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The horn goes. The lights do their thing. And I sit in a plastic seat in my tie and watch somebody else take my draw.

Orr’s a sophomore, and he’s my replacement tonight. He’s fine. He’s better than fine on the wall, and he’s got a decent stick in our end. He’s just never played between Koda and Rafe.

First shift, he loses the draw, they get it deep, and he has to go get it, and the shift dies on the wall. Second one, he wins it clean and nobody’s moving yet, because Koda doesn’t leave until he knows where the middle is going.

From up here, I can see everything. Koda comes up the wall in the first with speed and cuts in, and the far side is wide open, and Orr’s reading the puck instead of going to the middle, and by the time Koda gets his head up, there’s nobody to give it to.

“He’s got to be inside,” I say.

“What?” Kylie says.

“Orr. Koda’s driving, and there’s nobody behind him—”

Brennan scores on a shot off the rush, and their whole bench stands up. One-nothing.

In the second we get one back, Rafe on the power play, off a rebound, from a foot out, the kind he buries every practice, and the building goes up. Kylie’s screaming, and I’m on my feet, and for about four seconds it’s great. Then they get one back nine minutes later on a broken play, and it’s 2–1, and I sit there doing math about our D-zone draws that I already know the answer to.

We’re getting killed in the middle of the ice. Our first line’s fine, and Layous’s line is fine, and my line spends every shift arriving at the blue line flat with nothing behind it. Rafe holds it a beat longer than he needs to because he’s waiting for a middle lane that isn’t coming. Koda keeps hunting pucks low, the way he does when he doesn’t trust what’s behind him. Orr’s doing what a center’s supposed to do everywhere except where these two actually are.

I stand up at some point without deciding to. Kylie takes a fistful of the back of my jacket and pulls. “Sit down, Coach.”

I shake my head. “Don’t call me that.”

“You said support him out loud. Twice.”

“Because nobody’s supporting him.”

She hands me half a pretzel without looking away from the game.

At the second intermission, Kylie goes down to the concourse for drinks with Kenzie, who has texted her nine times from the student section about the fact that she’s sitting up here. So it’s me and Greeley and fifteen feet of empty plastic and a Zamboni. He doesn’t look over.

“They’re losing the middle,” he says.

I look at the ice. He’s right. It’s been the whole game since the first shift.

“Yeah,” I say.

Neither of us says anything else. He goes back to his phone, and my eyes go back to the ice, and it’s the first honest thing either of us has said to the other since September.

Kylie comes back up with two drinks and sits down.

Rafe ties it in the third, and the building comes apart, and Kylie stands on her seat. Then Brennan scores with 2:11 left off a draw in our end that Orr loses clean, and their guy walks out of the corner and puts it far side. 3–2. We pull the goalie with 1:40 and get one shot. The horn goes, and their bench empties over the boards, and our guys stand around at our blue line with their hands on their knees. Nobody up here says anything.

Would we have won if I’d played? I don’t know. Nobody knows that. Orr went about eight for nineteen, and Koda missed a net from six feet in the second. I still think I’d have helped.

“That’s it,” I say. “I’m done.”

Kylie looks over. “Done?”

“That was the game. That was my one.”

“So you’re officially unsuspended.”

“Yeah.”

“Congratulations.” She smirks at me. “I’m getting you a cake.”

I smile.