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I pick up the hoodie off the lamp and drop it on his bed. He looks at it, then at me, then puts it back on the lamp while maintaining eye contact.

I go take my shower. It's my turn. He's kept rule three. One for ten. I've had worse penalty-kill percentages.

We win in Denver. Three to one. Castel doesn't score, but he doesn't give the puck away at the blue line once, and in the third period he backchecks so hard on a two-on-one that he takes their winger into the boards clean, and the bench stands up for him. Even Kowal taps his stick on the boards. I see Castel see it, and I see him decide not to react, and I don't know which of those things surprises me more.

In the room after, he's quiet. Webb notices. Webb notices everything.

"What's wrong with him," Webb says, low, pulling off his elbow pads.

"Nothing's wrong with him."

"He's not singing."

"Maybe he's tired."

"He's never tired. He's twenty. They don't get tired at twenty, they just fall over when they're done." Webb looks at me. "You say something to him?"

"No."

"You sure? You've got a face on you that makes people stop singing."

"I didn't say anything, Marcus."

Webb gives me a long look and goes to shower.

I didn't say anything. That's true. I also didn't say anything when he came off the ice after that backcheck and dropped onto the bench beside me, breathing hard, and turned to me with his whole face lit up, waiting. I nodded. That was all. He waited another second, and then he looked away, and he hasn't said much since.

We fly to Phoenix that night. The hotel's a low sprawling thing with palm trees and a pool nobody's allowed to use, and our room is on the ground floor, facing a courtyard where a fountain runs all night.

Off night. Lights out at eleven-thirty.

At seven, he's standing in front of the mirror by the door in his third shirt of the evening. The first two are on my bed.

"Rule four," I say.

"They're in transit." He turns sideways, frowns at himself, and undoes a button. "Sorel found a taco place. Adeyemi says it's the best in Arizona. You want to come?"

I look up from my book. He's not looking at me. He's fixing his collar in the mirror like the question doesn't matter to him.

"No."

"Why not?"

"I've got a book."

"You've been on the same page of that book since Chicago. I've been watching. It's a very long page." He does the button back up. "Come on. You can sit at the end of the table and glare at people. You'd be great at it. Nobody would ever try to steal your guacamole."

"I don't go out with the young guys."

"Why?"

"Because they don't want the captain at the table."

"I want you at the table."

He says it to the mirror. Then he seems to hear himself, because he turns around and adds, fast, "Sorel too. Everybody. It's a team thing."

"Go have fun, Castel."