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I lie there with him on my arm, which is going numb, and I don't move it. I look at the Christmas lights on the ceiling. My knee's throbbing, deep in the joint, a slow pulse like a second heartbeat.

Down the hall, through the open door, I can see the edge of the little table by the front door. The drawer. The one with the Thai menu and the blue folder and the four gray pages with the word replacement in them.

Four days until the Final starts. Maybe two weeks until it ends.

I've promised him everything. The morning after. The truth.

I just have to get there on two legs, and not lose him on the way.

Chapter Twenty-Four

RÉMY

Game one of the Final, and Cody Varga says something to me on every single shift.

It starts in warmups. He skates past our half of the red line, close enough to touch it, and blows me a kiss. The exact same kiss I blew him on opening night, from the blue line, during the anthem. He's been saving it for eight months.

"Cute," Sorel says, next to me.

"He's copying me."

"He's mocking you."

"It's the same thing, with Cody."

Then the anthem, then the puck drops, and he's there. At every faceoff. In every corner. Behind the net, in front of the net, on the bench side when I'm coming off for a change.

"Nice to see you, sweetheart."

"Bring your boyfriend?"

"Heard you've been practicing late at night with the old man. Private lessons. Very private."

"Does he tuck you in?"

"You still sliding on your knees, Castel? Or does he like you on your knees somewhere else?"

That one gets me. I feel it hit, low in my stomach, like a skate blade. I feel my hands tighten on my stick.

I don't swing.

I think about Nashville. About the penalty box, and the power-play goal, and the streak ending, and Owen's face in the scrum afterward saying we need our guys to stay disciplined. I think about Brandt in the players' lounge saying you can't take the bait.

I skate away.

On the bench, Owen's watching me. He doesn't say anything. He just bumps his shoulder against mine through the pads, once. Hard.

"I'm fine," I tell him.

"I know you are."

"He said⁠—"

"I heard him," Owen says. He's looking at the ice, at Varga. "I heard every word."

We win game one. Three to two. I score the winner on the power play with four minutes left, a one-timer from the top of the circle off a pass from Owen that nobody else in the building saw coming. He threw it into empty ice. I was already there.

Varga's in the penalty box when it goes in. He watches it from behind the glass with his arms folded.