Page 25 of Cherry Picking

On the ice, the man is economical. There’s no wasted motion in his stride, which I suppose I should’ve expected. He takes a pass, loses the handle, and fights to get it back. There’s a heavy hit along the boards that makes me wince while Murphy grunts his gruff approval.

I scrunch my nose. “That’s allowed?”

“Encouraged, even.”

Montréal goes up by two before the second period is over, and Murphy has words about both goals.

Late in the second, the camera holds on a close-up of Briggs at the bench, and Murphy goes uncomfortably quiet. He swipes a thumb across his upper lip, his gaze fixed on the monitor.

“I put the last two games on,” he says to the TV. “Sat right here in this chair. They played Chicago on Thursday, then Minnesota on Saturday.” He turns the remote over in his hand, tracing the plastic. “Ziggy used to watch with me. He liked watching his brother play.” A beat of silence. “First time I’ve watched one with somebody else since he . . . Well, funny it’s you.”

I don’t reach over to pat his arm. I don’t tell him it eventually gets easier, because I don’t know whether or not that’s actually true. Sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes you just get more proficient at carrying it.

For now, I just sit in the heavy feeling with him, like my dad taught me to do.

“Do you want me to shut up with the newbie questions and just let you watch?” I ask softly.

“That’s alright,” he says earnestly. “Zig at least knew the rules, but you’re growing on me, kid.”

I press a hand to my chest. “I thought Briggs said you were picky.”

“I’m real choosy. You’re the exception.”

The third period opens with Charlotte pinned in their own end for what feels like a decade. Murphy keeps up a low, frantic commentary I can only half follow—clear it, clear it, there you go—and I catch myself tracking number thirteen every time his skates hit the ice.

Charlotte gets one back early. The clock bleeds down after that, red numbers ticking away, and nothing happens for a long, tense stretch.

Then, with four minutes left and Charlotte still trailing by one, Murphy sits forward. There’s a frantic scramble in front of the Montréal net, a mess of bodies and sticks. Out of the chaos, the puck squirts loose to Briggs at a bad angle. He does something with his wrists I don’t have the vocabulary for, and the puck soars toward the net—

I’m on my feet.

I don’t consciously decide to be. One second, I’m sitting, and the next, I’m standing with both hands pressed to my mouth. The goal horn is wailing, the announcers are shouting, and so am I.

Murphy is laughing at me now, a full and delighted sound.

“Sit down, you goofball,” he says. “You don’t even know what just happened.”

“He scored! Is that two points?”

“It’s one goal, which is one goal. Basketball’s the one you’re thinking of.” He wipes at his eye with the back of his wrist. “Christ. You are just as bad as Zig was.”

I sink back onto the cushion.

I’ve never cared much for sports. Not at all, really. I never paid any mind to the big screens at the bars during March Madness or the World Series. I’ve definitely never watched a full hockey game before this one.

But I know the man in the brick-red thirteen. I’ve argued with him about my muffler, and I’ve watched him sign for his brother’s grave. That changes the math. Suddenly, the score means something real, because he means something.

To me, he’s a real person now, not just a jersey.

With under a minute left in the game, Charlotte scores again. They win, 3–2. Murphy makes me stay through all the handshakes and the interviews and the three guys in suits breaking down a replay for ten minutes. I allow it, because his face has gone loose and happy.

I won’t dare take that look for granted.

By the time I clock out for the day, the desert is already turning a deep, bruised blue at the edges. I drive home in my Corolla, which is running with a terrifying, smooth silence ever since Briggs paid for the tune-up.

It was an unnecessary gesture—a fourteen-hundred-dollar “work expense” he bullied me into—but I’ve stopped fighting him on it. Somewhere around the wedding chapel with the flickering neon ring, I pull over to the shoulder to check my phone.

I don’t expect an immediate answer. He’s in Charlotte, coming off a win, and there are probably four hundred people in that city currently trying to get a piece of him.