Another laugh, softer. "Yeah, cap. They probably will." He claps my shoulder once on his way past, his hand warm through my shirt, there and gone. His footsteps move up the concrete steps, and then the section door opens and closes, and I'm alone.
The Zamboni is on its fourth pass. The ice is almost done. Clean, smooth, ready for whatever comes next.
I sit with the quiet. It's different from the quiet in Philadelphia. That quiet was an absence of people, of noise, of anything that might suggest the space was lived in. This quiet has a shape. It's the outline left by thirty men who were here an hour ago, and who will be here again tomorrow, and who are starting to look at this building the way I'm starting to look at it: as a place that belongs to us.
I hear him before I see him. A small sound from the tunnel, paws on concrete, and then a dark shape moving along the boards. He comes up through the gap where the bench meets the glass, navigating the stairs with the wary confidence of ananimal who has decided this building is his and he has the right to slink around anywhere he wants.
He pauses at the end of my row and looks at me. I reach over and push the seat down next to mine. The plastic clicks into place.
He considers this. Cats don't rush. They assess, calculate, determine whether the risk is worth the reward. I understand this. I have built an entire life around the same principle.
He jumps up and settles onto the seat with a precision that suggests he's been planning this. Sits regal next to me facing the ice.
We sit together in Section 112, third row, watching the Zamboni finish its work. He doesn't look at me. I don't look at him. The arena is quiet and the ice is clean and neither of us is going anywhere.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out.
Don't forget to eat. That's a captain order from your alternate captain which I realize makes no sense but I'm saying it anyway.
A pull at the corner of my mouth that I don't hide because there's no one here to hide it from. Except the cat, who is uninterested in my expressions.
I put the phone away without responding. I'll text him back later. Or I won't, and he'll text me again, because that's what he does.
The Zamboni disappears into the tunnel. The ice is perfect. Beside me, the cat's eyes are still zeroed in on the vehicle. He's chosen this seat next to me the way he's chosen the equipment room and the hallway and the spot near my bag. Not because I asked. Because he decided.
I rest my hand on the armrest between us. Close enough that he could move toward it if he wanted. He doesn't. Not yet.
Two months ago I was standing in a hallway in Philadelphia with a duffel bag, trying to figure out what was left. Tonight thirty men played like they had something to prove, and the ice is clean, and tomorrow we go out there again. I don't know what this team is yet.
But I want to find out.
THE END
