Page 82 of Puck You Both

"Unacceptable. I met this hair before I met you." Under all the theater, there's sincerity in his voice. "The big red one. That's who walked into—" He catches himself, glances at Patrick, then steers around the thing we don't talk about out loud. "That's who I met. And it's checking out of the league like a rental."

"It was a bet punishment," I say. "It's temporary."

The sound he makes is wounded and French.

"Temporary." He lies back down across us, one flannel sleeve flopped over his eyes. "Everything good in this league is temporary. You know what this is? This is what's wrong with modern hockey. No loyalty. A color gives you the time of your life, and the minute the roots show up, everyone starts saying temporary, like commitment is…"

He falls asleep.

Mid-sentence, mid-grievance, one arm still raised for the gesture. The arm settles slowly down to his chest, his breathing goes long and even, and his weight across my lap turns into dead weight, the full, trusting heaviness of a man who is completely gone.

"Is this…normal?" I ask, quietly, trying not to move.

"Most nights." Patrick's volume matches mine. "You get used to thoughts unfinished."

Under Theo's weight, with the show mumbling to itself, we talk the way you talk when moving isn't an option—sideways, about nothing.

His new pads first, which he hates. Then I give him my speech about factory straps. He takes it with one slow nod.

"My father calls after every game," he says at one point, in regards to nothing. "Every game, my whole career. Doesn't matter the score."

"What does he say when you lose?"

"Same thing he says when I win. 'You dropped your elbow in the second.'"

I huff a laugh into the quiet. "My mother watches from her kitchen. Then she texts me a critique of exactly one save, and then my cholesterol, in that order."

"One save?"

"She picks the worst one. She's never wrong, either. It's upsetting."

Neither of us explains why we're trading this, and nobody checks the time until the time is embarrassing. When I finally move, Theo reflows around a cushion without waking up, one hand closing on the flannel he's apparently keeping. I stand over the two of them for a second longer than the exit requires and just look.

Patrick walks me to the door. After I shrug on my jacket, he hands me my binder with a completely straight face, which I receive with one.

The hallway light is too bright after the cozy glow on Patrick’s apartment. I turn in the doorway to say goodnight, and the urge shows up out of nowhere, fully formed, and completely idiotic.

Kiss him goodnight.

My weight has already started forward before I catch it, half a second before it goes public, and I turn the lean into a nod.

"Goodnight," I say.

"Goodnight, Wallace." If he clocked it, he lets me keep my peace.

The interstate south is empty, time passing in a blur of mile markers, dark farmland, and a windshield with a very large man reflected in it who won't stop smiling. I turn the radio on. I turn it off. I turn it on again. The smile stays.

Somewhere around the state line, I quit pretending I don't know why.

Chapter 16

PATRICK

"GOT A MINUTE?"

Nobody in the history of professional sports has ever been asked for a minute and received good news. Good news doesn't need a minute. Good news gets yelled across the locker room with somebody's towel in the air.

Practice is over, the ice is emptying, and Lindqvist stands there with his helmet under his arm and his face set to Swedish neutral, which tells me nothing, which is the point of Swedish neutral. I follow him toward the bench running a full audit the whole way. Contract year. Deadline looming. Captains hear things before goalies do.