“Thursday afternoon,” I said. “Four o’clock. Does that work?”
“It does.”
Silence settled between us. He didn’t leave and he didn’t explain why he wasn’t leaving. He just stood there, and I was too aware of how much footage of him I had open on the centerscreen. Three seasons of tape. Before and after the injury. The positioning changes. The hesitation.
He glanced at the computer. At me. Then he left.
I turned back to the monitors, finding him there, frozen mid-stride in a moment I’d been analyzing on and off for at least an hour. The frame showed him three seasons ago, before everything changed, moving across the ice with the kind of certainty that didn’t exist in his current footage.
As I watched him skate through the play again, I realized that I had a problem.
The next day, the team meeting room held all the players, the full coaching staff, and me in the back corner with my laptop. As usual, I liked being on the periphery. I could be ready to pull clips if needed, and I was visible enough to be useful. But I wouldn’t be a distraction. I’d perfected this kind of invisibility over the past three years.
My father stood at the front near the screen, running through the breakdown for the upcoming exhibition opponent. He pulled from my scouting package, the one I’d finished yesterday. The clips played exactly as I’d organized them, color-coded and tagged.
This was good work.
The players mostly paid attention. Some leaned forward, taking notes. Others watched with the absorption of athletes who’d sat through hundreds of these sessions. Crim sat near the front, his attention sharp.
My father pulled the weak-side positioning sequence.
“This is a consistent pattern,” he said. “Their defender drops too deep when the play develops on the strong side. This creates a gap we can exploit.”
I watched the clip play. Six games, same mistake, tagged and isolated.
Crim shook his head. “I’ve played against this team. That’s situational, not consistent. It happens when they’re already down a goal and pressing. It changes their whole structure.”
The room absorbed this.
“Well, then, it’s something to consider,” my father said in a diplomatic tone before moving forward.
I made a note to pull additional clips after the meeting. I’d build the case more thoroughly for the next meeting. This wasn’t the first time I’d been overruled, and it wouldn’t be the last.
“She’s right.” Tolrek’s voice cut through the room.
Every head turned his way.
“The weak-side pattern holds in five of the six games,” he said. “I’ve played against two of those defenders. The positioning gap is a real liability. It’s not situational.”
Crim nodded but didn’t comment.
My father pulled the clip back up and added context that reinforced what Tolrek had said.
Tolrek had spoken up because I was right, and being right mattered more to him than whatever was unresolved between us.
But my folder was getting uncomfortably full.
Sunday was our one genuine day off.
The upcoming Thursday tape session with Tolrek loomed on the calendar like a closed door I’d have to open.
But today was Sunday.
I slept later, which meant eight instead of six. After taking a long shower, I walked to the bakery because the city was quieter on Sunday mornings and the walk was one of the things I’d decided I liked about being here. Pillage and Pastry opened early, and Megha always saved the best raspberry pastries for people who arrived before nine.
I arrived at eight forty-five and stepped inside. The smell of butter and sugar coasted through the air. It was toasty warm from the industrial ovens that had been working since before dawn. Megha stood behind the counter, green-skinned and flour-dusted, two of her three orclings peeking through the kitchen pass-through. One of them must be dangerously close to touching something they shouldn’t.
“Don’t,” Megha called without turning around.
