My phone buzzes. Sierra.
Sierra: They held the shot on your dad all third period. Him and Hartley laughing through the glass. People are already running it next to your byline.
I look up. The box is empty now.
But the country saw it. My father two seats from the man who owns the team I exposed. A disclosure with my name on it. A captain I have stopped pretending I do not love.
None of it is secret. That was supposed to protect me.
I have a source ready to put his name beside mine.
I just watched, on national television, the reason he might take it back.
Ryan
Iwatched the series-clinching goal three times after the media.
Not because I like it.
Because I need to understand why it worked.
On the first replay, I watch the puck.
On the second, Evan.
On the third, myself.
There I am at the edge of the frame, half a beat from calling Evan off and not doing it. It looks like nothing on film. A glove that does not rise. A word that does not leave my mouth.
“You look constipated,” Colt says from the next stall.
“Thank you.”
“Emotionally.”
“That distinction helped.”
Evan walks by with a towel around his neck and stops behind my shoulder. He watches the replay once, silent.
“You almost killed it,” Evan says.
“I did not.”
“No.” Evan’s gaze stays on the screen. “You did not.”
For him, that is mercy.
Finn leans over from two stalls down. “Are we being deep? Because I scored a very important distraction screen.”
“You were offside in spirit,” Zach says.
“Spirit is not reviewable.”
Lex, from across the room, says, “Should be.”
The room laughs.
I let the sound move through me. Let it be messy. Let it not require steering.
