He looks back once — smirks — like he just said something smarter than he meant. Like he surprised himself.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah you do.” He stands up. Grabs his blocker. “FYI I told Jax you were out here already. Just so you know.”
“Brody—”
“Math,” he says. Points at his temple. Walks away.
I sit there.
Great.
I’m doing a loop of the rink when Katarina falls into step beside me.
Two coffees. One extended in my direction without a word. I take it because at this point Katarina offering me coffee is as reliable as sunrise and I’ve stopped pretending I don’t need it.
We walk.
“Conference Final starts Thursday,” she says.
“I know.”
“Big week.”
“Very big week.”
She’s quiet for a moment. We pass the equipment room, the trainer’s office, the hallway that leads to the ice. I’m looking at my coffee. She’s looking straight ahead.
“How are you doing with all of it,” she says.
“Fine. Great. It’s — yeah.”
She looks at me.
“Nova.”
“I’m handling it.”
“I didn’t ask if you were handling it.”
I sip my coffee. She waits. That’s the thing about Katarina — she just waits. No pressure. No follow up. Just enough space that you either fill it or you don’t and she’s fine either way and somehow that’s worse than if she pushed.
We stop at the end of the hall.
I notice her name tag on her jacket, I always read everything — menus, exit signs, name tags, fine print. Occupational hazard.
Katarina Novak.
I almost spit out my coffee.
Novak.
Hanging at the Hard Rock in downtown Tampa. Griffin on his third drink, saying something dismissive about his sister the way he said everything — she made the worst fucking mistake of her life jumping to that joke of a team in Canyon Bay. She always had shitty instincts.
I never asked her name.
I buried that whole chapter — Griffin, Tampa, V. North, all of it — and apparently I buried the last name with it.
