“It’s so weird that I don’t know your friends anymore like I used to,” Logan says, staring at me.
“You kind of do,” I say. “I hangout with Harper, Natalie, Avery, and Olivia a lot.”
“Glad to hear you've got a good crew around you,” Logan says with a smile that makes my heart beat too fast.
He asks about the Renegades account, and I tell him about the sportswear brand renewal and the framework I'm building for Wilder. Then we move to hockey.
I’m fascinated by Logan’s life now. When we were dating, he was an eighteen-year-old playing travel hockey and dreaming about the NHL the way kids dream about going to space.
It felt huge back then, but it was still small—local rinks, bus rides to tournaments, scouts in the stands scribbling notes. Now he's playing at Madison Square Garden in front of twenty thousand people and doing postgame press conferences, and his name is on television, and his face is on billboards outside the arena.
The boy who used to drive me home in his dad's truck is a professional athlete with a Stanley Cup ring, and I missed the entire journey that got him here.
I hate that I did.
“We're heading to Chicago on Wednesday,” he says.
“Looking forward to it?” I ask.
“Not particularly. The arena is freezing. I don't know what they do with the thermostat in that building, but it's like playing in a meat locker.”
“Aren't you on ice? Isn't it supposed to be cold?”
“There's cold, and then there's Chicago cold. And the fans are insane. Last time we played there, someone threw a hot dog at Liam during warm-ups.”
I laugh. “So where are you living these days?”
“West 60s. One-bedroom, nothing fancy. It's close to the arena, and it's quiet. That's all I need.”
That sounds exactly like Logan. Even in high school, he was the least materialistic person I knew. While other guys on the team were obsessing over new gear and sneakers and whatever car their parents were going to buy them, Logan wore the same three t-shirts in rotation and didn't care.
His bedroom was spotless. Bed made, clothes folded, nothing on the floor. I used to tease him that he lived like a soldier.
“Are you still ridiculously regimented?” I ask. “Same breakfast every morning, same route to practice, everything on a schedule?”
He laughs. “It's worse now.”
I can’t help but smile. “Worse how?”
“Same pre-game meal every game day. Same warm-up routine. Same route to the arena. I eat at the same three restaurants. I go to bed at the same time. I wake up at the same time. Everything has an order.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
His face turns serious. “It's the only way to make it at this level. The margins between winning and losing are so small that the guys who last are the ones who control everything they can. Sleep, nutrition, recovery, and preparation. You eliminate the variables, and you let your body do what you've trained it to do.”
“I get that,” I say. My life runs on the same principle, just in a courtroom instead of an arena. The preparation, the discipline, the refusal to leave anything to chance. We built our lives the same way, just in different buildings.
“Still, your apartment doesn't sound like much of a home,” I say, picturing an unfurnished apartment with just a bed.
“It's not. It's where I sleep during the season.” He takes a sip of his beer. “My home is in Maine. I bought a place three years ago on the coast. I go up every off-season and on non-game days.”
“You bought a house in Maine?”
“Yeah. I needed somewhere that was mine,” Logan says with a shrug. “It’s beautiful. The porch faces the water, and in the mornings, the fog rolls in off the ocean, and you can't see ten feet in front of you. It's the most peaceful place I've ever been.”
“It sounds amazing.”
“You should come up sometime. The beach is beautiful, especially in the fall when nobody's around. I think you'd love it.” Logan holds my gaze across the table.
