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"He won't," I say. I don't know why I'm sure. I just am. "He could have said something just now. He didn't."

"He doesn't say anything. That's how he is. He doesn't say anything, and then he does."

I sit down next to him. I put my hand on his back. I can feel him breathing, too fast.

"Game seven tomorrow," I say. "Whatever Kowal does, it'll wait until after game seven."

"How do you know?"

"Because he wants to win too," I say. "Everybody on this team wants to win more than they want anything else. Even Kowal. Even Brandt."

Owen doesn't answer. After a while his breathing slows down.

Kowal finds me at breakfast.

I'm sitting alone at a table by the window, because Owen's in with Dana before the morning skate, the way he has been before every game since the MRI. I've got oatmeal. I've started eating oatmeal. I don't want to talk about it.

Kowal sits down across from me with a plate of eggs and bacon and toast. He doesn't ask if he can. He just sits.

I put my spoon down. Kowal has never sat with me. Kowal has never sat with anybody. Kowal eats breakfast like it's a job interview with the eggs.

He eats for a while. He's a slow eater. He cuts everything into exactly the same size pieces. I watch him cut a piece of toast into four perfect squares and think, He and Owen would get along. They'd make lists together.

"Thin walls," he says finally.

I don't say anything.

"In the hotels." He doesn't look up from his eggs. "I've had the room next to yours, oh, four or five times this year. Columbus. Toronto. Philly." He cuts a piece of bacon in half. "Thin walls."

My face goes hot. I pick my spoon back up so I have something to do with my hands.

"I'm not going to say anything," Kowal says.

I look at him.

"To Brandt. To anybody." He finally raises his eyes. They're pale gray, the same color as the sky outside. "I'm not good at words. You probably noticed."

"A little."

"So I'm just going to say it, and then I'm going to eat my eggs." He puts his fork down. "The tutu. That was me and Brandt. You know that."

"I know."

"It was his idea. I went along. I thought it was funny." He shakes his head. "It wasn't funny. I'm sorry. That's the first thing."

I don't know what to say. I don't say anything.

"The second thing," Kowal says, and stops. He picks his fork back up and puts it down again. For the first time since I've known him, he looks like he doesn't know what to do with his face. "My daughter. Maya. She's fourteen. She came out to me and my wife last spring."

"Oh," I say.

"I didn't do great." He's looking at his plate. "I didn't do bad. I didn't yell or anything. But I didn't do great. I said okay and then I went to the garage for a while. My wife did better."

I think about my dad in his truck with the engine running.

"She watched your speech," Kowal says. "At the youth thing. The Play Proud thing. Somebody put it online. She watched it, like, a hundred times. She's got a poster of you. In her room. Next to some singer I've never heard of."

"Really?"