How do you know?
After practice, the team dispersed to showers and training rooms. Tarmek moved through his post-workout routine mechanically—stretching, ice bath, protein shake—hitting every mark with the precision that had become second nature.
Then he walked towards the main entrance.
He didn't mean to. His truck was in the opposite direction, his path home clearly marked in his mental map. But his feet carried him towards the lobby anyway, towards the wall where Edie's mural spread like a window into another world.
He'd avoided looking at it for days.
Hadn't wanted to see her work, her passion, her presence captured in paint and color. Hadn't wanted to acknowledge that she'd created something permanent in a place she insisted on leaving.
But today, he stopped.
The mural was nearly complete.
Tarmek stood in the empty lobby, gear bag forgotten at his feet, and truly looked for the first time.
The wall erupted with life.
Players from every era of Emerald Enforcers history swept across the surface—old-timers in vintage jerseys, modern stars in current colors, all of them captured mid-motion like freeze-frames from the best moments of their careers. The championship celebrations. The overtime victories. The quiet moments in locker rooms that no camera ever captured.
But it wasn't just the players that made him stop breathing.
It was everything else.
The details she'd woven throughout: tiny touches that revealed how deeply she understood this team, this community, this place. The coffee cup from Marge's Diner tucked into a corner, the same cup that half the town carried every morning. The mountains visible through a locker room window, the exact shade of blue-grey that marked Greenwood Hollow's skyline. The vintage poster for the hardware store that had sponsored the team forty years ago, faithfully recreated from a photograph in Sam's office.
She'd captured the feel of this place.
Not just the hockey. The people. The relationships. The quirky, tight-knit community that gathered around the Emerald Enforcers like family.
Evidence, Tarmek thought. This is evidence.
Evidence of her humor—the tiny hidden details that made him look closer, then closer again. A reference to Korvash's obsession with post-game pizza hidden in a crowd scene. A subtle joke about Morrison's legendary temper worked into a locker room motivational poster. Her own initials tucked into the pattern of ice scratches, small enough to miss unless you knew to look.
Evidence of her warmth—the way she'd made every player look heroic without erasing their humanity. The gentle brushstrokes that softened hard edges. The color palette that somehow made hockey look cozy, inviting, like coming home.
Evidence of her place here.
She'd woven herself into this community with every stroke, every detail, every inside joke and local reference. She'd paid attention in a way outsiders never did. She'd seen Greenwood Hollow, really seen it, and translated that seeing into something beautiful and permanent.
She belongs here.
The thought hit him like a slap shot to the chest.
She belonged here, and she was planning to leave.
She belonged here, and he'd let her convince herself that running was safer than staying.
She belonged here—with the team, with the community, with him—and neither of them had been brave enough to say it out loud.
Tarmek stepped closer to the mural, searching the painted faces. There, in the corner of a championship celebration scene—a flash of red hair in the crowd. A woman with freckles and a huge smile, arms raised in victory.
She painted herself in.
The discovery made his throat tight.
Edie had included herself in the history of this team, this arena, this place. Not prominently—you'd have to know her to recognize the figure—but deliberately. Intentionally. Like part of her wanted to stay, even while the rest of her was preparing to run.
