I think about that more than I should.
I’m thinking about it right now.
The sponsor dinner is for a hockey equipment brand.
New blocker design — lighter, engineered specifically for goalies with hand injury history. Better wrist protection. The rep is enthusiastic and detailed and genuinely loves what he builds and I’m writing everything down in my professional notebook because that’s what I’m here for.
When he mentions the wrist protection I watch Jax’s face.
Something crosses it.
Quick. Controlled. Gone before anyone else at the table catches it.
The same thing he did in the physio suite. The same thing he does every time something gets close to the hand. Takes it in, processes it, puts it somewhere, keeps going.
I wrote about that injury as a character flaw.
I think about that every time I see him swallow the reaction and keep going. Every time I think about what I wrote and what it actually was and the distance between those two things.
He deserved better than what I gave him.
Nova Shaw is trying.
I write it all down and say nothing about any of it.
Across the room, Carson Webb is working the same crowd I am.
I clock him the way you clock weather coming in. Webb runs the outlet that prints what everyone else is too careful to touch — the byline that turns a rumor into a headline and lets the lawyers sort it out after. He’s been angling for embedded access to this team all season and didn’t get it.
I did.
He hasn’t forgotten that, and he doesn’t bother pretending otherwise.
He catches me looking. Lifts his glass an inch. Smiles like he knows something.
I look away first. File it underdeal with later.
Ryan sits next to me forty minutes in. Sports agent. Handles three Cyclones players — not Jax. He’s hot and he knows it. Genuinely funny with actual material.
He asks my opinion on my latest feature about Jax.
I give it.
He listens. Asks a smart follow-up. Then, because the universe has apparently decided subtlety is beneath it, he mentions the old V. North piece.
“Brutal article,” he says, lowering his voice like that makes it less of a knife. “People still remember that one.”
My pen stills for half a second.
Not long enough for anyone else to notice.
Long enough for me to feel it.
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
I don’t look at it.
I already know.
