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We're lined up for a faceoff in our zone. Owen's taking it. I'm on the wing, and Varga's lined up across from me. The linesman's fixing his sleeve. Everybody's waiting.

Varga leans in. He's not smiling.

"Eighth floor, right?" he says.

I go cold.

"Nice hotel. I've got a buddy on the overnight security desk. We played bantam together." He's watching Owen, not me, the same way he did in January. "He called me this morning. Said he saw something on the hallway cameras last night. Around midnight. Outside eight-fourteen."

The linesman's still fixing his sleeve.

"Said it was real sweet," Varga says. "Said the captain's got a real nice goodnight routine."

The puck drops.

I don't move. I don't know where the puck goes. I just stand there, frozen, while Owen wins the draw back to Webb, and Webb clears it up the boards, and the play goes to the other end without me.

Varga skates away. He looks back over his shoulder at me, once. Now he's smiling.

We lose game three. Two to one. I'm minus two. I don't have a shot on goal in the third period. Moretti doesn't say anything to me in the room after. He doesn't have to.

Owen finds me in the hallway outside the showers.

"What happened?" he says. "At the faceoff. In the third. You stopped skating."

I look at him. I think about rule two. You don't lie to me. I think about how that rule's supposed to go both ways.

"He has a friend," I say. "On the hotel security desk. Overnight."

Owen's face doesn't change. But the color starts to go out of it.

"He said his friend saw something on the hallway cameras. Last night. Around midnight." I swallow. "Outside our room."

Owen puts one hand flat on the wall beside him. Like he needs it to stay standing.

"The door," he says.

"The door."

He closes his eyes.

"Maybe he's bluffing," I say. "Maybe his friend didn't see anything. Maybe Varga just guessed. He's been guessing all year. He's been saying boyfriend since January."

"He's never said it like that. Never with details. Never with a floor number." Owen opens his eyes. He looks at me, and I've never seen his face like this, not in the stairwell, not in Nashville in January. It's worse. It's the face of a man watching his house catch fire and knowing exactly which match he lit. "Varga doesn't bluff. Not when he's got something."

"Owen—"

"If there's a video⁠—"

"There might not be."

"If there's a video, Rémy." He's breathing too fast. "Right now. In the middle of the Final. With the whole world watching. With Nadia and Frostline and your—with your whole career⁠—"

"My career?"

"Your contract. Your Frostline thing, section nine. The youth initiative. Every kid who's got your poster on their wall." His voice cracks. "I did this. I kissed you in the doorway. I was half asleep and I kissed you in the doorway with the door wide open."

"You kissed me in a hotel hallway at midnight. People do that. That's allowed."