Not the neutral one. Not thewe’re being professional in front of the childrenone. Something small and private that lived just at the corner of his mouth.
My chest did something undignified.
We ran the drill. The drift corrected itself. The passes landed. The puck went where it was supposed to go because we were where we were supposed to be.
Muscle memory, yes.
But something else, too.
Every time he came down my side, every time we clicked back into the pattern we’d carved into the ice over three seasons, there was a new certainty under it: he was here because he’d chosen to be. Not because the system had defaulted him into my orbit and he hadn’t noticed yet.
He’d noticed. We’d talked about it. In his apartment, in my apartment, in words neither of us could pretend we hadn’t heard.
Between drills, Kieran drifted over. He looked between us with the cautious, tactical curiosity of a man who’d watched this whole disaster unfold and was now trying to decide if he needed to intervene.
“You’re chirping again,” he said to me.
“I have several concerns about your existence,” I said.
He exhaled. Actually exhaled. “Okay. Good,” he said. “That’s good.”
He skated away.
Felix, beside me on the blue line, murmured, “You have them worried when you’re polite.”
“Can’t imagine why,” I said.
“You told Mivo his positioning was good,” he said.
“It was good.”
“It was,” he agreed. “You still scared Kieran.”
“That’s just a bonus.”
He didn’t look at me. But his glove brushed against mine as we pushed off for the next drill.
Loud enough.
The trade rumor died the way rumors always do when the numbers don’t cooperate.
No announcement. No meeting. No dramatic “we’ve decided to keep you” moment where a GM comes down from his tower with a decree.
Just , nothing.
Nothing from the media. Nothing from the front office. No more careful, weighted mentions of “roster optics” or “possible flexibility at center” in articles that pretended to be about something else. No more half,heard snippets from Kieran’s “someone in management” sources.
What we did get was ice time.
First line, every game.
What we did get was numbers.
Game one after the conversation: two points for Felix, one for me, one for Reeves.
Game two: three points for the line, even strength, plus two on the night.
Game three: one of those nights where everything we touched felt like it wanted to go in.
