The arena didn't like us. The road crowd never did. We won 4–3 in overtime on an Eriksson goal that came off a beautiful wrist shot from the high slot. The quiet in the building afterward was satisfying—in the way road wins always were, the silence of otherpeople's disappointment filling the space where their hope had been.
And through all of it, every shift, every board battle, every faceoff and line change, I felt Abbott's attention from the bench. He wasn't watching the game through me. He was watching me inside the game. The difference was subtle. I played the entire sixty minutes plus overtime knowing his eyes were on me, humming under my skin like a second pulse.
The hotel room smelled like the clean soap scent of Abbott's recent shower and the takeout we'd ordered earlier in the evening. He was on his side of the bed, reading a paperback again—wearing those glasses again. I was sitting against the headboard with my laptop open, pretending to review game film.
I wasn't reviewing game film.
I was sitting three feet from a man who'd been watching me all day with an attention I could no longer pretend was professional.
"You were watching me during warm-ups," I said.
Abbott turned a page. He didn't look up. "I watch everyone during warm-ups."
"Not the same way."
The page-turning stopped. He didn't look up, but the quality of his stillness changed—the difference between calm and held breath.
"How do I watch you?" he asked, his voice almost raw.
"I don't know. That's why I'm asking."
He closed the book. He took off the glasses, and deliberately set both on the nightstand. He was thinking before he answered. Then he looked at me.
"I'm not sure I can explain it."
"Try."
There was another long silence. The room's HVAC hummed. Through the wall, a TV murmured faintly. The light from the bedside lamp cast Abbott's face in warmth. His expression was the most open I'd seen—not vulnerable, exactly, but utterly present.
"I watch you," he said slowly, "because you're worth watching. That's the simplest answer."
"And the complicated answer?"
"The complicated answer is for another time."
He held my gaze. Three seconds. Five. I could see him deciding how much to say, and I could see the moment he decided not to say it.
"Abbott."
"Jamie."
My first name again. The weight of it.
"Are you tired?" he asked.
"No."
"Me neither."
We sat up later than we should have. We talked about the game first. The post-game debrief was a ritual for us, breaking down plays with our combined perspectives. We talked about Eriksson's overtime goal and Luca's assist record. We touched on the defensive coverage that had given their power play trouble. Abbott explained the read on their breakaway attempt, how their forward had telegraphed the deke. I watched his hands as he gestured, the way his fingers mapped angles in the air, the way a goalie's brain worked through space and geometry so casually.
Then the hockey talk ran out and we kept talking. We talked about Theo's latest attempt to get Luca into pottery classes. We talked about Volkov's ongoing feud with Bishop over hotel room protocol and Mikkola finding his footing—how the Finnish connection with Nico was starting to look like real friendship.
"That was you," Abbott said. "You matched them."
"I connected two people who had something in common. It's not engineering."
"It is engineering. You just call it being nice." The corner of his mouth moved up. "You've been doing it your whole career."
