CHAPTER ONE
HALEY
The restaurant was too loud, which made it exactly the right volume for a hockey team dinner.
Voices ricocheted off the exposed brick walls of the private room. Someone had strung lights across the ceiling beams in an attempt to create ambiance, but mostly the space felt like what it was, an Italian restaurant that had cleared out its back room for a bunch of orc hockey players who would eat everything not nailed down and probably tip well enough that nobody would mind the noise.
Twenty-three roster players, give or take. Three assistant coaches. My father, Jim, the head coach. A handful of girlfriends and spouses scattered throughout, women who’d learned to navigate this kind of event.
And me.
The girlfriends were polite. They’d learned my name at some point over the last three seasons, though I suspected at least two of them still weren’t sure what I actually did. Staff occupied a weird middle ground. Close enough to see everything, but not quite part of anything. The spouses had their own table, jokes, and years of shared travel stories. They didn’t exclude me on purpose. They just didn’t include me either.
Fine by me. I had a decent glass of wine and there was more where that came from.
My father worked the room, moving between tables with an easy authority that never looked like effort. Suit jacket, no tie, and a shirt open at the collar. He clapped shoulders, listened more than he spoke, and laughed at all the right moments. A few of the newer guys watched him with the kind of attention that meant they were still figuring out what kind of coach he was.
They’d soon find out. He was good at his job, and decent in a way that made people want to be better at theirs.
The new acquisitions stuck out. We had three of them this year, all seated at different tables, all doing their best to fit in with the rest. Two were forwards, one of whom was a prospect called up from the minors, and the other was a veteran winger who’d been traded for cap space reasons nobody had fully explained to me yet. They were both talking and gesturing, new guys trying to prove they wouldn’t be a liability on the ice.
The third new acquisition had found the quietest corner of the room and planted himself there like he intended to stay.
Tolrek Nosh.
I’d watched maybe forty hours of his footage over the summer. I knew him the way I knew all of them, through the small persistent truths that built up across hundreds of clips. He could read a play developing in front of him a half-second before anyone else moved. He used his body to absorb contact differently at thirty-two than he had at twenty-six. A defenseman, he’d never topped a scoresheet in his life, but he didn’t need to.
He sat alone at a two-top near the back wall, as far from the center of the room as the floor plan allowed. Massive even by orc standards, he had to be at least seven feet tall, with dark hair pulled back, medium green skin, pointy-tipped ears, and tusks catching the light when he turned his head. His hands rested flaton his thighs. He wasn’t fidgeting or reaching for a phone. Just sitting the way you do when you’ve spent fifteen years learning how to wait.
His last team had traded him. That part I still didn’t understand.
The room pressed in the way crowds always did. It wasn’t unpleasant, just dense. Too many conversations were happening around me, overloading my brain in the small space. My father caught my eye from across the room and smiled. He was glad I’d come. I smiled back because I was glad he was glad.
But I’d been here an hour. My face hurt from smiling at people who weren’t sure why I was smiling at them.
So I did what I always did at these things. I gravitated toward the edges, in particular, the corner Tolrek had claimed. I set my wineglass down on the high-top table and leaned against the brick wall opposite him, letting the noise become background static instead of something I had to participate in.
Tolrek didn’t look at me. For thirty seconds we occupied the same bit of quiet, two people who’d found the same refuge.
“The loud one’s going to hurt himself,” he finally said, his voice coming out matter-of-fact.
He meant Mikael, a forward who’d been with the team for three seasons and spent most of that time operating at two volume settings, loud and louder. He was demonstrating something that involved a lot of arm movement and a chair he’d tipped back on two legs.
“Before or after he takes out the rookie next to him?” I said.
“During.”
My mouth twitched. I glanced at Tolrek properly for the first time.
He still wasn’t looking at me. His gaze tracked Mikael with the same detached focus someone might give a mildly interesting documentary. His hands still rested on his thighs,and he had no drink. I didn’t see anything to indicate he was doing more than existing in this space until he was allowed to leave.
“You’re not a fan of team dinners,” I said.
“No.”
A lesser conversationalist would’ve felt the need to soften that. Add something about adjusting to the new team, or how he was sure it would get easier, or literally any cushioning whatsoever. Tolrek just let the word hang between us.
I liked him.
