards as he slid onto the bench.
Eriksson said something to him that made him laugh. The sound carried over the arena noise and settled in the center of my chest.
Third period, 8:47 remaining. Hayes carried the puck through the neutral zone on a transition rush, head up, reading the lanes. Their defenseman, six-four and 220, lined him up from the blind side.
I saw it happening before Jamie did. His trajectory and the angle of his approach left a split second where his focus on the passing lane left his left shoulder exposed.
The hit came at full speed. It was clean, shoulder to shoulder. The collision sent a boom through the arena and made the crowd gasp. Jamie's stick went one direction and his body went the other. He hit the boards at full velocity.
Four seconds.
