"Since the wings earned it. Move on."
Hájek is at the end of the table with a glass of water, not quite inside the group but not outside it either. Watching the room the way I watched rooms when I first arrived somewhere new.
"Hájek," Marchetti calls down the table. "First point. How does it feel?"
Hájek looks up. "Good."
"Good? That's it? You just scored your first pro-league point and all you've got is good?"
"It was a secondary assist."
"A secondary assist counts. It goes on the sheet. Tell me how it feels."
Hájek considers this. His water glass turns in his hand. "It feels like I should score again."
The table goes quiet for a half-second and then Thompson laughs first before the rest of us. Hájek's face breaks open into a grin he has been holding in since the third period.
"Rookie's got the right answer," Jensen says.
"Rookie's got the only answer," Mueller says. "Score again. That's the whole sport."
"That is not the whole sport," Marchetti says. "The whole sport is scoring again and then talking about it for forty-five minutes."
The table thins by eleven. Marchetti grips my shoulder on his way past. "Good game."
"You too."
"See you at breakfast."
Later, in my room, Kowalski posts a photo to the team chat. Hájek on the bench after the assist. The almost-smile. The controlled joy. Mueller has circled it in red and captioned it:this man is trying SO HARD to be cool.
Thompson:
let the kid be cool
Marchetti:
he is the coolest person on this team and i will die on that hill
I type:
Seven-point-eight for the composure. The eyebrows doing nothing while the mouth does everything. Championship-level suppression.
Kowalski:
BERGER GIVES IT A 7.8
Marchetti:
the man rates joy
Mueller:
of course he does
I put the phone down. The names scroll. The team talking in their own rooms, the conversation carrying on across the floors of this building. I watch the notifications for a while before the screen dims.
?
