Page 22 of Cherry Picking

Montréal is on the calendar for Thursday, and Bellan has decided the only remedy for our recent lack of effort is to run bag skates until the ice starts to melt. We’re doing blue-line-to-blue-line sprints in sets of five.

Kyo is currently hunched over the boards at the far end, looking like he might actually pass away before the whistle blows.

Augie glides past him, barely breathing hard. “Don’t go toward the light, rook. We need the cap space for the trade deadline.”

“I hope,” Kyo wheezes, his face a vivid shade of purple, “you all get traded to Ottawa.”

Augie grins, tapping the kid’s skates with his stick. “Hear that, Maxie? He’s finally developing some grit.”

I’m carving a slow circle in the neutral zone, barely registering the noise. It’s been less than a week since I flew back from the funeral, and I’ve seamlessly settled back into this version of myself.

Present enough to avoid a fine. Distant enough that nobody tries to start a real conversation.

The front office offered more bereavement leave, but the thought of sitting in my quiet condo with nothing but the static in my skull was worse than the sprints. More leave just means more paperwork and more of Ted fielding calls about my “mental readiness.”

It’s easier to just be a body in a jersey.

Out here, I’m not a man who just buried his baby brother. I’m just the winger who’s been soft on the backcheck since the second intermission.

Bellan blows the whistle, mercifully. “Flow drill, then you’re done. Try not to embarrass me.”

The rotation is simple—give and go, loop wide, find the twine. It’s the kind of mechanical sequence my body handles on autopilot while my mind drifts elsewhere. Augie hits me with a saucer pass that’s almost too pretty.

I roof it, and he immediately points his stick at me, an accusation in his grin. “There he is.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ve been playing like a senior citizen all morning.” He says it lightly, but I can tell he’s watching me closely. “No offense. Most of them have a better backcheck than you.”

“None taken,” I mutter.

Down the bench, Ekman says something in Swedish that makes Öberg laugh so hard he nearly eats it on a crossover. Duval, our goalie, who’s from a small town outside Trois-Rivières and has never once used a contraction in English, is loudly relitigating a blown call from a game two weeks ago that nobody else remembers.

I know these men. That’s the nature of a team—enough shared miles and locker-room hours that the mystery evaporates. Somewhere in the middle of all those flights and bag skates, a few of them became the closest thing I have to a family.

There are no surprises here. After the last two weeks, I could kiss every one of them for the consistency.

We file off the ice in a noisy cluster, the sound bouncing off the tiled walls. Kyo is already flat on his back in the center of the room, still half-armored, staring at the fluorescent lights.

“I think my soul is still at the blue line,” he announces to the ceiling.

“First one’s always free, rook,” Augie says, stepping over him. “Get up. You’re blocking traffic.”

Kyo groans. “This is my permanent residence now.”

I drop onto my bench and begin the tedious process of unlacing. Augie occupies the next stall, bracing his elbows on his knees as he leans in, his voice dropping an octave.

“You good?”

“Yeah, bud. Perfect.”

“Don’t give me that. I’m actually asking.”

“I know you are.” I work a knot out of my shoulder. “I’m good, Augie. Honestly, being here is better than being left to my own thoughts.”

“Okay,” he says, letting it go. It’s a rare show of restraint for a guy who usually has to be physically de-escalated from a conversation. “Then you’re coming to dinner. Hartwell’s place. Low-key dinner.”

Sam Hartwell is our captain, a veteran defenseman with a massive spread in Myers Park and a permanent open-door policy after games. He’s a decent guy and a fun time, and I still just want to go home and power down in the dark.