“I’m good,” I tell her. “I promise.”
“Okay.” I hear her settle into her chair, the familiar creak. “Come get this pie when you’re back. It won’t keep.”
“It’ll keep and you know it.”
“Come get it anyway.” She says goodnight and I hold the phone for a few seconds after she hangs up, the screen still warm.
***
Berger is ranking the bartenders before we’ve finished our second round.
“The one on the left has technique. Watch the pour. Consistent wrist, no wasted motion, respects the glass.” He points with his beer. “The one on the right is improvising, and it shows.”
“Berger, we’ve been here ten minutes,” Thompson says.
“And in those ten minutes I’ve gathered sufficient data for a preliminary assessment.”
We won tonight. Marchetti had two assists and a goal he’ll be describing to anyone in range for the next forty-eight hours, and he should, because the feed from Hájek was clean and the finish was better. The bar a block from the hotel is loud and warm and the team has pushed three tables together, ties loosened, jackets slung over chairs, the post-game energy carrying us into the night.
I am standing at the bar grabbing a pitcher of beer and a woman across the room catches my eye. Dark hair pinned up, gold earrings, a laugh I can hear from here. She’s looks at me in a way I would’ve done something about two months ago. I don’t do anything about it now. Not because I’ve stopped noticing. Because I noticed someone else first and that someone has takenup permanent residence in the part of my brain that used to be available for this.
When I get back to the table, Hájek asks about Berger’s wing sauce spreadsheet. Berger turns to him with the visible satisfaction of a man who has been waiting for someone to ask. “A ranking matrix. Every wing sauce I’ve encountered this season, scored across five categories. Heat, complexity, viscosity, aftertaste, and what I call ‘return factor.’”
“Viscosity,” Thompson repeats.
“It matters. A sauce that slides off the wing is a sauce that has not committed to the wing. I don’t reward that.”
Marchetti looks at me. “He has a viscosity category, Brooks.”
“I heard.”
“And you’re letting this stand?”
“I’m off the clock. His spreadsheets are not my jurisdiction.”
Marchetti’s grin opens up and I feel the pull of it, that warmth his face produces when he’s in a room and enjoying himself. I let myself have one second of it before I turn to Hájek. One second is what I allow. One second and then back to the table, the noise, the men around us who cannot see what that grin does to the inside of my chest.
Berger’s fourth drink arrives and he holds it to the light and tilts it. I wait for the rating.
It doesn’t come.
He takes a sip and sets the glass down and asks Mueller a question he already knows the answer to, which is not how Berger operates. Berger delivers verdicts. He doesn’t ask for input on matters he’s already adjudicated.
Marchetti catches Hájek’s arm when he makes a point about the menu, casual, the way touch means nothing to Marchetti because he touches everyone, and I watch his hand land on Hájek’s forearm and think about where those hands were two nights ago and take a very controlled sip of my beer. His kneeangles toward me under the table where nobody can see it. Four inches of charged air between his kneecap and mine. Neither of us has moved. Not closer. Not away. Just four inches of air and a room full of teammates and a secret held in the space between.
Marchetti tells the story of his goal. The second telling adds a detail about the defenseman’s face that may or may not be accurate. Thompson confirms the first version and only the first version. Jensen is at the far end, nursing a single drink, contributing nothing and somehow still part of the room the way Jensen is part of every room, which is completely and silently.
The fifth drink Berger orders without commentary. Marchetti is describing Parker’s ongoing war with the bathroom sink to a delighted Hájek, and Berger is not contributing. The man who has opinions about everything is turning his glass in a slow circle on the coaster, his jaw tight. The table’s energy covers the gap because nobody in this room is paying attention.
I have. I spend my days listening for what players won’t tell me.
“Berger.” I keep my voice easy. “You good?”
“Good.” One word and a simply nod. No elaboration. From the man who delivered a four-sentence defense of viscosity as a scoring category forty minutes ago.
By the time the check comes, he’s had six. Maybe seven. His posture has changed. His jaw holds a clench that doesn’t match the drinking, a tension that looks less like too many beers and more like a man pressing his teeth together against what might come out if he opens his mouth.
The group thins in the hotel lobby. Mueller and Hájek toward the elevator. Jensen disappearing the way Jensen disappears, thoroughly and without announcement. Thompson looks at Berger, looks at me, makes a judgment.
