The highway opens ahead.
Four hours.
Maybe less if the roads stay clear and I break laws carefully.
Maybe more if weather moves in.
Too much time either way.
For the first hour, neither of us speaks.
I drive with both hands on the wheel, game sweat drying cold under my hoodie, left thigh pulsing where a high shot caught me. My body has not caught up. It still wants a bench, a shift, a puck rimmed hard around the boards. It wants a problem that can be solved by winning a draw or blocking a shot.
My phone buzzes in the cupholder.
Zach: Won 4-2. Colt got the GWG. Everyone knows family emergency and nothing else. We got you, Cap.
Then Evan: Room did not implode. You owe me admiration and possibly steak.
I read both messages twice.
They won.
The old part of me reaches for guilt.
I set the phone down.
“They won,” I say.
Peyton turns from the window. “Good.”
Just that.
No lecture. No softening. She knows what it costs and refuses to make it smaller.
Another thirty miles pass.
“Last time,” I say, and the words sound scraped out, “I let them handle it.”
Peyton’s hands tighten in her lap.
“When Mom had the first surgery. Bob had a helicopter waiting before I’d even left the building. Silas managed every piece of it.” My grip tightens. “I let them. I told myself letting the machine move me was the same as being there. Efficient. Smart.”
“Was it?”
I glance at her.
“I don’t know.”
“Then maybe it was the best answer you had then.”
“And tonight?”
Her face turns toward the dark windshield. “Tonight you had a different answer.”
I let that sit.
The road hums under the tires. The dark presses close around the cab.
