"See you at practice," I say.
"Yeah."
The morning speaker series fills three pages of notes. None of it sticks.
Practice starts at ten. The passes connect the way they always connect. On the ice, we're flawless. Dante feeds me a backhand pass through traffic without looking, and I bury it top shelf. We turn back for the reset without a glove tap.
Off the ice, he still keeps his eyes somewhere else.
We shower and change while the locker room empties in stages. I wait for Dante by the film room door. He arrives with his notebook under his arm, hair still damp, jaw set.
Addison runs film in the review room. Dante takes the front row, and I sit beside him, the three-inch gap between our chairs measured by habit.
Addison pulls up the Eastbrook tape and points at the forecheck structure in the second period.
"The aggressive gap control on zone entries is creating turnovers," Addison says. "Three forced turnovers in the second period off the same structure. Maddox's piece in the Chronicle last month had the numbers on our forechecking pressure metrics. She was ahead of us on this."
Dante's pen stops against the page.
"Good reporting," Addison says. "Better than some of the scouting reports I get from the conference office."
Dante writes a note, short and precise, then underlines it twice. His notes are flat, hierarchical, all emphasis handled through placement, and underline marks never show up in them. He underlined her forechecking metrics.
I find Maya at the Chronicle office that afternoon. Third floor, corner desk. She's writing, shoulders rounded toward the screen, fingers moving without pause. I lean in the doorway and watch her for ten seconds before she notices me, which is unusual. She always knows when someone enters her space.
"Hey," I say.
She looks up. Her smile reaches her mouth but stalls before her eyes, and her voice comes in a shade too bright. "Hey. How was film?"
"Good. Addison credited your forechecking piece in the room. Called it better than the conference scouting reports."
A reaction flickers across her face, controlled before it fully forms. "What did Dante do?" she asks. Fast.
I tilt my head. "He sat there. Wrote something down. Underlined it."
"Good for him."
"You care what Dante does in film review now?"
"I care about whether the coaching staff takes my analysis seriously. Dante's reaction is a data point."
The sentence is too clean. Maya's casual speech has rough edges, interruptions, half-thoughts. This one comes out even, already polished before it reaches me.
"Maya."
"What?"
"Look at me."
She looks at me. Holds my gaze. Chin up, jaw set. Then she breaks first and looks back at her screen.
Maya doesn't break eye contact with me. She hasn't since she was fifteen.
"What happened when he came to check on you?" I ask.
"He checked on me. He left."
"How long was he there?"
