He holds out a folder.
"You missed orientation."
The accent is Russian. The voice is deep and cool and unimpressed. The face is a problem I am going to have to manage with the same discipline I bring to my skating, which is to say: poorly and with a lot of improvisation.
"Counterpoint," I say, taking the folder, "I arrived dramatically."
Our fingers brush.
It should not feel like anything. Skin and paper and a fraction of a second. Static at most.
Instead it lands sharp and immediate, a match strike in a dark room. Heat from the point of contact, traveling up through my hand, my wrist, settling somewhere behind my sternum with the insistence of a thing that plans to stay.
I look up too fast. He's looking at me with the evaluative patience of a man deciding how much of himself to offer based on the quality of the first impression. The first impression, given the coffee stain and the sweat and the lateness, is not working in my favor.
But something in his shoulders tightens. Subtle and quick, gone a second later. I see it because I see everything. I seeeverything because seeing everything is how I survive: I watch people's reactions to the grin, the joke, the performance, and I calibrate in real time.
His calibration slipped. For a fraction of a second, the control slipped.
Interesting.
"Nikolai Sokolov," he says.
The name lands with the weight of recognition. I know who Nikolai Sokolov is. Every young forward with pro ambitions knows. Elite shutdown defenseman. Eight seasons. Two All-Star nods. The kind of player scouts use as shorthand when they want to explain to juniors how quickly professional hockey will humble them.
His mother is Russian (Irina, a former figure skating coach who moved from Moscow to Detroit). His father is American (Marcus, a retired firefighter). The dark skin is his father's. The accent is his mother's. The combination is devastating in a way I am choosing not to examine.
I offer my hand properly. "Eli Mercer. Speedy winger. Poor sense of direction. Good cheekbones."
He looks at the hand. Then at me.
"Your confidence is exhausting."
"Thank you. I work very hard at it."
A pause.
Then the corner of his mouth moves. Not a smile. More like his face has briefly considered the concept and rejected it on moral grounds.
I decide this is the greatest personal victory of my adult life.
A staffer appears behind us, clipboard in hand, looking stressed about logistics in the way that young staff members always look stressed about logistics.
"Mercer, right? Sorry. We were trying to get ahold of you. We've got a temporary issue with player housing. Yourapartment isn't ready. Maintenance. Burst water line on the third floor, and the building manager just told us they're looking at multiple days, not hours."
"Fantastic," I say.
"So Coach said since Sokolov is already on the rookie buddy program for this camp..."
Nikolai turns his head. "I did not sign up for the rookie buddy program."
"...we're putting you with him until housing clears the unit. There's a furnished guest room. Standard onboarding placement."
The silence that follows is the specific silence of a man whose control has just been invaded by circumstances and who is recalculating every variable in his life.
I look at Nikolai. Nikolai looks like a man considering early retirement.
"Oh," I say, brightening. "You're my babysitter."
